Modern Slavery Act 2015 Committee Report

Lord Whitty Excerpts

Friday 28th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Whitty (Lab)]

My Lords, I too served on the committee, and I thank the noble Baroness, Lady O’Grady, for her chairmanship and her introduction. I thank all members of the committee who have spoken today—and stolen all my lines—because they have done a great job in pointing out both the analysis of the problem and the reasons why it has failed.

I have abandoned most of my speech, so instead I will address the question raised, by implication, by the noble Lord, Lord Smith: why are people not taking this more seriously? The noble Baroness, Lady O’Grady, and I come from a tradition where many of our comrades have always said, “All employers are exploitative, so what is the problem?” I am afraid that that is the attitude of quite a lot of the public, both as commentators and as consumers.

The definition of modern slavery is absolute control. The hold that the alleged employers—the gangmasters—that exist in this area have over the people they exploit is intense. They probably hold their passports and their work records, and they provide accommodation; in some cases, they have the ability to terrorise the families of those who were trafficked here, back in the nations which they came from.

We must remember that quite a lot of the victims of modern slavery were not trafficked here. At least 25% of the identified victims are of UK origin. Some 28% are children, who are probably here legitimately, and others will be here legitimately, at least in the short term, because they came here on legitimate short-term visas. This is not a problem that stems primarily from immigration.

One of the problems for the institutions involved in this area is that the Home Office—which was keen to address this under the now noble Baroness, Lady May—got overwhelmed with the issue of immigration and regarded the powers and responsibilities that it is supposed to undertake under the Modern Slavery Act as another means of getting at alleged illegal immigrants. That is unfortunate, though probably inevitable; in my view, it is a good reason for not allowing the Home Office to be the main protagonist hereafter in trying to eradicate modern slavery. The Home Office’s business and focus are inevitably elsewhere.

The department that ought to be responsible—the Department for Business and Trade—proved elusive when trying to get any information from it. At one stage, it declined to provide evidence or Ministers to speak to the committee. That department, and the institutions run by it, must be the way of systematically stopping people in this country being employed on terms that are equivalent to modern slavery.

One of the difficulties is that people do not know what we mean. The public do not encounter this in any meaningful way, either because it is criminal, and provides only services such as prostitution, drug running or cannabis farms—which most people do not come across—or because it is short-term labour in places that most of the public do not visit, such as farms and construction sites. I dealt with this issue when I was Agriculture Minister, trying to get some control over the gangmasters who provide temporary labour to farmers—we succeeded in that, to a degree. Where this is totally hidden is in the area of domestic service. Many of the cases that have been successfully brought were in that area, but there are hundreds and thousands of cases that are never touched and never known about.

There are places where the general public come into contact with the final result of modern slavery, such as nail bars, McDonald’s, as has been said, and car washes. They have no idea that the people they deal with are held there under terms which amount to modern slavery. Public education must be part of this.

There is a lack of proper public appreciation that there is a big and costly problem—one which undermines the legitimacy of lots of sectors and employment conditions more generally. It is partly a failure of the institutions stemming from the Home Office, and the fact that the enforcement agencies do not appear to co-operate with one another. I am hopeful that, under the Employment Rights Bill, which we discussed yesterday, the fair work agency will perhaps do some of this. I am yet to be convinced that it will have the powers or the resources to do so. I would welcome an assurance from the Minister—whose department I want to take this away from—that the relevant department and the priorities of Government will ensure that there are resources in this area.

We need to raise public consciousness and the priority within government, and deliver the institution for regulation and enforcement that the Government have so far failed to do so. If we can both of those things, we can begin the very heavy task of eradicating modern slavery.