Modern Slavery Bill

Debate between Lord Rosser and Baroness Doocey

Monday 1st December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

My Lords, the amendment introduces a new, separate child exploitation clause aimed at filling the gaps which, despite the Government’s amendments, still exist in the Bill. Clause 1 requires evidence of slavery, servitude and forced or compulsory labour. However, force or compulsion should not be required in the case of children because a child can be controlled far more easily than an adult, and in many cases without direct force or compulsion. That is one of the reasons why we need a separate child exploitation clause. Clause 2 does not require just evidence of trafficking; it also requires proof that the trafficking took place with a view to exploitation. Proving that somebody was trafficked is difficult enough, but proving that they were trafficked with a view to exploitation is almost impossible, and proving both in the case of children, who are moved at the behest of adults, sets the bar far too high for the CPS to be able to prosecute.

There are a number of circumstances in which children are being exploited that would not be deemed offences under the Bill: children who had not been trafficked but had been sent out to the streets by family members to beg or to steal; children used to make multiple claims for benefit; children brought in from baby farms overseas to be illegally adopted. I shall give two examples of what is actually happening. When I was serving on the Metropolitan Police Authority, the police went into a house and found a young girl of about 12 years of age who was looking after three children under six. She was working from dawn to dusk: cleaning, cooking, washing, ironing, looking after the children. The bed was a mat by the fire. She had never been to school. The police removed her from the house and took her to social services. However, social services brought her back to the same house the next day, saying that compared to some of the children that they had pulled out of crack joints, she was living in the lap of luxury. The only thing the police could prosecute for was the fact that she had not been to school and they could not home-school her. Once the aunt and uncle—so-called—had promised to send her to school, they basically got off scot free, because there was no way the police could prove that she had been trafficked with a view to being exploited.

In another case, a girl of 12 was sold by her mother in west Africa to a woman who brought her to London to exploit her in domestic servitude. After about a year the woman’s next door neighbour started to ask questions about the girl: where she had come from, what she was doing. The woman immediately sold her on to another man, who also exploited her in domestic servitude. When the police were finally contacted, they said that they could not prosecute this man because he had not trafficked the girl into the country.

If either of these cases of exploitation happens after the Bill becomes law the authorities would still be unable to prosecute, because they would be unable to prove the trafficking element required under Clause 2. I am not alone in believing that a separate child exploitation clause is essential. The Joint Committee on which I sat, which scrutinised the Bill, recommended such a clause. The 41 NGOs which form the Refugee Council’s consortium, including ECPAT, the NSPCC, UNICEF and the Children’s Society, believe that such a clause is necessary. Leading barristers whose daily work is to prosecute these cases, several of whom gave evidence to the Joint Committee, also believe that the clause is necessary. The amendment that I propose makes it an offence to exploit a child, but it also defines that exploitation using the exact words of article 2 of the EU directive on human trafficking, by which our courts are already bound.

This amendment makes explicit the fact that a child cannot consent to their own exploitation and it removes the need to prove any threat, coercion or deception. The Government have tabled an amendment that says that consent is irrelevant for the offences in Clause 1. That is very welcome because it brings Clause 1 into line with the trafficking offence in Clause 2. However, it does not change the fact that we still need a separate exploitation clause, because in many cases exploiting a child will simply not meet the threshold required for slavery, servitude or forced or compulsory labour.

I cannot say with any certainty how many children are being trafficked and/or exploited in the United Kingdom today—no one can, because our system of justice has failed properly to recognise that such offences exist, let alone to investigate how often they occur. That is a sadly familiar tale, as we have seen recently in the evidence from the Jay report into child sexual exploitation in Rotherham. We must take the opportunity afforded by this Bill to provide a legal framework which offers the very highest standards of protection to children, recognising, as we do in so much other legislation, that children need a higher standard of protection than adults and, sadly, sometimes a higher standard of protection from adults. We need a specific offence of child exploitation to tackle the deficiencies in the Bill. If we do not get it, we will fail the many hundreds, if not thousands, of children who are exploited in our country every day. I beg to move.

[Lord Rosser]

My Lords, we have Amendments 24 and 26 in this group, which have a very similar theme to that of the amendment proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey.

The recent report on child sexual exploitation in Rotherham shocked a great many people, not least due to the extent of the abuse that had taken place. Approximately 1,400 children were sexually exploited over the full inquiry period from 1997 through to 2013. Victims were raped by multiple perpetrators, trafficked to other towns and cities in the north of England, abducted, beaten and intimidated. This was against a background in May this year of the case load of the specialist child sexual exploitation team being 51.

Many victims were unable to recognise that they had been groomed and exploited, and some blamed themselves for not just their own abuse but for what happened to other victims. Although there have been a small number of prosecutions for offences against individual children, many children refused to give evidence or withdrew statements as a direct result of threats, intimidation and assaults against them or their families. We have had similar cases in Oxford and Rochdale that the authorities concerned did not appear to pick up, perhaps because of a lack of awareness of the offence of child exploitation. That is a reason for wanting to see the specific offence of child exploitation as well as the offence of child trafficking included in the Bill.

Around a third of all known victims of modern slavery in the United Kingdom are children and the number is growing, not least because they are being specifically targeted due to their age and vulnerability. Yet according to Crown Prosecution Service data, there have been no cases where the victim was a child at the time of the prosecution since the introduction of Section 71 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 on slavery, servitude and forced or compulsory labour. The significance of this point is that the Section 71 offence appears to have been transposed into Clause 1 of the Modern Slavery Bill.

The Joint Committee on the Modern Slavery Bill recommended that an offence of child exploitation should be included in the Bill to make clear that child exploitation is even more serious than that of an adult and that consent elements can never be an issue for children. The Sexual Offences Act, for example, already accepts the principle of separate and more serious offences against those under 18. This Bill as it stands does not contain any explicit criminal offence of child exploitation. Our amendments make clear that children do not have the legal capacity to consent to any form of exploitation as recognised in international law and would increase the likelihood that many more of those who traffic, exploit and abuse children would be brought before the courts.

As has been said, children are also at a disadvantage when it comes to providing evidence since they do not usually understand that they have been trafficked or even understand what it means, let alone be aware of what kind of evidence is needed to pursue a prosecution in relation to being trafficked to a location or situation of exploitation. That will be particularly likely if parents or others close to the children concerned have been involved in the trafficking, with the result that while a child may be able to say what happened when they were exploited—through, for example, domestic servitude or prostitution—they are much less likely to be able to help in terms of the perpetrators of a trafficking offence.

It has already been said that since movement or travel is a key component of exploitation, the reality that children are often unable to explain who brought them to a particular house or location where they have been exploited—our amendments include examples of the many different forms of child exploitation—means that no prosecution happens.

Creating separate offences of child exploitation and child trafficking will help to overcome the significant and crucial problem in respect of children and help to achieve the objectives of the Bill, which are to reduce the incidence of modern slavery in its different forms and bring more perpetrators to justice. The separate offence of child trafficking will ensure that those involved in this equally awful activity can be brought to justice for this offence as well as for exploitation.

London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (Amendment) Bill

Debate between Lord Rosser and Baroness Doocey

Tuesday 25th October 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord Rosser]

My Lords, I had nearly concluded what I wanted to say in moving this amendment. I want to end with some questions for the Minister. Will police forces both outside London and in the separate London boroughs, albeit part of the Metropolitan Police, have to send whatever number of officers is required for the different Olympic venues irrespective of the impact on crime in their own areas? Is it the intention to use the territorial Reserve Forces at the Olympic and Paralympic Games for any duties that would otherwise be undertaken by police officers? Can the Minister provide assurances that sufficient police officers will be available to police the Games and that it will not be to the detriment of required policing levels in the forces from which the police offers have come?

[Baroness Doocey]

My Lords, I declare an interest. I am a member of the Metropolitan Police Authority. I chair its finance and resources committee. I also chair the Met’s Olympics sub-committee. I want to shed some more light on police numbers because I think there is a slight confusion. I will explain the background. At the moment, police numbers are calculated by the number of officers who are fully trained. The system for calculating police officers was changed about two years ago. Previously, police officers were considered to be warranted officers on the day they started their training, but the system was changed so that they are not now considered warranted officers until the day they finish their training. In order to compare like with like for police numbers two years ago and now, it is necessary to take the number of warranted officers plus the number of officers in training who will be trained by the end of this financial year. If you add those two figures together, the number of officers will not be down by 1,000 but will be up by 45. I thought it necessary to clarify that. The other issue that I would like to shed light on, wearing my hat as chair of the Olympic sub-committee, is that borough commanders have all signed up individually to the fact that their officers willl be doing additional shifts or that there will be additional rest days. I hope that is helpful to noble Lords.

Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Debate between Lord Rosser and Baroness Doocey

Thursday 16th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rosser]

I shall conclude the comments that I was making. In putting forward these two amendments, I have made points about a number of areas of concern in relation to this Bill that have been expressed in our discussions, particularly in relation to Part 1. We should not be taking risks over changes to policing arrangements. We should be as clear as we can before we start on the impact of what is proposed, and the Government should agree to the independent inquiry and the report on the impact of their proposals that is provided for in these amendments. I beg to move.

[Baroness Doocey]

In view of the lateness of the hour, I will be brief. The purpose of Amendment 251 is to move the implementation of the changes to policing in London from October this year to October next year. The Mayor of London and the Government are keen to introduce the new system from 1 October this year and the Bill would allow that to happen. There are two important reasons why that should be delayed.

First, the Olympic and Paralympic Games will take place between July and September next year. There will also be many preparatory events which require large policing operations. For example, the torch relay will start in May and continue until July. That will be a major security challenge. Police officers will be drafted in from all parts of the country to police the Games. The Olympics will affect every police force in Britain, not just the Metropolitan Police. There is absolute agreement that the Olympics present the biggest security challenge that British police have ever faced in peacetime. They will require a policing operation on an unprecedented scale. The Metropolitan Police have spent years planning for every eventuality. As circumstances develop, these plans will need to be updated and revised to take account of issues as they arise. For any Government to allow the police to divert their efforts from this huge security operation in order to take part in a reorganisation is deeply worrying.

Secondly, the mayoral election in London next May could result in a change of mayor. It is entirely possible that a new policing system could be put in place on 1 October this year, designed to reflect the current mayor’s priorities, only to be dismantled again next year if another party wins the election. It is a real possibility that the police in London could face not one but two major reorganisations in the period leading up to the Olympic Games. Reorganisations are disruptive in any organisation. This one will require the police to change all their reporting structures and to brief a completely new set of stakeholders and board members. This is no easy task, as anyone who has ever been involved with policing will say. It will take huge effort and time on both sides. The reorganisation will be work-intensive, expensive and time-consuming. It should happen only once and at a time when it does not conflict with the planning of the Olympic Games. The police must not get involved in a major reorganisation at this time. They must be free to concentrate their efforts and energies on the greatest security threat this country has ever faced.