Immigration Bill (Sixth sitting)

Chloe Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 27th October 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Keir Starmer]

I beg to move amendment 60, in clause 2, page 2, line 26, at end insert—

‘(3A) The Director must engage with civil society in the development of his or her labour market enforcement strategy.”

To expressly require engagement between civil society and the Director of Labour Market Enforcement in the development of the labour market enforcement strategy.

The amendment would require the director of labour market enforcement to engage with civil society in the development of the labour market enforcement strategy. Page 26 of the Government’s consultation document “Tackling Exploitation in the Labour Market” states that a director:

“will engage with a wide range of stakeholders to gather insights and perspectives on real world practices, improve detection of exploitation and understand external views of the effectiveness of the enforcement landscape. Stakeholders will include Government departments, the IASC, the police, local authorities and other public bodies; organisations representing employers and employees across the economy and in particular sectors of interest; and a range of third sector bodies that engage with vulnerable/exploited groups.”

The amendment would make that explicit in the Bill.

It is important that the voice of organisations working with victims of labour exploitation, trade unions and others are invited to feed their expertise into the director’s work, especially at the strategy stage. The absence of any formal engagement strategy will mean that the director may fail to gain the breadth of front-line experience and expertise required to prepare an evidence-based strategy. This is linked to the resource point that was made earlier. With extremely limited resources, it will be very hard for the director to gather the range of information required to complete a comprehensive labour market assessment, so strong engagement mechanisms will be required to ensure that all expertise is integrated into the strategy. The amendment would strengthen the strategy and formalise the involvement of others who have expertise and experience, as is recognised in the consultation document, and ensure that the strategy is as strong as it needs to be, if the approach is to be the step change that we hope it will be.

[Chloe Smith (Norwich North) (Con)]

The hon. and learned Gentleman has tabled an extremely interesting amendment. Has he given more thought as to how “civil society” ought to be defined? If he is going to put that phrase into primary legislation, it should be well defined. Of course, he would expect there to be consequences if the director does not do what the Bill says the director must do. Could the hon. and learned Gentleman better define civil society and explain how he would enforce such a thing?

[Keir Starmer]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for that intervention. In a sense, the intent is to formalise what was envisaged in the consultation document, which contained a fairly lengthy list—I read it out a moment ago—of stakeholders, including organisations representing employers and employees, and third sector bodies that engage with vulnerable and exploited groups. It might be helpful to go a bit further than that, but the intention was to formalise what was rightly set out in the consultation document—the bodies with which the director should engage—using the words “civil society”. That is what lies behind the amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Champion]

I speak in support of my hon. and learned Friend. It is fundamentally wrong to make the employee a criminal—it makes no sense. I have not been convinced by any of the witnesses we have heard or any of the evidence that I have seen that this is the right way to achieve the Government’s objectives.

My main concern is that the measure will compound exploitation. I would like to quote Caroline Robinson, one of our witnesses, from FLEX—Focus on Labour Exploitation—who put the three issues more succinctly than I can. She said:

“First, we think that people will be fearful of coming forward to be referred into the UK national referral mechanism as victims of trafficking…The second reason is that we know that traffickers use the threat of deportation, removal and reporting to immigration officials in order to abuse and exploit workers…The third reason is something that was raised a lot on Second Reading, namely the criminalisation of trafficked persons. Although the Home Secretary set out the statutory defence, which is in the Modern Slavery Act 2015, it is quite narrow in its terms. The schedules exclude a number of offences for the victims of trafficking, such as aggravated criminal damage, but if I was to leave the building in which I was held I would no longer be covered by the statutory defence in the Modern Slavery Act.”––[Official Report, Immigration Public Bill Committee, 20 October 2015; c. 24-25, Q50.]

My biggest concern is that the measure will stop whistleblowers. How will we identify bad employers if the very people who can give us that evidence are too scared to come forward for fear of being criminalised? It is not only bad employers that could be overlooked, but health and safety risks that could impact on a number of employees.

I am pleased about the Modern Slavery Act, which is a good and strong piece of legislation. I am also very pleased that the Minister has made it clear that people are protected under the Act if they are trafficked into the country. If they are used as a slave, they are exploited. However, I would like clarification from the Minister about how someone will be dealt with if their status shifts. For example, if someone was trafficked into the country and forced into slavery, but then managed to escape and became an illegal worker, would they be protected because at the start of their journey they were protected under the Modern Slavery Act, meaning that they would be treated as a victim, or would they be criminalised because, at the end of their journey, they were an illegal worker? What happens the opposite way round? If a person comes to the UK as an undocumented worker and is then exploited by their employer, at what point would they be protected if, having come to the country illegally as a worker, they were then used as a slave?

[Chloe Smith]

The hon. Lady and I both served on the Committee that considered the Bill that became the Modern Slavery Act. I looked at the list of exemptions in that Act while we heard the piece of evidence that she quoted. It is worth reminding the Committee that there is a set of defences in the Act, and to that set of defences, there is a set of exemptions. In that set of exemptions—this is rather like a Russian doll, but bear with me—there is an exemption on this point of criminal damage. In other words, an individual might be at risk of being accused of criminal damage only if they had behaved recklessly and endangered somebody’s life. That is in the Modern Slavery Act 2015, which the hon. Lady and I debated. Has she reflected on that before trying to advance this line of argument that the provision is all one thing, rather than being nuanced?