Modern Slavery Bill

Debate between Lord Randall of Uxbridge and Michael Connarty

Tuesday 8th July 2014 Commons Chamber

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

I draw attention to my entry in the Members’ register as trustee of the Human Trafficking Foundation.

One of the problems with being called to speak in the middle and later stages of a debate is that all the things one wants to say have been said, but this is such an important issue that I think they bear repeating, and it is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Arfon (Hywel Williams) because I will address again many of the points he made.

In the 17 years I have been in this place, I have seen the passage of much legislation—some of it good, some excellent and some less good—but it is an absolute privilege to speak in today’s Second Reading debate on the Modern Slavery Bill. The Prime Minister and in particular the Home Secretary should be congratulated on introducing it. We heard in her excellent opening speech the obvious sincerity and enthusiasm with which she is embracing this subject. I know that she and the Minister have engaged and continue to engage constructively with the issues we are raising now as helpful criticism of the Bill.

As has been said probably by every speaker today, a large part of the reason we have this Bill is the hard work and evangelical zeal of notable people both inside and outside Parliament. As we have discovered, no discussion of modern-day slavery can avoid mentioning my erstwhile hon. Friend Anthony Steen. In fact, this feels a bit like Banquo’s ghost. I remember sitting behind him on the Opposition Benches as he was putting through a private Member’s Bill to recognise anti-slavery day in the dying stages of the last Parliament. As a Whip, I was encouraging him to stop speaking because there was a danger that he might just talk out his own Bill. Anybody who knows Anthony well knows that, sometimes, getting him to stop speaking is the hardest thing. He is passionate, persistent and persuasive on this subject and always puts the victims first. However, unlike Banquo’s ghost, whose presence is all around us, he is very much alive and kicking.

There are others too in this House who took this issue on when it was very much a Cinderella issue. I have chosen my words carefully: Cinderella is a potent example of slavery and forced labour, one that ordinary people and children can understand. Unfortunately, as we know and have heard today, existences such as Cinderella’s have been going on for some time and have not been eradicated. Here, I should also mention my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone), the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart), who always speaks passionately on this issue, and the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty), whom I hope we will hear from shortly. He speaks passionately about issues such as supply chains and the need for transparency, and he is a little bit like Anthony Steen, in that sometimes it is difficult to shut him up on this subject, but that is only because of his passionate determination to get his message across. That is something we in this House should be proud of.

Someone I became associated with on the draft Bill and during the Home Secretary’s evidence review was the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field), whom I found an inspiration. His reasonableness and ability to get things through without going over the top was remarkable. He is another person who should be noted on today’s roll of honour. I should also mention Lady Elizabeth Butler-Sloss, who will head the Government’s historical child abuse inquiry. I know she will do an excellent job, but I hope she will have time to deal with the Bill when it goes to the other place. Without her drive and abilities, the Bill would not be served well.

I came rather late to this issue, because I had other duties. The right hon. Member for Birkenhead referred to the job my former comrades do as Whips, but when we sit on the Bench silently it does not mean that we do not listen to what is going on. Our silence is not always for bad reasons; we absorb the debate. One thing I have found is that the more someone understands this issue, realising the enormity and barbarity of it, the more they become involved with it and they end up not being able to let it go. I would put myself in that position. One thing I was pleased to discover in the Bill, and generally, is that we are using the term “modern slavery”, because the term “human trafficking” does not quite convey exactly what we are talking about. To a lot of our constituents “human trafficking” might mean something a little different; it might just mean illegal immigration in some respects. As we have discovered, and as most in this House will know, we are talking about something that is far, far more than that.

I am not just congratulating the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Karen Bradley), and the Home Secretary because I am hoping that by buttering them up they will listen more to our arguments; the Under-Secretary has only recently been appointed, she has been immersing herself completely in the subject and getting up to speed, and she has been a valuable asset to the whole process. I could also mention lots of non-governmental organisations here, but, as has been said, an amazing number of people out there in all sorts of sectors are involved in this field and they do a fantastic job. Again, they are powerful advocates, and the number of hon. Members who have spoken today having obviously been talking to their local NGOs, or to other NGOs that have been pressing their case, is testimony to that.

Like everybody else, I want the Bill to be the best we can produce. I believe it was the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) who said that there was no problem on the time scales, but I have to take slight issue with that. There is a problem with time scales, because we are off in August and we come back only briefly in September, before an extended period away because of the referendum in Scotland. We have to get the Bill out of this House—we are okay in this House because we have timetabling—and into the other House, which has lots of experts in lots of these fields and no timetabling. That is why we have to ration ourselves as to what we do and how we want to get it achieved.

We have heard about most of the things that most Members think we could improve the Bill with, the most obvious one being transparency in supply chains, which I shall speak about briefly—I have a feeling there is a better speech coming on that. Businesses would welcome that and the idea that we amend section 414C of the Companies Act 2006 to include modern slavery in the provision is a good start. One person who has not been mentioned and who is backing this is Sir Richard Branson—a powerful name to add to our campaign. One thing we have to get over to businesses is that we are not trying to penalise them; we are actually trying to help them. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Mrs Spelman) eloquently said, they do not want to be tarnished or tainted with having slavery in their supply chain. It is not a matter of sneaking around, finding out, exposing them and then penalising them; we want them to have the ability to go down their supply chain. One problem with all these things is that they will ask somebody, who will ask somebody else, and somebody in some far-distant land may say, “Don’t worry about this, it is all okay.” We want to be able to give businesses the information that it is far from okay, because they may not have the resources to check all the way down the supply chain.

There are other things that we want to do on this issue, but they probably relate more to policy than to legislation, and we must not get the two confused. We have heard quite a lot about the work of Kalayaan and the change in the visa rules for overseas domestic workers. I have to say that a lot of those arguments are powerful, but there is a debate to be had on that matter, and I am not sure whether it should be in the Bill. I know that I get harangued for this view, but I just wonder why so many people are coming here to be domestic workers when possibly there are people here who could fulfil those roles. I am not sure; all I am saying is that we should debate this matter. Changing the visa rules had a detrimental effect, and we can see that, but we must look at it in more detail.

We have talked about the national referral mechanism and the 45 days. There is a review going on, and we should wait to see what happens with that. It is obviously bizarre to think that, after 45 days, a victim is in a fit state to be effectively thrown on to the street and to have us say, “That’s it. Job done. Off you go.” Different victims will need different assistance and different lengths of time.

A little while ago, my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) said that some people might want to go back to their country of origin. We must remember though that not all victims are from abroad; there are also victims who are in the UK and UK citizens who are being trafficked abroad.

I went to Albania with Anthony Steen, because we wanted to see whether the many Albanians who have been trafficked here—they are one of the largest groups at the moment—could go back to their own country. Sadly, the state of the country is not conducive to people going back. There is still a huge stigma, certainly in some parts of the country, about people who have been trafficked and who have been used in the sex trade in particular. The idea that we could simply return people home is not right. We have to help these countries improve their infrastructure so that there is something for people to go back to.

My hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) said that she had seen some comments on a blog—it is always unwise to look at the comments on blogs—that effectively said that these measures were for left-wing feminstas. Obviously, those people do not understand the issues involved. I say to them that if they had been lucky enough to speak to victims—I say lucky because when one speaks to them and hears what they have been through one’s life is suddenly changed—they would find that slavery is probably going on within half of mile of where they live. If they realised that, they would not say such things.

One problem is education. I often speak at local meetings; sometimes I am asked to speak on a subject that is close to my heart. It is probably easier in my constituency to talk about modern slavery than it is about HS2, the expansion of the airport or some of the other issues that might raise hackles. In those meetings, I have been pleasantly surprised by people’s reactions. It is almost as if their eyes have been opened. They say, “Yes, I know what you mean now.”

I spoke at St Margaret’s church in Uxbridge a few months ago. It was not a particularly religious meeting but it was held in a church. When I mentioned the subject, some policemen said, “Yes, we are looking at that. We recognise it.” A representative from the church said that they thought that someone was coming in who was a victim. One thing that each one of us in this House can do is to be an advocate and get this subject out to the public—to our constituents and to our families and friends.

My son is an actor and he was part of a project that took a play called “Sold”, which was all about human trafficking and for which they had spoken to people involved, to the Edinburgh festival. All those young people, who knew very little about the issue beforehand, have become complete advocates, spreading the message. That is what we must do. We can pass legislation, help all sorts of people and do wonderful things, but unless the public can help us by understanding and recognising the problem, we will not be able to get it reported.

I am involved with another organisation, just in a casual way, called Just Enough UK, which is going around schools to explain the issue. It has used the Cinderella model as well as Fagin, with all the boys being made to steal. That still goes on. The youngsters—they are in primary schools as well as secondary schools—suddenly twig.

[Michael Connarty]

I am enjoying the right hon. Gentleman’s speech, but I think I need to intervene to point out that there was never a Fagin. Fagin is a mythical character. The true story, which was recorded in the courts, involved a group of Italian men who brought young boys who thought they were going to apprenticeships in Milan to the UK and trained them to steal. Anti-Semitism allowed Dickens to create Fagin as the Jew exploiting boys, and it is incorrect to repeat that.

[Sir John Randall]

I am only repeating what Dickens said. I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, which I think makes another point entirely, but what I am saying is that a lot of people will be acquainted with the story of Oliver Twist, not just from the novel but from the musical. It might be regrettable that it has become a symbol of anti-Semitism, but the fact is that young people can understand the concept of youngsters being made to steal. We must ensure that young people are aware of the issue. They are incredibly observant and good at recognising strange behaviour among other kids and at seeing other things that are going on.

That is all I want to say at this stage. I look forward to the further stages of the Bill, because I think it can be improved. There are things that we have to do and I hope that the mood of consensual but friendly criticism can continue. So far, what I have heard and seen from the Home Secretary, the Minister and Home Office officials has been consistent with that. We will differ on one or two points and that is where there might be room for powerful debates, powerful arguments and powerful speeches. I am afraid that they are not my forte, but I might be able to do the right thing in the Division Lobby.

Modern-day Slavery

Debate between Lord Randall of Uxbridge and Michael Connarty

Thursday 5th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[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.

[Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)]

I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman is aware that that is a true story. “Oliver Twist” is not fiction. The court reports of that time show that Italian men would go to the south of Italy and promise families to take the young boys to the north of Italy and train them to be, perhaps, a watchmaker, but instead they brought them to London and taught them to be pickpockets. There was never a Fagin—that was a piece of anti-Semitism in the writing of the novel—but it was a true story. It was repeated here with the Roma children pickpocketing on south-east trains four or five years ago. They were rounded up—more than 150 young people from Roma families.

[Sir John Randall]

I am grateful for that intervention. I am aware that most of Dickens, although sometimes slightly over-caricatured, is based on the times. As the hon. Gentleman rightly says, that is why I say that “Oliver Twist” is such a good example for today, because such practices are going on today. Although we should not frighten kids with some of the more horrific things, if in school they are gradually made aware of modern-day slavery from an early age, they might be able to spot what is going on. Then, with their friends, they might notice something untoward. There are some incredibly good initiatives out there, a bit like Childline, but providing a point of contact if it is thought that someone is being trafficked or held against their will; but first we must educate people.

A few years ago, a neighbour in suburban Uxbridge told me that the lady down the road was a bit concerned; she thought there was something going on in one of the houses. I went to see her. She was a youngish mother. She was concerned that the lady next door had too many male visitors. We have Brunel university there; I thought perhaps she was being a little bit unkind because some young lady was entertaining, but I did my duty: I went to the police and asked if they would check it out. They came back to me at the end of the day and said, “You are absolutely right, Mr Randall—there is a brothel there.” That is in my own road, which I have lived in nearly all my life. They were moved on; I am not sure they were trafficked. But I am saying that it is so hidden, as the hon. Member for Slough said. This is a hidden crime. It is actually a hidden abomination, and we must do something about it.

I pay tribute to my own London borough of Hillingdon, which on this issue, as on many others, is very active—in modernspeak, I would say a beacon, but it is just a very good example. We have refuges. Of course, we have Heathrow airport in our constituency, but that is not the only reason. The borough takes trafficking and modern-day slavery very seriously.

Police forces are under lots of pressures. We have an incredibly good set of police officers around the country—in the Met, I have come across, in particular, Kevin Hyland, but there are many others. Your ordinary policeman has so many things to consider. That is why I think the Bill will be very important, to put all the legislation together so that they can understand the crimes and give them higher priority.

The hon. Member for Slough was absolutely right. For most of my constituents, human trafficking would not even appear on a list of priorities, because few people know it exists in their area. They would think it was some high falutin’ thing that was being put around by well meaning but misguided people. My constituents are more concerned about street crime, burglary, car crime and so on. We must get that message across.

I know for a fact that the Prime Minister has taken a keen interest in the issue. I want to see my Government, this Parliament and this country taking the moral lead. We know and we will repeat that Wilberforce did that 200 years ago, but this is a modern abomination in our world. I hope that we can lead efforts to do something about it.

I conclude with what has moved me more than anything else. I briefly mentioned that I could almost become evangelical on this, which most people who know me would say does not fit in my normal idiom. Just speak to some victims. Listen to them. See the people and what has happened to them—the hideous nature of it—and what has happened to them afterwards. The hon. Member for Slough is right. Is 45 days enough? It might be in some cases, but mostly probably not. Where do the victims go afterwards? They are let out of a refuge and they are on the street. Who are the first people to contact them? The traffickers. The victims do not know where to go for safety and security. We have had evidence that some want to go back to their country, but some do not. In some cases they are frightened because the traffickers know where their families are. They know who they are and they will find them again. The traffickers are very evil people.

Once again, I am delighted to take part in the debate. I am delighted that the Government are going to take action. Some of us would hold their feet up to the fire on this, although we would probably let them go just before they burn. We must get rid of trafficking. We must make the public aware that slavery is alive and kicking in our day-to-day surroundings.

--- Later in debate ---

[Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)]

It is a great honour to speak for the first time with you in the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker. Scottish Members in particular will miss your wonderful interventions in Scottish business, which reflected your part-Scottish background and your knowledge. It was such a pleasure to see you upset the Scottish nationalists so often in Scotland questions; we will miss that greatly.

Let me turn now to the terrible topic of modern-day slavery, and the fact that the Government have announced a Bill. I underline the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) that this is not a party political matter; it never has been. We have always urged the Government, regardless of who they are, to do more and to do better. After studying this topic and spending time at the Serious Organised Crime Agency, when I was part of the police service parliamentary scheme, I found that as we change our attack on the business—it is a worldwide business and a seriously organised crime network—the perpetrators change their business model. Women used to be forced into slavery and brought here by force. Now, they are being offered a new life. They are often EU citizens who have a right to come here. They are promised good jobs and a career and then find themselves entrapped in slavery and sexual exploitation. As we change our attack, we will find that the perpetrators change. It is a matter that every Government will have to deal with.

The decade of work commenced when Anthony Steen, who has been mentioned often, took an interest in the trafficking of Roma children, who were trained to thieve on South-east trains and on the underground. There were large numbers of them, and they were clearly organised. They were all swept up by police and the social services and returned to their country of origin. Very few went into any form of support system in the UK. From that episode came Anthony’s interest, which infected all of us, and many of us became involved in the pre-2010 activities.

I was also struck by a book by Baroness Cox called “This Immoral Trade”. It is a study of what happened in Burma and Sudan where people were trafficked in the old way. They were put into slave gangs and taken to slavers in the north of Africa where they were sold. They are now being bought back from those very slavers by their communities. It is a replication of what used to happen when people were taken to the colonies of the European countries. That practice is still going on. I spoke at the re-launch of the second edition of Baroness Cox’s book in the House of Lords last month. It was said that between 11 million and 17 million people are enslaved in the world at the moment. A number of types of slavery are used. My hon. Friend the Member for Hyndburn (Graham Jones) mentioned the horrific practice whereby infants between the ages of three and eight are trafficked within their own country for sexual exploitation. It is a massive problem, but it is also a business and organised crime and we must treat it as such.

The European dimension has been driven strongly by the Parliamentarians against Human Trafficking project, which is organised through ECPAT UK—End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and the Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes—and the Human Trafficking Foundation. We have travelled from country to country—and I have travelled as the lead Labour member without a political hat on—and spoken to people who have been working on the matter, to try to understand the dimensions and the methodology of the crime.

A monitoring office in Bucharest looks at many of the countries around the Balkans, and it provided me with reports which I took back to the Human Trafficking Foundation. There are also people in Moldova, who are not yet in the EU but who are closely connected with Romania. The Portuguese have developed an amazing mapping and monitoring process. Using a mapping system used for the movement of traffic—the movement of lorries—they can map the movement of people and are becoming adept at watching the movement of people from Brazil into Portugal for the summer trade on the beaches. Then, in the winter, the traffickers move them into the cities, into indoor brothels. The Portuguese can cut that movement off and deal with the process there.

The Netherlands has a good example of an ombudsperson who is responsible not just for human trafficking but for human trafficking and child exploitation. That is a dual role in a powerful, well-resourced independent organisation working with a lot of the NGOs and care organisations. The work is often spontaneous, as one incident leads to involvement in further exploration and the bringing of information into the system.

Whatever the Government do, it is key for us to keep very close to a network of NGOs. Unfortunately, at the moment the NGOs—all the numerous organisations that were written to—do not trust the system we have. I have been at a foundation NGO day with 50 different NGOs, and only half a dozen have ever replied when a Government organisation has asked them for information because they feel that they have a responsibility to protect the victims they have helped release and who they are looking after. They worry that if those victims get into the system, they will immediately be treated as criminals, either for immigration reasons or for some other form of criminal activity they were exploited and trafficked for, and that they will therefore be sent home and treated as criminals.

The right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Sir John Randall) talked about people in cannabis farms. There was a cannabis farm in a big house next door to me just a year ago. The house had first been used by people from Lithuania who would go around and steal all the charity bags that had been put out for charitable organisations, but they were driven out and it was taken over by a mysterious organisation. We reported it to the police, but they did not act quickly enough and in the middle of the night a large lorry turned up, took all the lamps and all the cannabis and unfortunately the woman—I could not quite get her age—who was trapped in the house and brought food by a gentleman every couple of nights.

That was a trafficked person who was taken on and will no doubt be trafficked somewhere else, but what if she had been caught? In the Scottish young offenders institution in my constituency, Polmont, one can sadly find four Vietnamese young men who are there because they were found guilty of the crime of cannabis farming. They were all trafficked and they were all victims, but the standard procedure is to treat them as criminals. I have no doubt that when they come out they will be sent back to Vietnam.

One of the television channels I was watching—CBS, I think—is running a campaign against human trafficking, focusing on Cambodia, next to Vietnam. That channel is talking about making programmes—I think one will be on next week—about the trafficking in Cambodia. I think that trafficking from Cambodia to Thailand was what was being talked about, but Cambodia is just like Vietnam. It is an open-access country where young people who want to get out of their country might pay a lot of money to be trafficked before ending up in criminality or some form of exploitation.

As we go around the EU, we try to get the best practice. I do not know how it is going, but I hope that the Human Trafficking Foundation will be successful in winning further support from the EU to take on the next stage of the process by getting every country that has theoretically signed up to the directive on human trafficking to implement it properly. In a lot of countries, it has not even been implemented as well as it is here, and I have some criticisms of how we have carried out the duties of implementing it in this country. I hope that that situation will be improved by the Bill.

We have heard about trafficking into the UK, trafficking across the UK and trafficking out of the UK. The hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) talked about the problem in his constituency of men being trafficked to Sweden out of the UK to be used as unpaid slaves in the construction industry in that country.

We have also heard about domestic slavery, and I join those who have criticised the Government. I do not see that as party political, but as speaking against a silly thing that was done—that is, the abolition of the one thing that gave domestic servants, or slaves, even if they were brought in as a family as they sometimes are, the chance to have a domestic servants visa. That meant that they could leave a bad family and, usually through Kalayaan and the police, find another employer as long as their visa allowed them to stay.

I understand that the Government said that every year maybe 40 or 50 people out of the thousands involved used that concession to stay behind and disappear, but it protected those young women—it is mainly young women—from being beaten, treated “worse than the dogs”, fed the scraps off the table of the families they lived with, and sleeping in cupboards. They could leave that behind and find a better employer while they had a domestic servant visa. That does not exist any more—it is now a six-month visa. But most people do not come in with visas; they come in as members of families. They are then kept with the family and treated in the most appalling way, so I hope that the Government will find a way of reinstating the protection of domestic workers in the UK.

It is quite clear that sexual exploitation is still a target for traffickers. That is true of young women and young men. Across Europe, we find young men in particular countries being trafficked in for sexual exploitation—rent boys, I think they call them in London. But they are even younger than that; they are children, because some men particularly like young boys. They are exploited in many ways. They are exploited for begging. They are exploited by fake families for benefit fraud; quite a lot of that goes on. They are trafficked also for thieving—they are trained to pickpocket in the cities of the UK and in Europe.

We have to look at how we can keep the criminalisation of the victim away from the care of the victim. It is unfortunate that it became mixed up in the debate about immigration. We have to look at immigration. We heard my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) say that there is nobody in the House as tough as he is when it comes to the idea of restricting immigration. He is part of the balanced immigration group in Parliament, along with senior Conservative Members, but he does not want to see this mixed up with the immigration problem; it is a different matter. These people are brought in, maybe with promises, with delusions that they would be coming to a better life, and then abused. We should tackle that. We found when we talked to NGOs that the excessive focus on immigration substantially impacts on the confidence of victims in speaking to the UK Border Agency, and in speaking to the police authorities who, if the Bill is correct, will be their best saviour rather than their biggest threat.

I want to say a word or two about the Scottish situation, because I am the only Scottish Member speaking in the debate. There is a parallel debate going on in Scotland. We had a strange comment by the Justice Minister after the launch of the inquiry into human trafficking in Scotland, which I went to. It was chaired by Helena Kennedy, Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws. When I said to him that many things in the inquiry could be taken forward into a Bill, the Justice Minister, who is known for being a bit sharp, and whom I have known for a long time, said, “The trouble with us is the UK Border Agency, Michael. If we could do something about them, we could do something about human trafficking.” He felt very strongly indeed that because it was a UK matter, it was the UK Border Agency that distorted Scottish Ministers’ wish to do something about it.

I want to mention three elements very quickly. First, in 2011 a document called “Scotland: A safe place for child traffickers?” by Tam Baillie, the children’s commissioner, shocked Scotland. It was not, “Scotland: A safe place for trafficked children?” but “Scotland: A safe place for child traffickers?” He could identify 200 children trafficked into Scotland over a period of 18 months.

There was then an inquiry by the Equality and Human Rights Commission into human trafficking. Its report came out in October 2011. It was very far-reaching—I think much more visionary than anything we had had in responding at a UK level to the human trafficking directive. It talked about some elements which I shall mention in a minute.

Finally, there is now a draft Bill on human trafficking and modern-day slavery headed up by Jenny Marra, MSP for Dundee. The Scottish Parliament is considering the matter with a Bill before them that they can look at—a fully laid out Bill, rather than what we have at the moment, which is some rumours and some whispers and some wishes about what our Bill will contain. The process that we follow may produce a much more comprehensive Bill, but I was very impressed with the Bill proposed by Jenny Marra for Scotland.

[Sir John Randall]

Interestingly, Jenny Marra gave evidence before our panel, so we have seen and read the draft Bill.

[Michael Connarty]

That is excellent, because I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Slough that it would be a good idea to have Jenny Marra down to the all-party group to discuss with her the thinking behind her Bill. I spoke at a conference with her in Glasgow about the fact that if the Bill became law, it would need to contain a framework to deal with events such as the Olympics, or the Commonwealth games in Glasgow, which represent a truly attractive opportunity for human traffickers to profit and prosper.

I understand that there is a proposal—the Minister may correct me—that the UK anti-slavery Bill will contain a better definition of the crime. We currently use anti-sex trade Acts that are years, if not decades, out of date. It would be good to know what the crime is and for it to be defined as widely as possible. There should be a clear prosecution policy and a sentencing policy that makes it clear to people that if they are caught, it will result not in a small fine or a few years in jail, but in a long period in jail—up to life imprisonment, I hope, for anyone caught running a major criminal operation in human trafficking and slavery.

During the inquiry in Scotland, we heard the idea that other crimes could be made more severe by being defined as aggravated by human trafficking. At present, many traffickers go to prison for other small crimes, not for the crime of human trafficking. I understand from the Serious Organised Crime Agency that that change would make the tariff high enough to provide access to the criminals’ money. As SOCA said, to follow the crime, follow the money. That is important. At the launch of the Scottish inquiry, the Advocate-General spoke in favour of such a change.

There should be a commissioner-ombudsman, independent and well resourced, and a clear focus on asset reclamation. Since the activity is aimed at making money from the exploitation of humans, selling them cheaply or abusing their rights, if the authorities can get their hands on the money or the assets, that will hurt. It has been proposed that any money recovered should be used for anti-slavery purposes, rather than taken back into the Treasury like fines for speeding and so on. I suggest that we consider giving some of assets recovered to the Human Trafficking Foundation to make that a well-resourced organisation that does not just rely on charity, but is funded by the effectiveness of the campaign that it generates.

I am told that efforts will be made to cover the question of extra-territoriality, as has been done, for example, in the case of sex tourism, whereby people caught in another country are deemed guilty in this country, as we saw in a recent case involving a pop star.

We must respond to the reality of labour exploitation in UK supply chains. This is a plea, a hope and a wish. The Minister may make me happy or unhappy when he speaks. There are many organisations such as Walk Free set up by the owner of Fortescue from Australia, who now has 5 million people signed up as members. Walk Free, exposes human trafficking and exploitation for sex and for cheap labour across the world. Every day members of the Walk Free network get e-mails asking them to send petitions and write to companies to try to stop that behaviour. There is also the organisation set up by the then world president of Manpower, which has tackled human trafficking through all its networks. The 2.5 million companies that Manpower deals with all have training and training manuals on how to look for human trafficking and how to get rid of it.

I spoke to various organisations while preparing my Bill. The case that was exposed which everyone heard about in this country involved eggs and chickens for the Olympics. A special programme was carried out by the Gangmasters Licensing Authority, which it would not normally do. The authority focused specifically on supplies to that event. It found that the chickens had been rounded up by Lithuanian men—40 of them kept in a big house and hounded from place to place by rottweilers. They were driven round the country, working 17 hours a day. By the time they had paid their so-called fare to get there and their digs money—their rent—they ended up with very little at all, and they were badly fed. The gangmaster was taken to court.

The supply chain showed that those who delivered the eggs and the chickens to McDonald’s and to Sainsbury’s did not know that the people hired as gangmasters, who were licensed gangmasters, then hired Lithuanians, who were not gangmasters, to run the show for them. We have to think seriously about that. When I spoke to representatives of McDonald’s, they brought me a wonderful brochure about all the standards that those who sign up to supply the company should observe. It stated that workers should not be locked in or guarded, and that they should not be indebted to a recruitment agency. It is fabulous, but the company did not realise that it meant nothing. People signed bits of paper and put them in the bin or in a file.

Between 12,000 and 18,000 companies in Britain have signed up to that ethical trading initiative, but none of them actually looks after the auditing or reporting to see whether it happens. I received a letter from the chief executive of Sainsbury’s telling me that he thought we should fight for more resources for the Gangmasters Licensing Authority, which he told me was being downgraded. It had been “downgraded” by being taken into the Serious Organised Crime Agency to focus on serious crime, not the day-to-day abuses, as he would describe them. He thought that it was its job to audit his supply chain.

We must have something in the Bill that tells companies, “We expect you to audit your supply chain and report to your shareholders, in writing and at your annual general meeting, on what you find. If you find something, eradicate it.” If we do not have that, we will continue to see cases such as the collapsed building in Dhaka, or women being burnt to death in garment factories because they had been locked in, or even chained in, and could not get out.

It is no good saying, “Let the customer drive this.” When I talk with ordinary people—with Asda Mumdex, for example—they say, “Look, when we buy our kids clothes for the summer holiday, we go to the cheapest place”, because they cannot afford to shop somewhere that is ethically wonderful. I think that it is important that we drive the companies to improve their supply chains.

Young people came to me when I was preparing my private Member’s Bill and suggested that we use stickers like the ones we used to have against apartheid, with a skull and crossbones, saying, “Contaminated by human trafficking.” They said that they would go around sticking them on clothes from Gap or Next, one of the companies that was found guilty, to let people know that they had been contaminated by human trafficking. But that is not the generality of it. People will either buy fashion garments because they are in vogue, or they will buy other garments from cheaper places because that is what they can afford. It is up to us, as a Parliament, to carry on this fight to the point where we make all those organisations responsible. By all pitching in, we will create a better world.