Modern Slavery Bill

Baroness Howe of Idlicote Excerpts

Monday 8th December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote (CB)]

My Lords, I support the principle contained in Amendments 66, 67ZA and 67ZAA, but also most, if not all, of the amendments that have been spoken to, all of which are immensely important to the debate. I also congratulate my noble friend Lady Cox on what she had to say, because that dimension clearly is important and needs to be taken fully into consideration.

It is essential that the commissioner’s role engages with the experience of victims, and in particular that he should have the authority to take a leading role in promoting best practice and the highest possible standards in the care that victims are given. There are two very clear reasons for this. First, I believe that we have a duty to protect and support victims of these terrible crimes. I will speak more about how I think we need to strengthen the Bill in that regard when we reach Part 5. To see that that duty is effectively carried out, there needs to be some form of oversight—someone to champion the cause, not of individual victims, but of all victims. Good practice in how to provide support and care to victims needs to be shared with other organisations that fulfil the same role. We need someone who can independently identify that good practice and help to disseminate those models or skills to the wider network of organisations involved in this support work. The recent review of the NRM was a welcome development, but ongoing monitoring of support that is able to pick up examples of especially good care provision and identify where things need to be improved should be much more effective. I understand that there are probably some assessment processes built into the contract for providing the victim support programme, but in reading the NRM review and the report of the Joint Committee on the draft Bill I feel that there is a vital co-ordinating and monitoring role that the commissioner could and should play in this regard.

The second reason why I support these amendments is that it is well known that victims who are well supported make better witnesses in police investigations and court proceedings. It therefore seems to me that, since Clause 41 requires the commissioner to promote good practice relating to investigations and prosecutions, he may well need to encourage practice that promotes the needs of the victim as a witness. Yet, by not giving him authority to promote good practice in the support and protection of victims, he will only be able to look at improving the way that law enforcement agencies treat victims in the course of investigations or court cases, not the wider structure of support. This seems to be very short-sighted and could possibly limit the commissioner’s effectiveness.

In conclusion, I find that it is rather disappointing to discover that the role is purely focused on operational improvements in law enforcement. The title “anti-slavery commissioner” conjures up images of a much more holistic and comprehensive approach to addressing modern-day slavery in our nation. I urge the Government to accept the principle of Amendments 66, 67ZA and 67ZAA and many, if not all, of the others that have been mentioned today, and expand the role of the commissioner to include oversight of support and protection of victims.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as chairman of a company which, in working with companies on their corporate responsibility, has to look at ways to eradicate modern slavery in their supply chains. One therefore has some direct understanding of the problems that the commissioner will face. I associate myself with the generality of the arguments put forward, particularly those of the noble Lord, Lord Patel, and the noble Baroness who spoke so movingly earlier on. It is obviously difficult to get the balance right and none of us should ignore the fact that, if you are not careful, you have a commissioner who is commissioner for everything. The Government are trying to ensure that the commissioner has a series of priorities and deals with things sufficiently narrowly so that he is not pushed all over the place. I understand the Minister’s problems, but I suggest that there are some elements in what has been said which may not have been adequately presented in the wording of the amendments but which the Government might like to look at to see whether they can bring forward amendments themselves to cover some of the central issues.

The first of these was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Warner, who pointed to the fact that the international implications of what we are doing here must not be ignored. Modern slavery is not a national activity: of its nature, it has international ramifications. We may well not want to put in the Bill that the commissioner may work with high commissioners, ambassadors and the like all over the world, but we must have something which would make it impossible for people to object if the commissioner, in his work, were to reach out beyond the shores of the United Kingdom. Otherwise, I do not believe that he can achieve what the Bill intends.

They may not be the ways of doing it, but the kinds of implication which the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, put forward have got to be thought of seriously by the Government. In practical terms, you may be working with a British company but, in order to give advice on its corporate responsibility, you have to deal with some possible slavery situation far away. If you were restricted in not being able to be in touch with, deal with and discuss with people in those countries, you would not be able to do your job properly. That is an important parallel with the commissioner.

Secondly, independence is a vital part of this. I am very excited about the Bill: it is another of those occasions when Britain has taken a significant step ahead of very many other countries. As chairman of the Climate Change Committee, I see a sort of parallel to this. We are doing something of real value to the world as a whole. Drawing from my experiences with that committee, it is of considerable importance to your independence that you are seen not as a departmental subject but as open to advising the Government as a whole. I therefore hope that the Government will look again at exactly how the terms of the relationships between the Home Office and the commissioner are drawn. This is not because I think that either this Home Secretary or this commissioner will find it difficult to work together. It is that we are not legislating for this Home Secretary or this commissioner; we are legislating so that the office of commissioner shall develop in the way that offices develop in the context of different personalities in the Home Office and as commissioners.

Therefore, I hope that the Minister will think seriously about whether there are ways to make sure that the independence of the commissioner can be seen to be clear even in those countries where the idea of independence is quite difficult—which brings me to the core of this argument. We are of course legislating for Britain but we know that we may well be legislating in a way that will be copied by others. Indeed, Ministers have been very clear in saying that they hope that this will be copied by others. It is true that we will not deal with modern slavery unless it is copied by others.

The Government need to be very careful about assuming that, if you have the relationship which at the moment is adumbrated in the Bill, people will understand that the commissioner is as independent as he actually is. The wording about redaction and the like can easily be adapted by those countries where what that would mean would be that the commissioner would not be independent at all but would be the subject of whatever is their equivalent of the Home Secretary. One thing that we need to be careful about here is not to feel that other people carry with them the cultural understanding that we have when we talk about independence and know that that independence will in our system be properly respected. When my noble friend replies, I hope that he will not say, “Well, we all know that it will all be independent and perfectly all right”. Even if we knew that, the Bill will not be seen by others in the context of that knowledge. Therefore, getting the wording right and making sure that the independence is clear is crucial.

As chairman of the Climate Change Committee, I have to say that it is extremely helpful to be able to point to the Act and say, “I am doing this because the Act tells me not only that I have a right to do it but that I have a duty to do it”. That is important because the choice of what you do does not of itself imply a political or other bias. I am now about to start on the report which will assess the success of the Government in mitigation and adaptation, which will come out in the middle of next year. No one can say that it will come out in June because I have chosen the moment in order to inform some possible new Government; it comes out in June because the Act says that it has to come out in June. That gives enormous independence, because it makes sure that the choice cannot be cast into dispute.

My worry about the way in which this commissioner’s job is placed is that, at the same time, it appears to restrict him and not to give him sufficiently strong direction for him to be able to say, “I have done this because the Act requires me to behave in this way”. So I suppose that I am asking the Government particularly to listen to today’s debate and to say to themselves, “Are we sure we’ve got this balance quite right? Can we take from what has been said today a sufficiency of advice and information to rewrite this part of the Act in order to make the amendments perhaps not as extensive or as detailed as has been suggested but to make such amendments as will ensure that what the commissioner says he wants to do will be absolutely congruent with what the Act says he ought to do?”.

Otherwise, if from the beginning he does what the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, reports that he intends to do, there is ground for arguing that that is in some sense outwith the scope of the Act. I have a very simple worry, and I ask my noble friend to accept it entirely in this spirit: it is that this great démarche—this Act of such importance—might find itself in this kind of argument, which is the last thing we want, very early on in its implementation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)]

My Lords, I support these amendments, including the amendment in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Patel, and the noble Baroness, Lady Lister. I, too, pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord McColl, and the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, who have been at the forefront of this commitment to there being an advocate for children.

I want to emphasise some of the things said by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister. I, too, sit on the Joint Committee on Human Rights and we took evidence on unaccompanied migrant children. The concerns about dilution are somewhat misplaced because the experience of people who are doing this kind of work—and I am speaking about colleagues at the Bar—is that children, like adults who have been trafficked, in the first instance because of fear of those who have trafficked them, do not immediately disclose. It is often after some trust has been developed that children will eventually disclose matters that show that they have, in fact, been trafficked and that they are precisely the kind of child whom we should be concerned about. If a child is unaccompanied, almost invariably there is a back story and it takes time to gain the confidence of the child for the full story to become clear. It is important that we recognise that the role of the child advocate should be from the very point of dealing with the child arriving in the country or identified in the country as being unaccompanied but being a migrant.

I want to reinforce some things that were said by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss. Local authorities often, I am afraid, fail to understand or respond adequately to the needs of trafficked children. Of course, they have their own problems now financially and so they are feeling particularly hard-pressed. A legal advocate has to have powers to compel the council to act; otherwise we will see real gaps in the provision for these children, who need to be properly assessed and supported. Without having that power, the advocate will be no more than a pleader to local authorities and there will be times when children will fall through the net.

I also press on the Government the importance of having a power to instruct legal representation. These things are complicated. The law around this is not simple and I think at quite an early stage there is going to have to be support from experts in the field of immigration law. Invariably it is about immigration law but also children’s law. If the power is not there to be able to access the right kind of legal representation for a child, then the child’s rights may not be properly argued. We often talk about international conventions. It is an area of law that is not straightforward. I hope that the Government will listen to the pleas being made by noble Lords moving these amendments, which I strongly support.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, clearly things have moved on a little since we debated the Immigration Bill on 7 April. Nevertheless, there is clearly a long way to go. I am particularly grateful to the noble Lord, Lord McColl, who I thought made a brilliant speech, and to the other noble Lords who signed this amendment and again brought this issue before your Lordships’ House with Amendment 86H. I am pleased to support them.

While I welcome the action of the Government in trialling the delivery of a child trafficking advocate system, I am disappointed that they are not being bolder in their statement of the principles that would underpin the role of the advocates. I agree with the Joint Committee on the draft Bill, which said that pilots are not,

“a substitute for a statutory advocacy scheme”.

Since that report, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child has recommended that the UK prioritises,

“the appointment of a competent and statutory guardian as expeditiously as possible to safeguard the best interests of the child during the criminal justice process and ensure that a child victim is referred to asylum-seeking or other procedures only after the appointment of a guardian”.

There are many pages of recommendations from well established and respected international organisations on how a guardian advocate system should function, which would allow us to set out a framework that could be adopted by the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

In conclusion, we are priding ourselves that this Bill is at the forefront of dealing with modern slavery and I am indeed very pleased to see all the progress that has been made in this area. However, in terms of defining what support we should provide for victims, we are not at the forefront: we are behind the curve. The Bill introduced in Northern Ireland by the noble Lord, Lord Morrow—which has its Final Stage debate tomorrow—has a statutory statement of support and assistance that will be made available to adult victims. I sincerely hope that this House will ensure that we do not remain behind the curve and that we support Amendment 86M.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, I am very pleased to speak in support of Amendment 86M, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord McColl, to which I, and the noble Lord, Lord Judd, have added our names. At Second Reading, I welcomed the fact that the Government had responded to the concerns expressed by the Joint Committee on the draft Bill about the absence of any victim care provision through the introduction of Clause 48, which requires the Secretary of State to offer guidance about victim care. I also made clear, however, that in my view this fell far short of the provision of the statement of support services for victims of trafficking that would be expected to be itemised on the face of any ambitiously titled Modern Slavery Bill, which we are encouraged to think is leading the world on these very important matters. I, too, thank the Minister for the comments in his letter sent to Peers, following Second Reading, in which he shared the concerns that we provide victims with the services that they need.

Those of your Lordships who have had an opportunity to look at the Modern Slavery Strategy, published on 29 November, will see statements about the Government's commitment to continue raising the profile of victims, which is very welcome. Paragraph 7.1 of the strategy states very clearly that,

“our approach to tackling modern slavery is victim-focused”,

but any victim looking at the support promised to them by this Bill would, I fear to say, fundamentally disagree. The current wording of Clause 48 gives very little reassurance to victims and seems to pay scant attention to our international obligations under the European convention and the European directive.

I am sure the Minister will say that we do not need Amendment 86M because all the assistance and support is being provided already. I am not convinced by that argument. I do not dispute that the Government take seriously their obligation to care for victims, as the Modern Slavery Strategy, the NRM review and the interdepartmental ministerial group policy statement have all indicated. However, I am not convinced that in practice all victims are receiving the support they are entitled to. The Joint Committee said:

“The quality of victim support and assistance provided under the NRM varies greatly. We have privately heard from victims some harrowing stories of poor medical treatment, no access to legal advice and wholly unsuitable accommodation”.

This is not an acceptable way to treat victims who, as the Government rightly say,

“have often endured horrific physical, psychological or sexual abuse at the hands of slave drivers and traffickers”.

If this Bill contained details of the minimum levels victims should be receiving under our international obligations, it would strengthen the likelihood that all victims would receive that level of assistance. Noble Lords will know that in 2012 GRETA, the Council of Europe’s group of experts, published its first analysis of UK compliance with the European Convention against Trafficking in Human Beings. Recommendations 26 and 27 state that the UK,

“should make further efforts to ensure that all potential and actual victims of trafficking are provided with adequate support and assistance from their identification through to their recovery. This should involve, in particular: … adopting clear support service minimum standards for victims of trafficking and the provision of adequate funding to maintain them; … ensuring that all children victims of trafficking benefit from the assistance measures provided for under the Convention, including appropriate accommodation and access to education … ; …. enabling victims of trafficking to have access to the labour market, vocational training and education as a form of rehabilitation; … ensuring that victims of trafficking who need it can benefit from translation and interpretation services; … improving the provision of legal advice or assistance to victims on various matters (NRM, asylum criminal proceedings, compensation)”.

Amendment 86M, which proposes to replace Clause 48, meets GRETA’s recommendations, as the noble Lord, Lord McColl, has told us.

Not only do we need to ensure that victims have access to all the support they are entitled to under the European convention and the EU directive, we also need to ensure that more victims can access this support. According to the National Crime Agency, some 60% of the potential victims who were encountered in 2013 by local authorities, police forces and NGOs were not referred to the national referral mechanism and thus could not access government-funded assistance under the victim support programme. Many other charities also say that they provide assistance to victims who do not wish to be referred to the NRM. We need to do all we can to build confidence among individual victims that, if they come forward, they will receive help.

The evidence review chaired by Frank Field for the Home Secretary prior to the publication of the draft Bill makes the following recommendation:

“The protections, entitlements and support that victims are entitled to should be clearly defined in law to help ensure that victims (and the NGOs that support them) are more confident to come forward. Formalising these provisions in law should in turn increase the accountability of the agencies responsible for delivering this support”.

I wholeheartedly agree with this, which is why I have put my name to Amendment 86M. As the UN says, in commentary on its model laws on trafficking,

“Adequate victim assistance and protection serve the interests both of the victim and of the prosecution of the offenders. From a law enforcement perspective, poor victim assistance and protection may discourage victims from seeking assistance from law enforcement officials for fear of mistreatment, deportation or potential risk to their personal safety”.