Modern-day Slavery

Debate between Lord Randall of Uxbridge and Andrew Selous

Thursday 5th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Sir John Randall (Uxbridge and South Ruislip) (Con)]

I think this is the first time I have had the opportunity to welcome you to the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is a privilege to take part in a Back-Bench debate—one that has not been afforded to me for some time, so I am grateful to be able to speak.

I am particularly privileged to be able to speak on this subject as I have taken an increasingly active interest in it. Back in 2010, when I was on the Opposition Benches, I sat behind the then Member for Totnes, Anthony Steen, as he tried one Friday to get through a private Member’s Bill to establish an anti-slavery day. I wanted to ensure that he did not talk out his own Bill—anybody who knows Anthony will know that was a strong possibility—and as I listened to his compelling speech I found myself more and more interested in the subject. I have taken an increasing interest ever since.

Anthony Steen must be congratulated not just on that Bill and on establishing that day but, as the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart), whom I am privileged to follow in this debate, said, on establishing the first all-party group back in 2006. It now has one of the largest memberships of all-party groups in the House and, as the hon. Lady said, he provided excellent chairmanship, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone). The group is now in the capable hands of the hon. Lady.

We have to get this subject up the political agenda—it is becoming increasingly important. I look forward to the day when Back-Bench debates on human trafficking and modern-day slavery are even better attended. I know the problems on a Thursday afternoon, particularly after an important statement, but this issue affects every Member in every constituency and is one we should raise.

The hon. Member for Slough mentioned the Human Trafficking Foundation, which is now successfully chaired by Anthony Steen and has as its trustees the right hon. Clare Short and David Heathcoat-Amory, who were distinguished Members of this House. It has been doing incredible work and I also want to pay tribute to an eminent Member of the other place, Baroness Elizabeth Butler-Sloss, who is nobody to mix with—I think that is the best way of saying it. As a former judge in the family division, she gets right to the heart of every issue.

Britain has not been a leader in securing the conviction of traffickers. These people are gangsters and are often involved not just in human trafficking but in lots of other crime, and Britain has allowed them—although not on purpose—not to go to prison and has failed to catch them and their assets. I agree wholeheartedly with the sentiment that the proceeds of these terrible, awful crimes must be taken and ring-fenced, primarily for the victims. I also have a great deal of sympathy with allowing police forces and other agencies to get some of that money to increase their resources and to try to get more convictions. We have heard already that there were only 11 convictions last year, and the year before there were eight. Finland, which has only a tiny population compared with ours, has had more than 100 as have Italy, Spain and Romania.

When I heard that a modern slavery Bill was a priority of the Home Secretary and the Prime Minister, I was delighted. I have been privileged enough to be behind the scenes to see how legislation goes through various Committees and so on, and it is not always an easy task to find a slot, but I was reassured to learn that that is a governmental priority.

I was also delighted to hear that the Home Secretary recently set up a modern day slavery unit in the Home Office. That is a positive thing. She was also wise to appoint as her special envoy combating modern-day slavery the same Anthony Steen whom I lauded earlier.

In my relatively recent active role in this work, I have found that a huge number of brilliant non-governmental organisations are working in this field. They are diverse, because modern-day slavery and human trafficking are incredibly diverse. I have learned one thing. When “trafficking” was first mentioned to me, like many people, including my constituents, I had a vision of people in the back of vans coming into the country. We talk about modern-day slavery and people talk about manacles. Possibly the most recent publicised incident in south London fits in more with people’s idea of modern-day slavery but, as far as I can see, that is a rather extreme case. Modern-day slavery is probably in all our streets and our constituencies. It is certainly not just people who are coming in from abroad; there is domestic slavery. We have heard about one victim, a British lady who was trafficked to Italy and France and made to work as a prostitute. There are cases of forced labour and, Madam Deputy Speaker, if my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) catches your eye he will speak about a particularly nasty incident that was well publicised.

I am certain that most—although not all—constituencies will have cannabis farms. I remember visiting one a considerable time ago. The neighbours had complained about it and the police had become involved. I never knew that most of these cannabis farms are managed by children, often from Vietnam, who are brought in as forced labour—as slaves.

That takes me to the point that the hon. Member for Slough made about victims. We have to be careful about these people, who have been made to do something criminal—there will be exceptions and they might have committed crimes that were not the result of forced labour, but most of their crimes will have been—and we must think strongly about whether to prosecute. I believe that the Lord Chief Justice recently delivered a judgment on cannabis farms in which he said exactly that. I understand that young Vietnamese children are still being criminalised when we should be helping them and ensuring that they are viewed as the victims.

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

I was told by my local police that in some instances the children running cannabis farms, often in attics, had been bricked up and left in the roof space with tinned food. That is just an example of how terribly badly those children are treated.

[Sir John Randall]

I agree entirely with my hon. Friend, who has been involved in the campaign longer than I have and has extensive knowledge.

The sort of things that my hon. Friend is describing give us a sense of the wide variety of horrible, ghastly things that are happening. The hon. Member for Slough mentioned prostitution and brothels; a lot of people think that is it, but there is much more—but that too is awful. The lives of the victims of all these crimes are miserable and appalling, and it is scarcely credible that this could be happening, in this country and in nearly every other country in the world. Most countries in Europe may think that they are a transit country; they may think that they have some connection, but they do not realise that everything is interconnected. It is truly a hideous crime.

We have heard about the Government’s draft Bill. I was honoured to be asked to sit on a draft Bill evidence panel with the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field), Baroness Butler-Sloss and some people not involved in Parliament. It has been an eye-opener. I have been privileged to hear and speak to the NGOs, which hold diverse views on what should be done. We share the same goal, but sometimes they differ slightly.

I would say to the Minister that I agree with the hon. Member for Slough that the domestic worker visa should be re-examined. I can understand entirely why it was brought in, and if we did not know about the abuses that might result from it—the unforeseen consequences—we might have said it was a very good thing. However, there is compelling evidence to support the view that it must be looked at again, because far from discouraging slavery it could well be helping the people enslaving domestic workers.

The hon. Lady and the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty) spoke of introducing some private Members’ Bills. I became a bit of an expert on private Members’ Bills on Fridays—I brought one in myself many years ago—and I understand the difficulties of introducing private Members’ legislation. The problem of supply chains is a live issue. We must use the Bill to try to sell the idea of scrutinising supply chains. Instead of saying, “this is extra red tape and bureaucracy,” we should point out that this is a way of protecting companies from having in their supply chains things that they do not want, and would be appalled to find.

This country has a wonderful opportunity, once again, to take a lead in this area. In California there is a law, although I believe it is more of a voluntary code. The issue is sensitive, and because of the late stage in the electoral cycle we cannot be too ambitious—we must get the Bill through. We got Anthony Steen’s private Member’s Bill enacted on almost the last day of the Parliament in 2010, so we have to make concessions here and there. I am a pragmatist, although I am becoming a bit more evangelical about some of these issues. We have to be pragmatic sometimes. We shall deliver our report on the day that, I believe, the Government are presenting their own draft Bill. We must all get together and try to see what we can do.

Education is also important. By that I mean the education of everyone—not just parliamentarians but, equally important, our constituents. It may be invidious to single out one group, but I want to pay tribute to a group called Just Enough. The charismatic young man in charge, Phil Knight, goes into schools to educate them about modern-day slavery. It was with him that I suddenly realised the blindingly obvious—that modern-day slavery appears in folk tales. Cinderella—what better example could there be of latter-day slavery, as opposed to the mental images of the terrible ships going backwards and forwards across the Atlantic? Another example, quite relevant today, would be “Oliver Twist”—the boys who were entrapped and made to do criminal action.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Selous]

I think that is an excellent initiative and we could all encourage precisely that sort of thing in our own constituencies.

The next issue I want to address is the assets of the slave owners. As I said at the start of my speech, unsurprisingly a lot of them are extremely wealthy. They have very big assets as a result of their evil activities. We need help to move that money a lot more quickly towards compensating the police and others who take action to deal with it. Mounting an operation with 200 officers is not a cheap business. It takes months of intelligence, senior officer time, a dedicated operations room and a lot of overtime pay.

Italy has been much more successful than us in confiscating the assets of slave owners and getting them to the authorities that deal with the issue or to the victims as compensation. The key difference is that Italy freezes the assets of traffickers within 48 hours of an arrest. Will the Minister take note of that and consider including it in the modern slavery Bill?

[Sir John Randall]

I reinforce that point very strongly, because as soon as action is taken—for example, an arrest is made—the traffickers move that money very quickly, by all sorts of means, out of the country. If we wait for charges, it is gone.