Modern Slavery Bill

Baroness Cox Excerpts

Wednesday 10th December 2014 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Cox]

94: After Clause 50, insert the following new Clause—
“Protection from slavery for overseas domestic workers
All overseas domestic workers in the United Kingdom, including those working for staff of diplomatic missions, shall be entitled to—(a) change their employer (but not work sector) while in the United Kingdom;(b) renew their domestic worker or diplomatic domestic worker visa, each such renewal being for a period not exceeding twelve months, as long as they remain in employment and are able to support themselves without recourse to public funds;(c) a three month temporary visa permitting them to live in the United Kingdom for the purposes of seeking alternative emplyoment as an overseas domestic worker where there is evidence that the worker has been a victim of modern slavery.”

[Baroness Cox (CB)]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 94, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Royall of Blaisdon, and my noble friends Lord Alton of Liverpool and Lord Hylton for their support.

This amendment would provide vital protections for overseas domestic workers. The current lack of protection for these workers, far too many of whom are subjected to appalling conditions of domestic servitude, remains a serious omission from the Bill. Overseas domestic workers are predominantly women. They are currently bonded by Immigration Rules to their employer. In most cases, the employer’s name is written on the worker’s visa. The worker is totally dependent on their employer for their employment, accommodation and immigration status.

Both the Joint Committee on the Draft Modern Slavery Bill and the Joint Committee on Human Rights have expressed significant concern with this current bonded arrangement. The Joint Committee on the draft Bill claims that it,

“unintentionally strengthened the hand of the slave master against the victim of slavery”,

and concluded that,

“Tying migrant domestic workers to their employer institutionalises their abuse; it is slavery and is therefore incongruous with our aim to act decisively to protect the victims of modern slavery”.

The Joint Committee on Human Rights says that it regards,

“the removal of the right of an Overseas Domestic Worker to change employer as a backward step in the protection of migrant domestic workers, particularly as the pre-2012 regime had been cited internationally as good practice. We recommend that the Bill be amended to reverse the relevant changes to the Immigration Rules and to reinstate the pre-2012 protections in the Bill”.

However, the Government have remained strangely steadfast in refusing to make these recommended changes to the Immigration Rules to reinstate the pre-2012 protections for overseas domestic workers. We have therefore tabled this amendment, which would improve at least the minimum bargaining power of any employee—the freedom to resign their job. Without this opportunity, how can they challenge or question anything that their employers choose to do to them? I fail to understand why the current bonded arrangement for overseas domestic workers has remained in place for over two and a half years in spite of the widespread recognition of its disastrous impact.

It is true, as stated by the Minister in Committee in the other place, that abuse of these domestic workers took place prior to April 2012, a time when they had some protection in being able to change employer. However, this surely highlights the problem that workers employed in private households are particularly vulnerable to abuse and therefore need more protections, not fewer. The Home Secretary herself, in her foreword to the Modern Slavery Strategy, describes how:

“Domestic workers are imprisoned and made to work all hours of the day and night for little or no pay”.

This is indeed an apt description of the conditions found by Human Rights Watch in its report Hidden Away, published in March this year, documenting the conditions of domestic workers in the United Kingdom who had entered on the tied overseas domestic worker visa.

The excellent organisation Kalayaan, in its briefing Still Enslaved: The Migrant Domestic Workers who are Trapped by the Immigration Rules, gave statistics of the abuse reported to the organisation by 120 workers who were tied to their employers during the first two years since the introduction of the tied visa. Their accounts of their experiences are shockingly deplorable. The bonding of workers to their employers not only limits options for escape and justice but worsens their treatment during employment. For example, Kalayaan’s figures show that 71% of those tied to their employer reported not being allowed out of the house unaccompanied compared with 43% of those not tied, and 65% of tied workers do not even have their own room, often sleeping on the kitchen floor or in the lounge, with no privacy or time to themselves, compared with 34% of those not tied.

The Centre for Social Justice, in its significant report on trafficking in the UK, It Happens Here, recommended that overseas domestic workers again be permitted to change employer. Andrew Boff, Conservative leader of the GLA, came to the same conclusion in his report, Shadow City. As long ago as 2009, the Home Affairs Select Committee, in its report on trafficking, warned against the proposed bonded arrangement, stating that retaining the visa allowing change of employer and renewal if in employment was,

“the single most important issue in preventing the forced labour and trafficking of such workers”.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

I apologise to the noble and learned Baroness. I think she is referring to the domestic violence concession, which is a three-month visa to allow people to come to the UK with an expectation that they will settle here and during those three months they must make an application to settle. That is specifically for those coming here to join family with the expectation of staying. Victims who are helping the police with an investigation already have access to discretionary leave of at least one year and one day, so they have an extended time over here to make their case, if they are already in contact with the police. I think from the suggestions that the noble and learned Baroness was making, they would probably already have had to make clear that they were victims of abuse. That would have become public and they would have found a way of making that known to the authorities.

We are obviously going to come back to this clause to try to set out ways of dealing with this issue. If noble Lords around the Committee who feel as anguished about this as obviously people do have clear suggestions as to how the Government could do more to help the situation so that we do not have anybody in the country who is a victim of abuse and slavery while in domestic employment, then we are more than ready to listen to them. We have already set and strengthened the systems of trying to make contact with the worker at the point of entry. After that, it may be very difficult to make contact with them, but when they are coming in at the point of entry they will have to present a passport and that is a moment when the authorities can make contact with them. We are also seeking to make sure that all employers who come to work in this country are fully aware of the compliance which they should make for the people whom they employ.

For the reasons that I have set out, we think that this clause would not necessarily strengthen the safeguards for the very people whom we are trying to protect. We all have the same aims in mind—to attempt to strengthen the protections for these people. I hope that, with the assurance that we will be addressing this again and discussing it further before Report, the noble Baroness will feel minded to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Cox]

My Lords, I warmly thank all noble Lords who have spoken in support of the amendment and have suggested creative alternative variations on the theme, as my noble and learned friend Lady Butler-Sloss has done. I find it a little hard to fulfil the characteristic courtesy of thanking the Minister. I am sorry, but I think that I rather felt sympathy for the reply that she was obliged to give. It seems to me that at the moment the Government totally underestimate the seriousness of the situation. They put forward remedial suggestions such as templates or providing information on arrival in the country. The nonsensical nature of the effectiveness of those remedies came out very clearly in the debate itself.

It has been shown again and again that these very vulnerable workers may well not have ways of understanding information that is made available, or it may be removed along with their passports. Frankly, those are not reassuring alternatives. The Government’s position totally underestimates the incredible vulnerability of these workers. They are trapped in these situations. There is also the whole aspect of the intimidation and abuse that they suffer and the intimidation and threats to their families back home—that is a very real long arm of intimidation which prevents many of them seeking help in the first place.

Figures were quoted, but figures really are a distraction. Kalayaan’s research may say 120, but one is one too many. Every case that has been reported is a situation of challenge to us in this country to do something effective about these immensely vulnerable people. The distance—the chasm—between the kind of de jure position adopted by the Government and the de facto reality of these immensely vulnerable people is a chasm that really has not been breached by the Minister’s suggestions.

I emphasise that all of us who have spoken share the conviction that the plight of overseas domestic workers in this country today is a very real and well documented form of slavery. It would be intensely ironic—ironic in the extreme—if we failed to use the Modern Slavery Bill to eradicate this form of slavery on our own doorsteps. I am sorry to say that I do not feel that we have received a very satisfactory reassurance from the Minister. I am sure that we will have to return extremely robustly to this issue on Report. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw this amendment.

Amendment 94 withdrawn.