Modern Slavery Bill

Baroness Kennedy of Shaws Excerpts

Monday 17th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate the Government on their recognition of the seriousness of this issue and I welcome the Home Secretary’s determination to see that the United Kingdom leads the international community in tackling one of the most serious human rights challenges in the contemporary world. As others have said, in this area there can be unity in this House and a strong, coherent piece of legislation can be produced which has cross-party support.

There is nothing new about the exploitation of human beings by their fellow man. Slavery is of ancient vintage, as we know. What is new is globalisation. While many people have been lifted from poverty by the expansion of markets, many others live on the dark side. All the advances in technology and communications which stimulate the operation of global markets, from cell phones to connection through e-mail and the internet, from the electronic transfer of money to ease of travel—all those things which help markets to work also feed the murky underbelly of the market with equal assiduity. I know this from my work in the criminal courts. Globalisation has brought in its wake an explosive increase in illegal trade—in arms, drugs, fissile material, human organs, genetic material such as human eggs, babies for illegal adoption, women, children and young men for sex or for domestic servitude or forced labour, as others have said. There is nothing that cannot be sold and I emphasise that law is fundamental in addressing this, both nationally and internationally.

I had the privilege of acting as the investigative commissioner for the Equality and Human Rights Commission in Scotland, which reported on human trafficking. It was the UK Equality and Human Rights Commission that had charge of this inquiry. We looked at Scotland because it gave us an insight into a smaller area that could provide lessons for the whole United Kingdom. I also sit on the Joint Committee on Human Rights and have acted in a professional capacity as a lawyer for trafficked women. This is, therefore, a field in which I have a special interest and perhaps some expertise.

I, too, would like to see this Bill being more victim-focused—at the moment it is not. The reason prosecutions are difficult to bring and convictions hard to secure is that victims are in abject terror. I have taken evidence from victims of trafficking, and you can feel the fear in the room when they give their accounts. Their fear is not just for their own lives but those of their children—if they have children back home—of their parents, and of other people they love. They know the kind of people they are dealing with. They know the consequences of involving the authorities. They are often also fearful of authority, because they come from places where authority is not to be trusted. It is fair to say that they do not know who to trust.

The way to secure better outcomes and to end this vile abuse of human rights is to concentrate on the victims. That is how you get successful prosecutions; that is how you get to the traffickers. So there should be a statutory right to assistance—as others have said in this Chamber—with a requirement to conduct individual assessments, case by case, of those who we fear have been trafficked.

The national referral mechanism has to be reviewed and the time for reflection extended to—I agree on this with the noble Lord, Lord McColl—at least 90 days. People who are afraid and who start giving their account need time to reflect on the implications of it. They have to be sure what the future will hold for them before they can feel confident enough to commit themselves to giving evidence in court against those who have trafficked them. Victims need reassurance that they will be well catered to. As the noble Lord, Lord McColl, says, this should be spelt out in the Bill. I agree with him—I thought he made one of the most powerful speeches in this debate.

There are lots of good things in the Bill. I welcome the special measures extension to trafficked victims: that they should be able to give their evidence via video and avoid all contact with those they accuse. However, I am very concerned about the problems in securing the welfare of victims while they are waiting, before there can be any prosecutions. They need support, housing and legal aid for many other matters they have to deal with. I would like to see special arrangements. I welcome the suggestion by the right reverend Prelate that there should be some privileging of the position of those who have been trafficked.

In the months before a case comes to trial many witnesses are traduced by their traffickers—they are found. It is amazing how it happens, but they can often be traced. Family members of the trafficked person are prevailed upon to seek to induce them to take their evidence away. We have to find ways of providing the right kind of support before a matter comes to trial. I have had evidence from women of the ways in which, even in the aftermath of trials, they have had pressure put on them or threats made to their lives.

I, too, would like to see a greater synergy with Northern Ireland and what is being drafted in Scotland. I think it right that we have been ousted by Northern Ireland’s progressiveness on this. As I understand it, in Scotland, too, the First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, is giving this priority and will shortly be announcing the Bill that will be going through the Scottish Parliament. Again, there should be much greater coherence among the different parts of the United Kingdom.

I agree with other noble Lords about the need to strengthen the powers, scope and remit of the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner, which really are not framed well enough at the moment. I also agree with others in being somewhat disappointed that the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, who is such an authority on issues to do with abuse, children and so forth, is too accepting of what arrangements are in the Bill, which could be greatly strengthened. When the Joint Committee on Human Rights reported on this, it made some very sensible suggestions.

On children, I agree with the criticisms made by other noble Lords. We should have a special offence in relation to the exploitation of children—and, as a lawyer, that is not to deny the problems that there are in defining exploitation. That will not be easy but we have to take a crack at it. I would like to see greater powers and independence in the role of the child advocate, in the way that was described by the noble Lord, Lord McColl.

On the Gangmasters Licensing Authority, I, too, want to see an expansion of its powers. When I took testimony from it, I was greatly impressed by the work that it was doing. It really is one of the keys to improving the working conditions of exploited labour and I emphasise some of the points raised about how important it is.

On supply chains, very quickly, when the Rana Plaza collapsed in Bangladesh, 200 companies in the clothing retail sector got together with their competitors to say that there had to be inspectorates, support for health and safety audits and so on. Corporates are engaging with human rights issues, which matter to their brands. The UN has produced some principles, which are called the Ruggie principles after the professor of law at Harvard who put them together with help from places such as Oxford University, where I am based. We put together a set of principles to which the corporates are now signing up. I support what my noble friend and namesake Lady Kennedy said about the importance of this part of the Bill and how it can be strengthened.

There are many entrenched and vested interests in all this, some of which might to be do with businesses that are not so highly ambitious as some of the corporates. However, men and patriarchy have to be addressed, too. The idea that there is an entitlement to sexual servicing is one of the problems in all this. Men could play a vital role in ending the kind of sexual exploitation which I have seen trafficked women experience. I urge all noble Lords to try to get the Bill to a better place. It is highly important as its subject is serious human rights abuse.