Immigration Bill

Baroness Howarth of Breckland Excerpts

Monday 7th April 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Lab)]

My Lords, I am proud and pleased to be a signatory to Amendments 55A and 62A, and I am grateful for the excellent briefing that we received from the many organisations working with children and young people that understand the need for child trafficking guardians. I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord McColl, and the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, who have powerfully and graphically outlined the case for our amendments. They have done a huge amount of work on this and related issues, especially the noble Lord, Lord McColl, who has been absolutely dogged in his determination to get justice for trafficked children. More than 450 children were identified as possible victims of trafficking in the past year alone. In February 2012, I said that I was,

“certain that the noble Lord, Lord McColl, will pursue these issues doggedly until he is satisfied”.—[Official Report, 15/2/12; col. 849.]

My certainty continues.

As has been said, this is the fourth time that we have made the case in different Bills for child trafficking guardians, and our determination is undimmed. From all that we have read and heard, including in this House, the need for a systematic child trafficking guardian system is real and urgent; it is evidence-based and recommended by national and international experts. Indeed, the report commissioned by the Government when we first raised this issue during the passage of the Protection of Freedoms Bill in February 2012, entitled Still at Risk, identified that the care provided to trafficked children remains inconsistent and does not give adequate support or advocacy assistance. It recommended provision of an independent trusted adult who would ensure that,

“potential victims of trafficking are able to understand their rights, ensure that their voice is heard in decisions that affect them, and are supported effectively through the different legal processes that they are engaged in”.

The current, inadequate level of protection for trafficked children being offered by professionals and agencies, which are meant to be supporting them, leads to untold suffering and to some of them simply disappearing from the system. Some charities estimate that a shocking two-thirds of children who are rescued from traffickers then go missing again because the system to protect them simply is not strong enough. Most of these children come from countries outside the EU; they do not understand the language and they do not know where they are. Even when people try to assist them, the processes and web of contacts with which they are confronted are complex and confusing, and the fear must be intolerable.

Sometimes the decisions that are taken do more harm than good, compounding the situation. The Children’s Society brought to our attention the case of Charlotte. An orphan, Charlotte worked as a house girl in her country of origin before being brought to England, at the age of 13, by a relative of the family. She was made to work for the family and their children nearly 20 hours a day, seven days a week. She was extremely physically abused by the woman for whom she worked, and was eventually thrown out of the house. After sleeping rough, she was spotted by a member of the public who took her to the local social services. The social services took Charlotte to the police station, but she was terrified. The family who had exploited her had told her that, if she told anyone, particularly the police, that she was a child, she would get into trouble. She therefore gave the police the name and age that had been given to her by the traffickers. Her fear was compounded when the Home Office and her solicitor said that they did not believe her age, and she remained frightened that she would be sent back to her country of origin.

Charlotte needed a child trafficking guardian and the system failed her. Frankly, I do not understand why when, armed with the evidence of Still at Risk, the Government did not accept a similar amendment to the Children and Families Bill. The noble Baroness, Lady Northover, the Minister for that Bill, said then:

“We remain concerned that the introduction of guardians for trafficked children, alongside those persons who should already be working in the interests of the child, is not the most effective way to tackle the local problems”.—[Official Report, 9/12/13; col. 655.]

She said, as the noble Lord has said, that there would be new regulations accompanied by new guidance. Of course these are welcome, but they do not respond to the real, absolute need. That was not enough then and it is still not enough now, despite the fact that the Home Office issued a news release on 28 January which stated that child victims of slavery were to be given personal support by a network of specialist, independent advocates, acting as a single point of contact throughout the care and immigration process. However, as the noble and learned Baroness has said, there is very little detailed meat on the bones of the press release. There are clear anomalies, as she has pointed out.

Barnardo’s has welcomed the announcement of a pilot of specialist child trafficking advocates for trafficked children as a step in the right direction, but it believes that these advocates fall short of a legal guardian who would make decisions in the best interests of the child. Guardians would also have the legal power to hold agencies to account if they failed to support child victims of trafficking.

As an aside, I wonder why these proposed advocates—which are not enough—were not included in the draft modern slavery Bill which is now receiving its pre-legislative scrutiny. Most importantly, following our many debates and the research and evidence we have had, why were guardians not included in that Bill? Why water down the proposals that have been presented to the Government on numerous occasions? The poor substitutes that the Government keep giving us are simply not acceptable. I strongly urge the noble Lord to accept the excellent, well drafted amendment before us today, which meets the concerns of all those involved. Frankly, anything less than legal guardians will not be enough.

I freely admit that I am political, but this subject has nothing to do with politics. It is about humanity; it is about justice for some of our most vulnerable children, who, by foul means, have been trafficked into the country. They are suffering in ways in which no individual, let alone a child, should have to suffer. These defenceless young children have been subjected to horrific abuse, including domestic slavery and sexual exploitation. The current system is failing these children. They need someone to speak up for them to make sure that their best interests are at the heart of the decisions being made about them. We have a duty to act and to act now.

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland (CB)]

My Lords, I had not intended to speak on this amendment and I find myself in a curious position in so doing. Having worked in this field for many years, I am absolutely clear that you have to approach the needs of these children with your heart. Any noble Lords who have children or grandchildren can imagine what it would feel like to discover that they had disappeared from home—had been whipped away—and been forced into prostitution or other forms of slavery such as working as unpaid cleaners.

However, having reacted to the issue with one’s heart, one has to deal with it using one’s head. I say that because, having listened to the arguments, I am still not clear what a child trafficking guardian would do. I spoke against this concept during the passage of the then Children and Families Bill, and therefore feel that I should at least explain my position and establish where we go from here. At that point, I shared the view expressed by the Minister on behalf of the Government: namely, that we should make absolutely sure that staff in existing services had the necessary training to enable them to help these young people, particularly those who end up in children’s homes and subsequently disappear. Far too many young children go in and out of children’s homes, and I shall speak briefly on that.

As I say, I spoke against this concept at that point in the hope that we would be able to develop satisfactory services. Since then I have had conversations with people involved in social services. As many noble Lords will be aware, the stress on services at local level is at its highest at present. My own local authority has to find several millions of pounds more from its budget in the next few years. That money will come out of children’s services and care services as well as other areas and will reduce the services that we all strongly believe have to be provided. That makes me wonder how social workers, who are so incredibly hard pressed, will be able to develop the skills needed to help these young people.

Some local authorities are doing very well in this regard. I work with Children and Families Across Borders, and have met some of its workers. This organisation works with young people whose immigration, trafficked and care statuses are all in total confusion. Sometimes it takes four social workers and two local authorities working across local authority borders to track down and help these children. I am somewhat distressed in that two of the proposers of the amendment are two of my closest friends, whom I admire enormously, but, does the noble Lord, Lord McColl, really think that volunteers can work with these children?

Recently, I have undertaken work in the areas of safeguarding and witchcraft. Many noble Lords may know that trafficked young people are often told that a spirit will attack their families back home if they break the cycle in which they are trapped with their traffickers. They believe that this will happen and consequently they continually leave safe places to go back to the traffickers, not through perversity but because they believe that in so doing they are protecting their families. That is a complex concept for a social worker or, indeed, anyone to understand.

At this moment, I must say to my two colleagues that I am undecided about how I should vote. This is partly because I do not understand where the guardian would stand in the structure. Here I look to the Minister and to those proposing the amendment. Having worked for eight years in the children and family court service, as chair and vice-chair, I know all about guardians in that service. Where would these guardians stand? All workers need some sort of management. How would they relate to the local authority? What would the local authority’s role be? How do they differ from advocates? I have heard some examples, but still do not clearly understand the difference.

What I do know is that these young people desperately need someone who will understand them emotionally and who is hard-headed enough to understand the dangers. As we hear from many organisations working with these young people, the traffickers are dangerous not only to the children but to the workers, who must understand the danger of their work. The other issue is that without some sort of supervision for advocates or guardians, they cannot do the work. Everyone working with this sort of emotional stress needs a supervisor—I would never do it without a mentor. I leave these questions in the air before I shall decide where I stand on this issue this time around.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

The noble Baroness is perhaps right to chide me, but we are seeking to get this matter right. It is in the interests of the children to make sure that the public authorities that have to deal with this problem have a proper ground on which to do so. This is not an easy area. We are dealing with children whose situation is very different from that which we ourselves experienced as children or, indeed, our own children have experienced. These are very different terms and to get that right is important.

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland]

I apologise for interrupting the Minister, but I happen to agree with him that the most important thing is to get this right. Having heard the arguments so far, I do not think any of these options have been properly thought through to their conclusion to ensure that we get this right. Looking at what is happening on the ground at the moment, we could actually have another difficult, disastrous situation. Therefore, I ask the Minister: did I mishear, or did he say that the advocates would be set up under some sort of statutory regulation? I think the thing that concerns the House is the authority by which the advocates would be able to operate.

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

They would advocate in exactly the same way as they do currently in Scotland. There is no statutory scheme in Scotland but they are respected by the authorities there. What I am saying to the noble Baroness and, indeed, the House, is that setting them up under a statutory scheme is one of the matters that we will find out as a result of having these trials in place. This, to my mind, makes sense. Given what the noble Baroness is advocating, I sense that she is on my side because she can see the complexity of the issue.

I think that the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, is on my side. She is perhaps right to chide me for not acting more promptly, but none the less there are limitations to these amendments, which do not provide, for example, for the involvement of UK-trafficked children. We want the trial to deal with children whose trafficking origin may be from crossing borders but may well be within the UK—they are equally vulnerable and can equally benefit from having an advocate operating on their behalf.

Let me perhaps deal with some questions, as I have talked a lot about how I feel and noble Lords will know that I feel quite strongly about this particular issue. I was asked by my noble friend Lord McColl whether the independent advocate would operate in the same way as the guardian. Our advocates will be allocated to children in the trial as soon as they can be identified, with no delay. Any provided for the purpose of this trial will provide 24-hour access to their service to ensure this. As I have said, the role of the advocate is almost entirely identical to the role that the noble Lord outlined. Under existing arrangements, the victim must be informed of their right to an independent advocate. The advocate will be available to all potential child trafficking victims participating in the trial whether or not they are in receipt of support from the local authority—that is, in the care system. Therefore, one does not have to be in the care system to be entitled to receive this support. Children will be allocated to the advocate automatically as soon as they are identified as potential victims.