Serious Crime Bill [Lords]

Debate between Diana Johnson and Steve Barclay

Monday 23rd February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Barclay (North East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

I find the shadow Minister’s response to my hon. Friend quite staggering. She made the same point about new clause 28, which I have tabled. Is it seriously the Opposition’s case that 31 days is sufficient time to investigate multimillion-pound suspicious activity reports such as that in the case of OPL 245?

[Diana Johnson]

I want to hear the comments that the hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Esher and Walton will make about their new clauses. Time is limited, and on the instructions of Mr Speaker I am trying to keep my comments short. I am pointing out that there may be unintended consequences of how the clauses are currently drafted.

Modern Slavery Bill

Debate between Diana Johnson and Steve Barclay

Tuesday 4th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Barclay]

The hon. Lady is making powerful points about what teeth the guidance will have. Does she think that there are lessons to be drawn from when this House debated the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000, when it was believed that the behaviour of the banks would be influenced by reputational damage, a belief that was found to be false in the light of their future conduct? There seems to be a reliance on the idea that guidance in itself will have a deterrent effect on major corporations, but that has to be backed up with some teeth.

[Diana Johnson]

I could not agree more. That is why it was important that I set out why new clause 5 deals in detail with the kind of issues that need to be clearly addressed in secondary legislation. I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s intervention.

Just to recap: we support the Government’s new clause 11. Obviously, we want to wait and see what happens with the secondary legislation as it is introduced. It is surprising that the Government have gone against the Joint Committee’s recommendation and the evidence presented by several large companies arguing against stand-alone regulation, although the Government have now seen fit to pursue that. That poses particular problems for enforcement. I am sure the Minister has seen the briefing from the coalition of groups campaigning for change, which states:

“Monitoring of compliance with the provision needs to be taken seriously as this will be central to its success in driving change. We are concerned that the provision is currently weak on how monitoring and enforcement will be undertaken. The Government’s approach relies on a civil enforcement procedure by the Secretary of State, which means that in reality the measure would be unlikely to deter any businesses other than those who would in any case seek to comply on a voluntary basis.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Diana Johnson]

New clause 3 and new clause 4 seek to introduce specific offences for child and adult exploitation, and I would like to test the opinion of the House at the appropriate time.

The Bill fails to cover cases of severe labour exploitation, and many recent high profile cases show we need specific laws to tackle it. New clause 3 would also help to stop workers being exploited and paid below the minimum wage, which is often a driving force behind local businesses being undercut by unscrupulous employers. The new clause would be a historic measure that would, for the first time, make the exploitation of workers, adults and children an offence. Importantly, it also addresses what has been described as “a lacuna” in the Bill, which fails to recognise the specific nature of exploitation of children in the UK and fails to address the issues that have led to so few successful prosecutions for child trafficking and slavery. This grouping incorporates a series of amendments from all parties with a common aim—to enable more prosecutions for trafficking, slavery or exploitation. This is exactly in line with what the Minister said repeatedly in Committee about getting more prosecutions.

At this stage, the Opposition are focusing specifically on the offences of exploitation, even though in Committee we tabled or supported many of the other amendments that have been tabled today. We support their aims and hope to return to them in the other place.

The Government claim that the Bill will enable more prosecutions. To do so, it transposes existing offences from three pieces of legislation into a single Bill. The Bill maintains the current offence of holding someone in slavery and merges two existing offences of human trafficking into a single offence of human trafficking. To secure a prosecution for human trafficking, it is necessary to show that X was trafficked and that this trafficking was done for the purposes of exploitation. It is important to stress that, because nothing in the Bill deals with the structures of these offences or the very high threshold needed to get convictions. In short, I do not think there is anything here that will enable more prosecutions.

[Stephen Barclay]

Is the hon. Lady as surprised as I am that, as far as I am aware, only one person has ever gone to jail for breach of a Gangmasters Licensing Authority offence? Does that speak to the high hurdles to which she alludes?

[Diana Johnson]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very important point. We shall discuss the GLA later, but the hon. Gentleman’s point shows why we need to think again about the offences in the Bill and how we can make them stronger to ensure that we get more prosecutions.