Illegal Migration Bill

Baroness Hamwee Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 12th June 2023 Lords Chamber

However, as the Bill stands, a victim of trafficking can be returned as soon as possible and without waiting for the results of the identification process. Furthermore, during the process, the individual should be provided with all the relevant assistance indicated in Article 12 of ECAT, which sets out six forms of assistance to which the individual is entitled. How far have His Majesty’s Government taken into account Articles 10 and 12 of ECAT? I think we would all like to know, and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I have Amendment 85D in this group and have added my name to Amendment 85C from the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and the amendments from the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, and the noble Lord, Lord McColl. I have also tabled opposition to two clauses standing part, because we on these Benches oppose the whole approach to modern slavery and trafficking in the Bill. We oppose every clause in the Bill and have tabled that opposition because it is not a matter of tweaking, although the amendments draw attention to some particularly egregious provisions.

Clause 25 is about suspension and renewal, but its very existence, sunsetting after two years, indicates, as the JCHR noted, that the Home Office recognises the severity of the provisions. They may be short term, but they will not feel that way to victims and survivors. Can I just say how much I admire the work that the JCHR has done on the Bill? It has produced a splendid report, which I am afraid I flicked through to find the bits relevant to today—but then I am human, and the whole of it will get read.

What evidence is there of abuse of the system? Assertion is not evidence. What evidence is there that victims of modern slavery are likely to be a danger to the public or a threat to public order? Is it really appropriate for a Minister, having sunsetted a provision, to revive it by regulations? A lot of constitutional points arise in the Bill. Mind you, I would rather see it sunsetted before the sun even rises.

When the Bill was starting its passage through Parliament, I was in a taxi and the driver inevitably wanted to tell me what Parliament should be doing. On the subject of small boats, he said he was concerned that his children should be safe from all the terrorists arriving in small boats. He was hearing the message that the Government wanted him to hear. Actually, we had quite a reasonable conversation about asylum seekers and he was very receptive to a number of the things I said, but it brought home to me just how dangerous the Government’s messaging is: it is dangerous to individuals, dangerous for cohesion and integration, dangerous in the attitudes it fosters and much else.

As the JCHR said, how can the modern slavery clauses be applied compatibly with Article 4 of the convention, which places on the state positive obligations that are absolute and cannot be derogated from? A similar point arises with ECAT. The JCHR recommends that Clause 21 be removed, and although I took a little comfort from the fact that our instincts were backed up, that does not achieve it, of course. As the committee said, there should at least be no removal of asylum seekers until a “conclusive grounds” decision has been made. As Amendment 85D indicates, one of our concerns is the recovery period, as it always has been. For many victims, 30 days is nowhere near enough for them to recover. There being no period for recovery at all is far worse.

Amendment 90 refers to co-operation with investigations and proceedings. The point that occurred me a day or two ago follows on from what the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, has been saying. I do not think the point has been made that the absence of the victim may jeopardise proceedings in a number of ways, including because the victim is not available for cross examination, either in person—that is always best—or by video link if that is what the Home Office envisages. I want to take this opportunity to ask the Minister: what is envisaged? Are the Government confident that it will always be possible to give evidence by video link, given the countries to which asylum seekers may be removed? Is this to be a provision in removals agreements? It seems to me that not a lot more than lip service is being paid to the importance of tackling smuggling and trafficking gangs, improving the conviction rate and securing remedy for victims. Nothing in the Bill will increase the efficiency of all those things.

Finally, I want to say a word on Amendment 146 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord McColl, which addresses the absence of an Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner. I hope we will not hear from the government Front Bench that a new commissioner will be appointed “in due course”. The lack of an appointment for over a year now makes the Government’s lack of real concern about modern slavery very evident.

[The Lord Bishop of Southwark]

My Lords, Amendment 88 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, is supported by my right reverend friend the Bishop of Gloucester, who regrets that she is unable to be here today. There is much similar ground in this amendment to others, but this amendment focuses specifically on victims of sexual exploitation.

The Bill directs that victims of modern slavery, including victims of sexual exploitation, shall be subject to detention and removal to their own country or to a third country. As we have heard, the principal exception to this is if the Secretary of State is satisfied that the individual is co-operating with criminal proceedings and that their presence in the United Kingdom is necessary for this to continue. We know that the Government have committed to victims of sexual violence and exploitation in this country. The UK ratified the 2011 Istanbul Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence only last summer and there has been much work done over the past few years to increase awareness and tackle perpetrators. To deny those who have arrived here safety and protection is a regressive move.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Lord Bishop of Durham]

My Lords, I rise to support the removal of Clauses 22 to 24 and 27, as proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and my right reverend friend the Bishop of Bristol. As the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, noted, many of the arguments are similar to those related to Clause 21, so we will not repeat them.

Clauses 22 to 24 carry through the logic of Clause 21 and remove protections and support from those who, crucially, have already been identified and assessed as having reasonable grounds to be considered a victim of trafficking or modern slavery. These victims are not self-identified or -assessed. They have to be referred by a first responder agency, such as the police, and assessed by the competent authority.

The insidious nature of applying these provisions retrospectively is that there are people now in safe houses who are receiving specialist support to rebuild their lives or to build a legal case against their abuser that might be used by law enforcement. To have those protections and support removed from them before a conclusive grounds decision can be reached on their case seems cruel. Someone who has potentially just escaped an abusive situation and has been assessed by a first responder and the Home Office as having a reasonable case and who is for the first time receiving support from a specialist agency could be told out of the blue that support is withdrawn and they are subject to detention and removal. To deter one group of people, we will wash our hands of a much larger group who did not arrive by boat or even necessarily of their own volition.

The long and short of these clauses is that to weed out an unknown and unproven level of abuse, and without any evidence that it will deter Channel crossings, we will be simply abandoning victims. We will be doing so in a thoroughly dramatic and cruel way by withdrawing support that has been offered. I cannot see this is justifiable, still less desirable, and I ask the Minister to consider the clauses in their entirety.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I am not going to repeat the points that I made on the first group because they apply in a very similar way to the amendments in this group, which in our case amounts to opposition to the clauses standing part of the Bill.

In the first group, I strayed into Clauses 25 and 26, which should really be here—the revolving door of a revolving sunset. A point I did not make was how much scope the Secretary of State has to keep on altering the direction of how things go with minimum scrutiny because, to me, scrutiny should include an opportunity to make changes. So much is dealt with by regulations. All the clauses on modern slavery are part of a whole, which, as a whole, we oppose. The Bill does nothing to tackle modern slavery and trafficking, does away with support for many victims and damages the UK’s reputation. Like the noble Lord, Lord Randall, who spoke earlier, I do not much like the term “world leading”, but that was what people were saying of us not so very long ago.

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)]

My Lords, a number of years ago, I chaired an inquiry in Scotland for the Equality and Human Rights Commission of the United Kingdom to look into the position of trafficking in Scotland because it was a surprise that at that time there had not been any prosecutions. Was this because there was no problem in Scotland, or was something happening with regards to investigations?

I want the Committee to know that after many years of practice at the Bar, doing some of the most shocking and desperate cases, the experience of chairing that inquiry into modern slavery was revelatory to me in hearing evidence—particularly, of course, from women who had been sexually used, and used in the most horrifying ways, where their whole days were spent servicing men. Afterwards, they needed to be looked after, cared for and encouraged to believe that their families back in the countries from which they had come would not be punished if they were to testify in a court of law. The threats that they had experienced were of such a kind that they lived in terror of those who had victimised and trafficked them.

I really do feel—I heard earlier one of the Conservative Back-Benchers asking the Minister whether he had ever met anyone who had been trafficked—that meeting those who have been trafficked is a shocking business. It also goes on to those who, for example, are subjected to slavery within the domestic environment, who are worked almost to death. They are brought over from other countries, live in households in which they are expected to get up at the crack of dawn and work through until the wee small hours of the following day, and are not rewarded—their wages are supposed to go to their family back somewhere else. The accounts that one hears are just shocking.

The fear that people have, which has to be catered for in having them give testimony in a court of law against those who have been their traffickers, is such that to be removing all of that is just shocking. It is unbelievable to people in other parts of the world. My work has now changed; it is now in international law, and everywhere I go people are shocked by Britain, which led the way on this and was so inventive in creating this legislation. Other countries are now saying “What is Britain thinking about?”, and we are really uncertain as to what the Government are thinking about.