Modern Slavery Bill

Baroness Lister of Burtersett Excerpts

Wednesday 25th February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hanham (Con)]

My Lords, my name is also attached to this amendment and since the start of the Bill it is one of the areas of this legislation that I have been most concerned about. Nobody could have failed to be moved by the television programmes that we have seen, the reports that we have heard, and the work done by Kalayaan, which has been very much hampered by the fact that the changes to the visa system took place in 2012.

In this 21st century it is absolutely unacceptable that people are coming in to this country tied to an employer, unable to do anything for themselves and absolutely under the instruction of the person for whom they are working and who has brought them into the country. We would not stand for this for a second if things were otherwise. It is time that we stopped standing for it. We desperately need to make the changes that will enable people who come here to feel reasonably free, reasonably able to live in this country and reasonably able to know that if things go horribly wrong with their employer—as so many of these cases clearly do—there is some redress to somebody who can help them and there is some way out.

When talking to Kalayaan, which deals with the forefront of the work that goes on, it is clear that under the current situation it feels completely helpless to ensure, first, that people can get to it and secondly that if people do come, it can do anything to help them. In Committee, I pointed out that one of the systems in place to help domestic workers know what to do if they run into trouble is a card that is delivered to them if they are lucky—if it does not go into the pocket of their employer—at London airports. It gives them the telephone number of ACAS and a couple of other telephone numbers that they can ring up if they are in trouble. Most of these people have their telephones taken away from them. They do not have access to a telephone. They do not know people in this country. They cannot get out of the premises or the property in order to find other people.

The Minister has a reputation for having responded sympathetically, pragmatically and sensibly to all the issues that have been brought up. The number of government amendments that have come through over the past few weeks has been amazing. I pay tribute to him for the fact that he and the Minister in the other place have listened. I say now, please, will the Minister do this one further thing and listen to this particular problem? It is absolutely germane to modern slavery. It is one of the elements of modern slavery that we cannot overlook. I think this House will really not have shown itself at its best if we do not manage to pass this amendment, which will help—it will not do the trick but it will help other organisations help those who need it.

The mischief, of course, was the change to the visa system in 2012. I understand why—I understand the need to control immigration—but I do not think that we are going to break the bounds of numbers if we help and look after these people. We are not asking that they should stay in the country for ever. What we are asking is for the Government to say that this country does mind about what happens to people who come into it, particularly when they have no means of helping themselves. I very much hope that in his response to what has been put forward today, the Minister will be able to reassure us that the Government will take this amendment on board.

Finally, I think a review is splendid. It is one of the ways of shifting responsibility off to another day. I can see that it would be very nice to have a perfect review of all the implications but there are at least two, if not three, very well thought-out reports already. The Joint Committee on the Bill, on which I sat, went into this in great detail. I do not think we will miss very much if the Minister says that the review could take place but in the mean time agrees to the amendment, which I support.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I will speak very briefly in support of the amendment. Rereading our debate in Committee, I was struck first by the unanimity of your Lordships’ House in support of the amendment but also by the tone of the debate, which was very different from the very positive tone there has been throughout the rest of the debates on the Bill. There was an air of exasperation, expressed particularly by the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, who is not able to be here today, and my noble friend Lady Royall.

I think the frustration was partly because the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, claimed to share our concerns—and I am sure she does—yet responded with a series of totally unconvincing arguments. In particular, she seemed to be making the case on the basis of a hypothetical possible increase in abuse as a result of the amendment while seeming to discount the actual evidence of what, according to Kalayaan, happened after 1998 when similar rights were first introduced, which was a clear decrease in abuse reported to it, and then what happened post-April 2012 when those rights were rescinded, which was a significant increase in abuse reported. The Minister twice invited Members of your Lordships’ House to offer suggestions as to what we could do to prevent the abuse. The unanimous suggestion from all over the House, as well as from the Joint Committee on the draft Bill and the Joint Committee on Human Rights, was that we should restore the status quo ante—pre-2012—or something like it.

As has already been argued, there is no need for a review. We have no guarantee of what will happen as a result of that review after the election. How many more women will be subjected to forced labour and exploitation and the kind of suffering so movingly expressed in the example given by the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, before we are prepared to act? We have the opportunity to act today to remove an injustice that is totally against the principles underlying the Bill. I hope we will seize that opportunity.