Modern Slavery Act 2015: 10th Anniversary

Debate between Caroline Nokes and Tom Hayes

Thursday 27th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Tom Hayes]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. Particularly in the short term, as the Government are working so hard to get a grip on that delay, that could be a really helpful temporary measure to remove some of the anxiety of victims and some of the difficulties that support services encounter in trying to get more and appropriate support for victims.

The individual I was just talking about was promised that they would be able to work, but they were instead forced to arrive on a visitor visa. After three months in the UK, they became homeless and experienced severe mental health issues, including depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts, for which they are currently receiving medication. They owe a large sum of money, with interest, to the agent who facilitated their travel to the UK, and the agent has warned them not to return home. They have claimed asylum in the UK, but it is a life in limbo.

In a second case, a former constituent was trafficked into the UK while pregnant for forced prostitution. She has now been recognised as a victim of modern slavery and granted asylum. In a third and final case, another female constituent asked for help in seeking accommodation following her escape from an abusive marriage. She has been receiving support from the Liberty Project run by the Bournemouth Churches Housing Association, which provides a shelter for women escaping modern slavery in my constituency.

Why have I mentioned these three people? It is not merely because their voices deserve to be heard in this Parliament, but because all of us as MPs have had contact with victims and survivors of modern slavery. All of us know from first-hand experience about the pressures and difficulties in the system, and we bring that into how we try to improve the system. I think that is important for the public to know, because I do not think they often know about the casework aspects of what we do, and how it is so important in informing what we do when bringing forward legislative change.

I mentioned the Liberty Project run by BCHA, which is a fantastic organisation working across Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole. It provides safe house accommodation and frontline support to potential survivors through their reflection and recovery periods, and here I want to make a plea to the Minister. BCHA, like so many organisations, provides trauma-informed, person-centred approaches. It is so critical for such organisations to have the funds they need to walk alongside victims who have gone through the worst experience of their lives, so that they do not have a requirement to tick boxes, but can sit and listen to people and work with them to recover in the ways they need; to reach a point in their lives where they want to be, whether that is in work, training or education. I commend our third sector organisations for what they do, and I ask for additional Government support to prop them up. I know that my hon. Friend the Minister is such a firm advocate for the third sector and for victim support, from her lifetime of working in the sector.

I want to talk about goods coming into our country that are infected with slavery, picking up on the comment by my hon. Friend the Member for East Renfrewshire (Blair McDougall). I may now refer to him as the “fresh and beautiful” Member, as that is how he described himself—you were not in the Chair for that reflection, Madam Deputy Speaker, which explains why you look so surprised.

Bournemouth airport in my constituency is one of two major airports in the UK—the other is Cardiff—where goods made by forced labour, particularly in China, are coming into our country, and we must get a grip of that. I commend Bournemouth’s Daily Echo for its reporting, which has shone a light on this, and the work of colleagues in this House and the other place in trying to expose this horrible activity. We need to stop goods infected with slavery from coming into our country, and I will be calling on the Government to do more on that.

Since coming into office nine months ago, the Government have done a fantastic amount of good work. I have mentioned the reforms to the rented sector, the reforms to employment rights and the investment in our public services, which will prop up vulnerable young lives and reduce vulnerability to enslavement. I commend the commitment to combating cuckooing as a specific offence, our commitment to introducing a stand-alone offence of child exploitation, and the creation of the Fair Work Agency through the Employment Rights Bill. I also commend the drive to eradicate the decisions backlog, which will come in time as we have hired 200 additional Home Office staff to process modern slavery cases. I am also particularly pleased that the modern slavery portfolio is held by the Minister for safeguarding and violence against women and girls.

I want to close by talking about a really important contributor to the fight against modern slavery: the Co-operative movement. I want to do that by going back in time. In 1864, Manchester was Cottonopolis: the biggest industrial city in the world based on cotton. Some 90% of the UK’s cotton came from the Confederacy and the US civil war was happening at that time. It was also in 1864 that the Lancashire famine was happening and people were dying on the streets of Manchester. But the weavers wrote to Abraham Lincoln to say that they were on his side and that they supported his fight against slavery. At the time, they were working one-day or two-day weeks. That is why in Manchester there is a square called Lincoln Square, by the John Dalton Library, with a statue of Abraham Lincoln. In 1864 he wrote back to the people of Manchester, thanking them for their

“heroism unknown in any age and any country”.

People in Manchester in 1864 bonded together to fight slavery, despite the cost to their own lives.

This country has been a compassionate and kind country, working hard in our communities and at Government and Parliament level to tackle modern slavery, but we are now at an inflection point. As we heard from colleagues, the world is more unstable, the risks of modern slavery are greater, and we need to tackle this issue with UK leadership on the world stage. I thank Baroness May, who 10 years ago did so much to lead the way. I commend the work of the Government, who I know are committed to leading the world on this matter too.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

That brings us to the Front-Bench contributions. I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

Nuclear Industry: Cumbria

Debate between Caroline Nokes and Tom Hayes

Monday 14th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Tom Hayes (Bournemouth East) (Lab)]

It is a privilege to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mr Brash). I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Whitehaven and Workington (Josh MacAlister) for securing the debate.

To meet our growing energy needs and prevent the catastrophic costs of climate change, we need nuclear alongside renewables. It is that simple. With nuclear power, more jobs will be highly skilled, well paid and unionised, and here I commend the dedicated and consistent work of the GMB union over many years.

If ever anyone wanted to see the difference between our new Government and the last, nuclear power is a good place to start. The Conservatives may talk a good game about nuclear power, but I note that not a single Conservative Member of Parliament is sitting on the Opposition Benches. Fourteen years of Conservative rule have got us nowhere. No nuclear plants were built, despite a positive inheritance of 10 approved nuclear sites from the last Labour Government. David Cameron sent Horizon in Wales and NewGen in Cumbria to the wall—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

Order. I gently remind the hon. Member, who should sit when I am standing, that the debate is specifically titled “Nuclear Industry: Cumbria”, and he might like to confine his comments to Cumbria.

[Tom Hayes]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Just to repeat, David Cameron sent Horizon in Wales and NewGen in Cumbria to the wall. George Osborne begged the Chinese to invest in nuclear power, and we are now unpicking his mistake. Theresa May proceeded to pause Hinkley Point C, nearly killing it off, and Sizewell with it. Boris Johnson may have shown some love to nuclear, but what came of it? Thankfully, Liz Truss was in power for too short a time to do any more damage, and the right hon. Member for Richmond and Northallerton (Rishi Sunak) focused only on small modular reactors in the dying days of his Government.

It is important to spell out the ways in which Conservative Prime Ministers have done such damage to nuclear across our country, because they have therefore stymied the development of nuclear in Cumbria. As my hon. Friend the Member for Whitehaven and Workington has said, it is important that we proceed with plans there. The last Conservative Government had 14 years and a multitude of nuclear projects to sign off, with developers desperate to build. Right now, we could be building Hinkley, NewGen, Sizewell and small modular reactors, as we were just hearing. Instead, two projects were collapsed, there was endless talk about the financing of Sizewell instead of building it and practically nothing was done about small modular reactors.

Turning narrowly to Sizewell C, I am delighted by this Labour Government’s commitment and determination to reach a final investment decision as soon as possible. Investing in nuclear is not just right for our country; it is right for all our communities. It can affect not just our current generation, but generations to come. Our mission—Labour’s mission—is not just about reducing damage from fossil fuels for the benefit of all; it is about our hopes for a better future, and I am pleased that they rest in large part on the prospect of British nuclear power.