Prevention and Suppression of Terrorism

Iain Duncan Smith Excerpts

Thursday 18th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

I rise to support the Government. The proscription of Hizb ut-Tahrir is overdue, but it is always good when it happens. I continue to welcome my right hon. Friend the Minister to his position. Both of us, of course, have been sanctioned by the Chinese Government, and I may touch on this in a second.

The proscription of Hizb ut-Tahrir is overdue because it has been well known for quite some time here that the UK has been at the centre of operations. I am always concerned about how long it sometimes takes us in the UK to openly recognise that there are forces at work within this United Kingdom, using our freedoms and our judicial system to protect themselves while they promote the most ghastly behaviour and attitudes. After all, Hizb ut-Tahrir is an antisemitic organisation, as my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) and my right hon. Friend the Minister have already made clear. Antisemitism is at the core of its whole being. It is not an organisation that is passingly antisemitic; antisemitism is its core belief.

Let us be clear that the killing of Jews is a priority for Hizb ut-Tahrir, and its activities here in the UK, as a result of the protection it is no longer to have, have influenced a lot of people who do not really understand what is going on in the middle east and who settle on the idea that Hizb ut-Tahrir is somehow espousing the views of a people who are persecuted abroad. It is not; Hizb ut-Tahrir is talking about the persecution and eventual eradication of the Jewish people.

Hizb ut-Tahrir is antisemitic and racist, as my hon. Friend said. It has also supported other groups in their attacks on Israel, as has been said already. Hizb ut-Tahrir celebrated the October murders and the taking of hostages, and it has encouraged terrorism globally, but it has also provided excuses for some of the nonsense being said at the moment on some of the marches. People do not seem to understand what the organisation is saying. I support my hon. Friend’s call to make sure that its online activities are sought out and shut down, and that those involved in them are prosecuted under the criminal code. That is critical, so I welcome my Government’s decision to proscribe Hizb ut-Tahrir.

It is worth bearing in mind—I want to come back to this in a second—that, as my hon. Friend said earlier, there are 79 terrorist organisations proscribed here in the UK, and this will now add to that. I want to come to the other bit here, which is to do with the IRGC. I will not spend too long on this, but I want to make this point, because these organisations are linked. We are proscribing an organisation that is dangerous, vile, antisemitic and abusive, but there is another organisation whose fingers extend into all these organisations around the world and here in the UK: the IRGC. It makes possible much of what goes on in terms of the attitudes towards antisemitism, the attacks on people in a democracy, and the misogyny and homophobia within these organisations. It is not just one element; it is complete.

We know now that, since the attacks in October, Iran has accelerated its executions of those who have protested against the current regime. An astonishing number of executions is now taking place, under cover of what is going on in Gaza. It is quite appalling. We know that the IRGC is behind Hezbollah. It directs, it arms and it makes sure that Hezbollah acts as its arm in Lebanon and beyond. It is attacking Israel right now to keep Israeli forces tied up in northern Israel for tactical reasons.

The second part is that we are now engaged in trying to protect our shipping in the Red sea. Who is supplying the Houthi rebels—the terrorists—with arms and direction? It is Iran, which has upped its supply of rockets to the Houthis. When the Foreign Secretary says to Iran that it has some responsibility for this, as I think he did quite recently, Iran’s response is, “Mind your own business and leave that alone.” It is still supplying the Houthis with weapons and, if we do not get our action right, they could shut down the Red sea for all trade.

When I was approached by somebody who had been protesting, I asked, “Are you aware of what is going on here?” They said, “What does it matter? These people in Israel are persecuting the Palestinians in Gaza, so they’re right to do this.” I replied, “So you don’t mind massive inflation hikes and huge extra costs. You don’t mind the fact that trade cannot travel down the shorter route and all the other considerations.” They just looked at me blankly, because they had not understood what we were talking about. Right now, Iran is directly involved in what is going on in the Red sea to try to shut down the free world’s business arrangements and affect the cost of goods.

Another part of it is that Iran was quite clearly involved in the attacks that took place in October on peaceful Israeli citizens and others, the murders and the hostage taking. How does it benefit from this? Iran knew that Israel would have to respond. That was exactly what the whole plan was: to launch a vile attack, murder enough Jews and make sure that Israeli territory was invaded, so that Israel was bound to attack.

I am not going to spend time debating exactly how far Israel should have gone or any of that, which is a separate issue. My personal view is very clear: Iran is linked to Russia, and what is going on takes the attention off Russia and divides America’s ability to supply arms and weaponry. It creates a major debate, which is going on in the United States at the moment, about giving supplies to the Ukrainians to defend themselves, and it also takes the attention away from China’s aggression towards Taiwan.

Iran is part of the axis of authoritarianism which also includes China, North Korea, Russia, and now Syria and others in the middle east. Iran is very dangerous, and the IRGC is the arm of the Iranian Government. Not only is Iran behind all the attacks, but it continues to persecute Christians to a degree that we simply cannot understand. Executions, incarcerations and abuse are taking place, as we heard yesterday in a report delivered here in the House of Commons.

What do the Government plan to do about the IRGC? America has asked the British Government to proscribe it, and we simply have not yet responded. I asked a nameless individual who is involved with this, and with the Government, why they have not proscribed the IRGC. They said, “It keeps a back channel for us to get America through to Iran.” I said, “What? We now have to act as a back channel for the Americans? Don’t we think the American Government are quite capable of finding ways to engage Iran if they have to?” They then said, “Well, of course we would lose our ability to influence Iran.” I asked them, “Exactly what influence have we had over Iran in the last five years?” They said, “The release of hostages.” I said, “No, you didn’t. You paid for those big time, and they were hostage-taking for that.” We have no influence over Iran. Iran is dangerous, and the IRGC is the arm of that threat around the world.

With two Iranian banks sitting in the City of London, we know how the money is transferred to support some of these organisations, creating some of the nonsense on the marches. Most people do not understand what “From the river to the sea” means, notwithstanding the fact that Hassan Nasrallah made it very clear that the chant means clearing the Jews out of Palestine, and Israel being gone. It is as simple as that. He said that that is what it means, yet people chant it and the Metropolitan police still does not seem to understand that it is an aggressive, antisemitic chant.

I have a Jewish sister-in-law who told me the other day that she has never felt more under threat and less safe in this country in her whole life. What a statement to make in this United Kingdom, which upholds freedom of speech and the rule of law—that a Jewish person now feels desperately under threat just getting up and going to work in the morning. That is simply not right and we need to deal with it. Who is behind all this? The IRGC.

In his concluding remarks, will the Minister please address this issue? It is more than high time. This is a cross-party issue; I know that those on the Opposition Front Bench have called for it. We have to face this. The IRGC must now be proscribed and the banks of Iran shut down in the UK. The IRGC can no longer continue to use the UK as a base for further operations. I congratulate the Government on their decision on Hizb ut-Tahrir, but we should go a lot further. We need to protect our citizens.

Illegal Immigration

Iain Duncan Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 15th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[James Cleverly]

Our immigration policies, as laid out in the figures I ran through in my statement, are having the positive effect that we committed to. We are bringing down small boat numbers, the need for hotel places and so on. I said in my statement that their lordships have set out the route to successfully operationalising the Rwanda scheme, through addressing those concerns about refoulement. We will focus on what we need to achieve to unlock that. We recognise that this is a constant battle against criminals and, as with all constant battles against criminals, we focus on what is effective and right. Their lordships set out exactly what that is, and that is what we will focus on.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

I genuinely welcome my right hon. Friend to his place at the Dispatch Box. Speaking softly and carrying a big stick is always a very good way of behaving—no reference intended. I fully agree with all his intentions and the direction of travel in which he wants to go to settle this issue, in terms of proper organisation such that concerns are dealt with in the courts. Does he not agree that those who greet this judgment with glee need to remember that people are dying in the channel trying to cross in the boats?

Will the Home Secretary ask our right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General to come to the Dispatch Box in due course to reflect on the judgment? It appears to me that it is much wider than the migration judgment, because we are now linking directly to applicability in UK law agreements that were made with the UN that were never bound into UK law. Whether one wants it or not, that widens the whole issue of what becomes justiciable, and I would be grateful if she would come to the House at some point and deal with that.

[James Cleverly]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his kind words. My focus in this role is making sure that the Department is highly effective in protecting the British people and protecting our borders. This is not about trying to look tough; it is about trying to deliver for the British people, and that will be my relentless focus. My right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General reminds me that her advice, like that of all very good in-house lawyers, is limited to the client, which is His Majesty’s Government. However, I have no doubt I could persuade her to meet my right hon. Friend on a private basis.

Illegal Migration Bill

Iain Duncan Smith Excerpts

Consideration of Lords message
Monday 17th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I read the remarks of the noble Lord Clarke, and I entirely agree with his point, which is that, having listened to the totality of the debate in the House of Lords, he had not heard a single credible alternative to the Government’s plan. For that reason alone, it is important to support the Government.

I also agree with Lord Clarke’s broader point that this policy should not be the totality of our response to this challenge. Deterrence is an essential part of the plan, but we also need to work closely with our partners in Europe and further upstream. One initiative that the Prime Minister, the Home Secretary and I have sought to pursue in recent months is to ensure that the United Kingdom is a strategic partner to each and every country that shares our determination to tackle this issue, from Turkey and Tunisia to France and Belgium.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

I completely agree with my right hon. Friend. I believe that the Bill should go through, as we have to do something about the deaths in the channel, which is an important moral purpose.

I bring my right hon. Friend back to Lord Randall’s amendment on modern slavery. We agree quite a lot on this issue, and the Government have said that they will do stuff in guidance, so Lord Randall has taken the words spoken by my right hon. Friend at the Dispatch Box and put them on the face of the Bill—this amendment does exactly what my right hon. Friend promised the Government would do in guidance. The Government have not issued the guidance in detail, which is why the amendment was made. Why would we vote against the amendment today when my right hon. Friend’s words and prescriptions are now on the face of the Bill?

[Robert Jenrick]

First, the Lords amendment on modern slavery goes further by making the scheme, as we see it, much more difficult to establish. There are a number of reasons but, in particular, we think the complexity of the issue requires it to be provided for in statutory guidance rather than on the face of the Bill, in line with my assurances made on the Floor of the House. One of those assurances is particularly challenging to put in statutory guidance—where an incident has taken place in the United Kingdom, rather than an individual being trafficked here—and that is the point Lord Randall helpfully tried to bring forward.

We are clear that the process I have set out should be set out in statutory guidance, because the wording of the amendment is open to abuse by those looking to exploit loopholes. Those arriving in small boats would seek to argue that they have been trafficked into the UK and that the 30-day grace period should apply to them, on the basis that they qualify as soon as they reach UK territorial waters. The proposed provision is, for that reason, operationally impossible and serves only to create another loophole that would render the swift removal we seek impossible or impractical. The statutory guidance can better describe and qualify this commitment, by making it clear that the exploitation must have occurred once the person had spent a period of time within the UK and not immediately they get off the small boat in Kent. For that reason, we consider it better to place this on a statutory footing as guidance rather than putting it in the Bill.

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[Robert Jenrick]

My right hon. Friend makes a number of important points. The guidance is very detailed, but I am sure that it would benefit from updating. Therefore, the points that she has made and that other right hon. and hon. Members have made in the past will be noted by Home Office officials. As we operationalise this policy, we will be careful to take those into consideration. We are all united in our belief that those young people who are in our care need to be treated appropriately.

Let me turn now to the Lords amendment on modern slavery—I hope that I have answered the comments of my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith). This seeks to enshrine in the Bill some of the assurances that I provided in my remarks last week in respect of people who are exploited in the UK. However, for the reason that I have just described, we think that that is better done through statutory guidance. In fact, it would be impractical, if not impossible, to do it through the Bill.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

The point that my right hon. Friend made earlier is that, somehow, those people will be able to get into the UK and make a false claim. However, the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 already provides for that, so anyone found to have made a false claim will be disqualified, and disqualified quite quickly. The critical thing is to prosecute the traffickers. That way, we can stop them trafficking more people on the boats. My worry is that this provision will put off many people from giving evidence and co-operating with the police for fear that they may still be overridden and sent abroad while they are doing it and then be picked up by the traffickers. Does he give any credence to the fear that this may end up reducing the number of prosecutions of traffickers as a result?

[Robert Jenrick]

I understand my right hon. Friend’s position, and it is right that he is vocalising it, but we do not believe that what he says is likely. The provision that we have made in the statutory guidance that I have announced will give an individual 30 days from the positive reasonable grounds decision to confirm that they will co-operate with an investigation in relation to their exploitation. That should give them a period of time to recover, to come forward and to work with law-enforcement. That is a period of time aligned with the provisions of ECAT, so we rely on the decision of the drafters of ECAT to choose 30 days rather than another, potentially longer, period. That is an extendable period, so where a person continues to co-operate with such an investigation, they will continue to be entitled to the support and the protections of the national referral mechanism for a longer period.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

I just want to make it clear that under the new regulations, the Secretary of State can still feasibly decide that, even if someone is co-operating, they do not need to remain in the UK for that. That is the critical bit: they live under the fear that they can be moved somewhere else to give that evidence. Does the Minister not agree that that will put a lot of people off giving evidence?

[Robert Jenrick]

I hope that that is not borne out. It is worth remembering that we will not remove anyone to a country in which they would be endangered. We would be removing that person either back to their home country, if we consider it safe to do so, usually because the country is an ECAT signatory and has provisions in place, or to a safe third country such as Rwanda, where once again we will have put in place significant provisions to support the individual. I hope that that provides those individuals with the confidence to come forward and work with law enforcement to bring the traffickers to book.

Illegal Migration Bill

Iain Duncan Smith Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Tuesday 11th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I think that my right hon. Friend and I agree that the point at which individuals misuse the NRM is the point at which the state tries to remove them from the country. Our concern is that there is a significant increase in the number of people misusing the NRM—and the good work that my right hon. Friend has done on this issue—to bring about a spurious, frivolous, last-minute way of frustrating their removal from the country. So the statistics I referred to are the most relevant statistics, because that is the point at which individuals are in the detained estate for the purpose of removal. Their removal from the United Kingdom is imminent and we are seeing a very high proportion of them using the NRM to try to delay that removal. Delay, as she knows from her great experience, is particularly relevant, because once someone has delayed their removal, they are liable to be bailed and to go back out into the community. Some will be very difficult to bring back into the detained estate, or may abscond and never be seen again. Even under the current system, that makes it extremely difficult to remove people.

Under the scheme envisaged by the Bill, we will seek to remove many of those people to a safer country such as Rwanda, while today we predominantly remove people back home to their own countries, such as Albania and Romania, so the incentive to misuse the NRM will be significantly higher. It is reasonable to assume that a very large number of individuals will make use of that as a route to frustrate the scheme. As I said earlier, that risks driving a coach and horses through the purpose of the Bill, which is a swift and speedy form of removal to act as a deterrent to prevent people making the crossing in the first place.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

There are two elements here. First, the whole system can be massively speeded up, which is a fact of the NRM, straightaway. That was an obligation I was meant to have been given in the previous Bill, but it was never brought into the guidance. But the main point here is that nothing that happens outside the UK can be evidenced on this particular point. We are talking about the Minister’s fear that people are departing to within the UK and then subsequently making a claim. The real problem with the Bill right now—he knows I have concerns about this—is that much of the prosecution process against the traffickers can take place only because of the evidence given by those who have been trafficked. On Report, the presumption in the Bill suddenly changed dramatically—it was done without any notice. There is now a presumption that they do not need to be here at all, other than if there is some evidence that somehow they do, whereas before it was that in order to get that evidence, they do need to be here. Why are we knocking out the amendment, rather than amending it and specifying which categories are exempt? He runs the risk of people not giving evidence and not co-operating with the police, and us not getting prosecutions. If they are going to be cleared out of the UK while giving evidence—this is the point—the reality is that they will stop doing so, because they will be in danger of being picked up by the traffickers again outside the UK. Will he therefore rethink this and put something on the face of the Bill to define those who are exempt?

[Robert Jenrick]

First, I am grateful to my right hon. Friend and to my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead for their advice and wise counsel. We have sought to make changes and to listen to their point of view. That is why we brought forward two significant changes. One, as I have outlined, with respect to retrospection, means that the cohort of individuals who entered the United Kingdom from 7 March to Royal Assent who have not been in the detained estate and are then, if you like, in the community at large—in many cases they are living in supported accommodation and in some cases are liable to exploitation by human traffickers and other criminals—will now not be included in the full extent of the Bill’s provisions and so can be supported in the ways that my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodgreen wishes. That has significantly reduced the pool of individuals he has concerns about. We are also—I will come on to this in a moment—committing to bringing forward statutory guidance, which I hope will provide further reassurance on the question of how law enforcement authorities would interact with victims of modern slavery to ensure that they can be appropriately supported, and have the time they need to recover and bring forward their claims so that we can all achieve our shared objective, which is the prosecution of human traffickers.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Jenrick]

It is our intention that the statutory guidance will be provided and in place for the commencement of the Bill. I hope that that also answers the question of my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green about the fact that he feels that previous assurances in prior legislation were not fully delivered.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

I welcome some of the moves the Government have made and I support the principles of what the Bill is trying to do. However, this is a really significant problem of the Government cutting off their nose to spite their face. The positive we have is that when victims give evidence and a prosecution takes place, it cuts down the likelihood that traffickers will be allowed to traffic boats across. When that is turned around, it contradicts the purpose of the Bill. The point I made to the Minister earlier was that the sudden change to the presumption power of the Secretary of State is really where the problem arises. Surely the way to deal with that is not through the guidance mechanism, but to ensure, on the face of the Bill, that that presumption is restricted, and clearly restricted. He talks about the intention of the guidance. I was given that assurance on the other Bill in December. No guidance emerged subsequently so he will forgive me, having sat in Government myself, if I do not always take the word of the Government absolutely as a categorical assurance. The only way we can get this is by doing something on the face of the Bill. The amendment, as amended, would really help enormously to reassure people and achieve the Government’s objective, which is more prosecutions and fewer boats.

[Robert Jenrick]

I understand my right hon. Friend’s position, but I hope he will accept that we intend to bring forward the statutory guidance and that it will set out the points I have just described. They do accord with ECAT. I appreciate that there are those who would like a longer period than 30 days, but that seems a reasonable place to settle, given that that is what the framers of ECAT themselves chose as the period for recovery and for bringing forward claims.

Nottingham Incident

Iain Duncan Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 14th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

I am personally very moved listening to the hon. Lady. What those families must be feeling, going through and experiencing right now is unimaginable for most of us; it is the nightmare that every parent dreads. We need to allow the police to complete their investigation, but, subject to what they unearth and put forward, yes, of course, every victim of crime wants to see justice done. That is ultimately what the rule of law is about.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

I align myself completely with everything that has been said about the people of Nottingham and the difficulties they are going through now, but Grace O’Malley-Kumar, one of the two student victims, was resident in Woodford. I remember she had been part of Woodford Wells cricket and hockey club—and she was a star: England under-16s, England under-18s, and destined for a great future. It is very important to remember that not only are the communities in Nottingham and the families affected, but all those people who got to know her and had high hopes for her will have had those dashed as well. Can we make sure there is a degree of outreach to all those people who worked with her and helped her to grow? The terrible devastation of this terrible act is not just a lost life, but a lost future that might have changed other lives for the better.

[Suella Braverman]

My right hon. Friend puts it powerfully. The ripple effects of this tragedy will be felt far and wide, and it will take considerable time for many people to recover and move on with their lives. This is a tragedy of an enormity that the people of Nottingham have not seen, but it is also a tragedy for many other groups and communities around the country.

Illegal Migration Bill

Iain Duncan Smith Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 26th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I apologise to my hon. Friend for not praising his long-standing interest in this issue and the very good conversation that he and I had recently, in which he made exactly the point that he has just made on the Floor of the House. We are concerned about those kinds of cases and about those individuals who are exploited within the United Kingdom, but we are keen to ensure that that is not inadvertently turned into a loophole that would undermine the broader scheme.

One of the existing protections within the Bill for an individual such as the one my hon. Friend mentions is the provision that, if someone is co-operating with a police investigation, the duty to remove will be suspended. Therefore, if somebody was in exactly the position he described, they should of course go to the law enforcement authorities. At that point, the safeguard that we put in the Bill would apply and they would not be removed from the country.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

I will speak to my amendment shortly, I am sure, as will my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) and others, but I want to raise one particular point. The Minister used the word “inadvertently”, but I wonder whether Government amendment 95 is inadvertent when it gives sweeping powers to the Secretary of State to decide whether somebody is genuinely giving evidence to the police. I am also puzzled by the wording of proposed new subsection (5A) to clause 21, that

“the Secretary of State must have regard to guidance issued by the Secretary of State”,

which is the same person, I think. I am not sure how that achieves the desire to be balanced on this.

[Robert Jenrick]

That provision ensures that where an individual has presented to the authorities and the police may have opened an investigation, the police would then make a submission to the Home Secretary, who would then decide whether that was sufficiently advanced for the provisions in the Bill to apply. That is a sensible safeguard, but this is exactly the sort of issue on which I am happy to continue working with my right hon. Friend.

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[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. We have had some very long opening speeches, and I have over 20 people wishing to contribute to the debate. That means that, in order to get everybody in, everybody would need to take about six minutes, if not less. We will prioritise those who have tabled amendments. That is just my guidance for the moment, because we also have the SNP spokesperson to come in.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

I rise to speak to amendment 4, in my name and those of my right hon. and hon. Friends. It is essentially about clause 21. Since tabling it, I have realised that the Government have a new amendment—amendment 95—which I am afraid makes quite a lot of what we are trying to achieve with our amendment 4 almost impossible to deliver. However, I will go through the purpose of our amendment and then deal with the new Government amendment.

First, a lot of this is foreshadowed by the already existing Nationality and Borders Act 2022, and we still wait to see what its impact is on a lot of this. There is some clear evidence already that it is tightening up the areas that the Government want to tighten up when it comes to those suffering from modern slavery. Therefore, first and foremost, I question the necessity of these provisions about modern slavery in the Bill at all. Frankly, I do not want to be too broad; I want to focus on this problem quite carefully.

I think, and I hope, that the Government may recognise—my right hon. Friend the Minister mentioned that that is the general direction of his thinking at the moment, and I really hope that is the case—that there are unintended consequences of what they have to tried to do with the changes they are making in clause 21, and that the clause would be damaged without our amendment. It is interesting that my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) intervened with some very new evidence that the police are now saying that the effect of this, even though it is not in the Bill, is to concern people who might well give evidence that would lead to the prosecution and conviction of those guilty of trafficking. Can I just say that I think the whole purpose of this is to get the traffickers, prosecute them and put them inside? That is one of the deterrents against other traffickers doing such business, and I understand that the purpose of the Bill is to stop the business model of the traffickers, so this fits with that. The problem, as a counterpoint to that, is that clause 21 seems to move in the opposite direction and is actually now beginning to discourage people from the idea of giving evidence.

It is very important to remind everybody, because they get confused, that human trafficking is distinct from people smuggling. We tend to blur the edges of this, but human trafficking is about people who, against their will—when brought to this location or while in the UK—are themselves abused. All the issues were talked about earlier, but the reality is that this is against their will. They do not wish to do it, and we need categorical evidence of that. It is because this is dealing with the trafficking side rather than the people smuggling side that I am really concerned about it.

Remember that a majority of the potential victims referred through the national referral mechanism are exploited in the UK in full or in part. Mostly, those are non-UK nationals, but UK nationals are caught up in it as well. The majority of these cases are not relevant to those coming across on the boats; they are here. They have been trafficked, they are here and they are now involved in modern slavery, and they are possibly prepared to give evidence to the police in that regard. It could be sexual exploitation, or it could be criminal exploitation. When I was the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, we saw evidence of that with people brought over to stake their claims to benefits, and then they would disappear off, trafficked into brothels and various other places. I want to say that it is important that we distinguish between that and the issue of the boats.

Many of those people are likely to have arrived in the UK illegally under the terms of this Bill, whether by small boat or lorry, or with leave obtained through deception such as false documents, including deception by their exploiter. Instead of being given temporary protection in the UK, these victims—under clause 21, as now amended by amendment 95—will be subjected to removal and detention under this Bill and denied access to the statutory 30-day recovery period of support for modern slavery victims. Victims will be driven even further underground—this is our fear and the fear of those who deal with them—by the fear of deportation and trapped in the arms of their abusers. Why would that be the case? The answer is simple. If one looks at the wording of clause 21, we see straightaway a clear shift in balance: it is left to the Secretary of State to judge whether victims are going to give evidence or are giving evidence that is relevant.

Then there is Government amendment 95, which I am really concerned about. It shifts the whole rationale in the opposite direction. Instead of there being a judgment about that, under clause 21, it is clear that the premise of the Secretary of State’s decision making is now reversed:

“The Secretary of State must assume for the purposes of subsection 3(b) that it is not necessary for the person to be present in the United Kingdom to provide the cooperation in question unless the Secretary of State considers that there are compelling circumstances which require the person to be present in the United Kingdom for that purpose.”

I raised this point earlier. In doing that,

“the Secretary of State must have regard to guidance issued by the Secretary of State.”

That looks to me like a bit of a closed advice section, which will come up with the same decision at the end of the day. Government amendment 95 amends clause 21, which we already had concerns about.

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[Mr Carmichael]

Despite the right hon. Gentleman’s best efforts, and he is a model of clarity on this, it is still like trying to knit fog. Does not the fact that we are dealing here with an amendment he has tabled that has subsequently been affected by a Government amendment to the original Bill illustrate the total inadequacy of trying to deal with a Bill like this in this way?

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

It is a concern because we have clashing amendments. We know that. The point of this debate is to rectify that. We do not have a lot of time, so the right hon. Member will forgive me if I tentatively nod in his direction but at the same time pursue my own purposes. I will try to keep my remarks narrow. I do not want to go wide because other people wish to speak.

Amendment 4 is needed because victims of modern slavery experience inhumane torture and abuse. They are deprived of their liberty and their dignity. They are exploited and abused on British soil. Whether a UK citizen or a foreign national, they deserve care to recover and we cannot leave them subject to that exploitation. The point I keep coming back to is that victims in this category hold the key to the prosecution of the very traffickers we are after. We should not lose sight of that. If the inadvertent result of these changes to the Bill and the Bill itself is that victims are fearful of coming forward to give evidence, partly because the presumption is that they will leave the country, and partly because they do not have enough time to feel settled and protected to be able to give evidence—I think the police know this and my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead has quoted from a police statement—it will reduce the number of prosecutions, damage our case and act as an opponent, as it were, of the idea of sending a message to traffickers that their game is up.

All the evidence shows that, with appropriate consistent support, more victims engage with investigations and prosecutions, providing the vital information that brings criminals to justice. Support needs to come first to create that stability, otherwise they will not feel safe. If we put ourselves in their situation, we would not give evidence either if we thought that the next stage would be to go out of the country, where the traffickers would catch us and our families and others being abused. So it will get harder to get convictions.

I am pleased my right hon. Friend the Minister accepted there may be consequences, although we need to go further than “may”. There will be consequences as a result of the legislation. I do not believe that the Government want victims of modern slavery to be trafficked. I do not think they want the Modern Slavery Act 2015 to be damaged. In the minds of those in the Home Office, I think there is a genuine dislike of that legislation and a wish to blame it for excesses, but there is no evidence of that. Only 6% of those who claim to be victims of modern slavery have come across on boats.

First and foremost, there is not a huge, great swell. Secondly, the Nationality and Borders Act that preceded this Bill has tightened up on all the elements that claimants have to provide to show that that is the case. The rules are already tighter, and I suspect that will lead to fewer cases already. The question is, what is the point of putting these elements into the Bill, because they are in the previous Act, and we have still not seen the effects? We are putting at risk the prosecution of all those traffickers and bringing them to justice, for something that almost certainly will not happen. If it did happen, there is plenty of scope for that evidence to come forward through statutory instruments if necessary, but I do not believe that will be the case.

I am told endlessly that people will come and give false claims, but let me remind Members that referrals can be made only by official first responders who suspect that the person is a victim. In 2022, 49% of referrals were made by Government agencies— it is ironic that the Government themselves decided who were the victims. The idea that any person could come forward and suddenly say, “I’m a victim,” and therefore get lots of time, is not the case. The test of evidence is tough.

We should remember that our amendment is about those who are trafficked and abused here in the UK. That means that the evidence base will almost certainly be incredibly strong, because it is based around what we know to exist here in the UK. I understand that it is difficult when people are trafficked from abroad, but we are talking about people in the UK and their evidence is clear to all of us. Under the changes made to the national referral mechanism statutory guidance on 30 January 2023—which, again, we have yet to see the full effects of—the threshold for a positive reasonable grounds decision has been raised to require objective evidence of exploitation. This is an unnecessary element of the Bill because we have yet to see the effect of the previous Act, which I believe is already having an impact, as do the police.

Other Members want to speak, so I will conclude my comments by saying that we should proceed with caution when it comes to modern day slavery. I am deeply proud of what we did and what my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead brought through, because it deals with victims, who cannot speak for themselves and are being used and abused by others. We were the first country in the world to do so, and others have followed suit. We need to send the right signals. The problem with the Bill is that it unnecessarily targets a group of people who are not the problem. They will suffer and, ironically, we will fail as a Government in home affairs because the police simply will not be able to get those prosecutions. On every ground, it is wrong.

Government amendment 95 is a disastrous attempt to make it almost impossible for anyone in the country to feel confident before they give evidence. I ask the Government to make it clear at the end of the debate that they will take this issue away, genuinely look at the unintended consequences and make that case to us, before we vote on their amendment.

[Alison Thewliss]

I will speak to the amendments that stand in my name and those of my hon. Friends. It is interesting to follow the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith). Given his concerns about the Bill, I hope that he will join us in the Division Lobby later, because I do not expect that he will get the assurances that he hopes for from the Minister.

The Bill remains an affront to human decency and to our obligations to our fellow human beings. It rips up hard-won international protections and is in breach of the European convention on human rights, the refugee convention, the Council of Europe’s convention on action against trafficking in human beings and the UN convention on the rights of the child. The Children and Young People’s Commissioner of Scotland has said that the Illegal Migration Bill

“represents a direct assault on the concept of universality of human rights and the rule of law.”

Organisations have lined up to condemn the Bill, from the UNHCR, Liberty, Amnesty International, trade unions and medical bodies. It seeks to turn ships’ captains and train drivers into border guards, and it creates a sub-class of people in immigration limbo forever.

This refugee ban Bill is based on myths, mistruths and the myopic pursuit of clicks and tabloid headlines. There is no evidence whatsoever to support the wild claims made by the Home Secretary and her acolytes. The Bill will not meet its stated aims, but it will cost lives. It fails to provide safe and legal routes, and it will cause untold suffering. It diminishes the UK in the eyes of the world and it yanks on the thread that will unravel refugee protections across the world.

The Bill delivers people who have been trafficked back into the hands of those who would exploit them. In his article published this morning in ConservativeHome, the Immigration Minister descended yet further, speaking of those with “different lifestyles and values” cannibalising compassion. That is not a dog whistle but a foghorn.

The process by which the Government have brought forward the Illegal Migration Bill is an insult to democracy and to the House. It has been rushed through without a full Committee stage or evidence sessions—no evidence whatsoever from the Government about the things they have put forward. Swathes of Government amendments have been brought forward today in haste, but there has not yet been an impact assessment, even at this very late stage. It is unacceptable that we are being asked to vote on something without an impact assessment.

My hon. Friend the Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) has requested an impact assessment umpteen times in the House and via a freedom of information request, but nothing has yet been forthcoming. I know the hon. Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire) has also been tirelessly pursuing an impact assessment of the Bill. It is testimony to the Government’s dogged evasion of scrutiny, not to their lack of effort, that that has been fruitless.

As Members of Parliament, we are guarantors of rights. The SNP’s amendment 45 seeks to hold the UK Government to their international obligations—how utterly bizarre and reprehensible that we even have to introduce an amendment to ensure that—and to attempt to have the provisions in the Bill line up with convention rights in the UN refugee convention, the European convention on action against trafficking, the UN convention on the rights of the child and the UN convention relating to the status of stateless persons.

Anyone reading the UNHCR legal observations on the Illegal Migration Bill can plainly see how far the UK Government are deviating from international norms. Those observations say:

“The Bill all but extinguishes the right to claim asylum in the UK…breaches the UK’s obligations towards stateless people under international law…would lead to violations of the principle of non-refoulement…would deny refugees and stateless people access to their rights under international law.”

They go on to say that the Bill violates article 31(1) and 31(2) of the UN refugee convention and international human rights law,

“puts at risk the safety and welfare of children”

and

“would increase the pressure on the UK asylum system”.

What an atrocious mess this Government are making.

Further to this condemnation from the UNHCR, the Council of Europe’s group of experts on action against trafficking in human beings stressed that, if adopted, the Bill would run contrary to the United Kingdom’s obligations under the anti-trafficking convention to prevent human trafficking and to identify and protect victims of trafficking, without discrimination.

The Home Secretary appears to misunderstand the very nature of modern slavery and human trafficking, as right hon. and hon. Members on the Government Benches have outlined. Perhaps that could be accounted for by the lack of an independent anti-slavery commissioner, as the post has now been standing vacant for a year. The previous holder of the post, Professor Dame Sara Thornton, gave evidence to the Home Affairs Committee last week on how the national referral mechanism actually works. I suggest the Immigration Minister should have read that evidence before coming to the House with such proposals as he has today.

New clause 26 replaces the placeholder clause 51 and gives the Government the power to ignore interim measures from the European Court of Human Rights and remove people who would otherwise have not been removed. The clause hands powers to Government Ministers to unilaterally decide whether the UK should uphold its international obligations. Liberty has described this as a concerning shift of power away from Parliament and towards the Executive. Yet again we are seeing the stripping away of crucial checks and balances—another Westminster power grab that has become a hallmark of this Government.

I tell you what this is really about, Mr Deputy Speaker. It is about setting up a fight with the European Court of Human Rights. It is about setting out to breach international law. It is about sleight of hand and deflection from the Conservatives’ failure to get a grip on the immigration backlog that they created. They think that if the public are somehow distracted by judges in their jammies, they will forget about the incompetence of the Minister. I give my constituents and people up and down these islands more credit than that—their heids don’t button up the back.

One of the most egregious aspects of the Bill is its impact on children. The Children’s Commissioners are crystal clear about the harm that it will cause; the Minister should heed their calls. The Scottish National party is happy to support new clauses 2 and 3 on pregnancy, given the impact on both the mother and the child in the circumstances; amendments 2 and 3 and new clause 14 on safe and legal routes and family reunion for children; amendment 5 on unaccompanied children; and new clause 4 on an independent child trafficking guardian.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Theresa May]

I will concentrate my remarks on amendment 4, in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith)—I have also signed it—and Government amendment 95.

Before I do so, I want to say a word about evidence. The Minister has indicated again today that, in his view, there is evidence that the Modern Slavery Act 2015 is being abused. I apologise for doing this to him again, but he might wish to look at the evidence given to the Home Affairs Committee this morning by a representative of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, basically saying there is no evidence to support the claim that the national referral mechanism is being abused. On the contrary, the evidence is that there is a low level of abuse. They went on to say that the biggest problem with the NRM is not abuse but the big delay in finding an answer for victims, which is of course within the Government’s control because it is about the length of time that officials are taking to consider cases.

I am grateful to the Minister for meeting me last week to discuss the concerns I raised in Committee. I welcomed the Government’s apparent attempt to improve the Bill for victims of modern slavery, and their willingness to look at that, but then I saw Government amendment 95. Far from making the Bill better for victims of modern slavery, the amendment makes the Bill worse. I believe the Minister was talking in good faith, but it is hard to see Government amendment 95 as an example of good faith. It is a slap in the face for those of us who actually care about victims of modern slavery and human trafficking.

Equally concerning, Government amendment 95 suggests that those who are responsible for the Bill simply do not understand the nature of these crimes or the position of victims. The Minister wants to see an end to human trafficking, and he wants to stop the traffickers’ business model, as do many of us on both sides of the House, but the best way to do that is by identifying, catching and prosecuting the traffickers and slave drivers.

Government amendment 95, by making it an assumption that victims do not need to be present in the UK to assist an investigation, makes it much harder to investigate and prosecute the traffickers and slave drivers. It has been shown time and again that victims’ ability to give evidence is affected by the support they receive. They need to feel safe and they need to have confidence in the authorities.

As Detective Constable Colin Ward of Greater Manchester Police says:

“If we get the victim side right first, the prosecutions will eventually naturally follow, alongside us doing the evidence-based collection of that crime.”

Support for victims matters in catching the slave drivers. Sending victims back to their own country, or to a third country such as Rwanda, will at best make them feel less secure and, therefore, less able or less willing to give the evidence that is needed, and will at worst drive them back into the arms of the traffickers and slave drivers.

Again, the representative from the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe made the point today at the Home Affairs Committee that the UK has been leading the world in identifying victims exploited by criminal activity. That tells us that these people are vulnerable, because they have been compelled by traffickers to engage in criminal activity. Disqualifying them from our ability to rescue them will mean the UK is no longer able to identify them, and it will leave them to the mercy of the traffickers. Far from helping, Government amendment 95 flies in the face of what the Minister and the Government say they want to do to deal with the traffickers and slave drivers and to break their business model.

The Government have previously used clause 21(5) to tell us that they are providing more support for victims of slavery. Government amendment 95 reverses that by making it even harder for victims to get the support they need, which I think would be a setback in the fight against the slave drivers and traffickers.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

My right hon. Friend is making a good speech. The reality is that amendment 95 poses a threat. Straightaway, its assumption is that someone goes, rather than that they have to prove anything; they go first and then somebody has to prove that they have to be here. What are they going to do when they look at that? They are going to say, “We’re off, so why would we give evidence?”

[Mrs May]

My right hon. Friend makes an important point. I hope that this is an unintended consequence of the Government’s amendment, but I fear, given that they tabled it, that they knew all too well what they were doing with this amendment, because they just want people to leave the UK. As he says, assuming that where somebody is identified they are going to have to leave the UK means that they are less likely to give evidence, and we will not catch and prosecute so many traffickers and slave drivers. Sadly, all too often those individuals will return to a country where they will be straight into the arms of the traffickers and slave drivers again.

The purpose of amendment 4 is simple: to ensure that victims who are being exploited, in slavery, here in the UK are able to continue to access the support they need, which will enable them to find a new life here or indeed in their home country. Not everybody who has been trafficked here for slavery wants to stay in the UK. Many of them want to return home, but they need to be given the support that enables that to be possible.

Amendment 4, if accepted, would ensure that it would be more likely that the criminals were caught. This Bill says, “If you are a victim of modern slavery who came here illegally, we will detain and deport you, because your slavery is secondary to your immigration status.” It has always been important to separate modern slavery from immigration status. Modern slavery is not a migration issue, not least because more than half of those referred to the national referral mechanism here in the UK for modern slavery are UK citizens here in the UK.

Modern slavery is the greatest human rights issue of our time. The approach in this Bill will have several ramifications. It will consign victims to remaining in slavery. The Government will be ensuring that more people will stay enslaved and in exploitation as a result of this Bill, because it will give the slave drivers and traffickers another weapon to hold people in that slavery and exploitation. It will be easy to say to them, “Don’t even think about trying to escape from the misery of your life, from the suffering we are subjecting you to, because all that the UK Government will do is send you away, probably to Rwanda.” The Modern Slavery Act gave hope to victims, but this Bill removes that hope. I genuinely believe that if enacted as it is currently proposed, it will leave more people—more men, women and children—in slavery in the UK.

As I have said, another impact of the Bill will be fewer prosecutions and fewer criminals being caught and put behind bars. I apologise to the Minister for bouncing him with the Greater Manchester Police evidence that I cited earlier, but it is very relevant and he needs to look at it. The Nationality and Borders Act 2022 already means that people who are in slavery—the figures on those who get a positive decision from the national referral mechanism show this—are not coming forward because of the evidence requirement now under that Act. That is having a real impact and it means fewer prosecutions of the criminals.

I wish to mention the impact on children, and I urge the Minister to listen carefully to the concerns of the Children’s Commissioner. Other Members of this House, including my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), have long championed, through the process of this Bill, the issue of children. My concern is particularly about those children who are in slavery in this country and being cruelly exploited, as victims need support.

The Children’s Commissioner has cited the example of Albin, a 16-year-old Albanian national who came to the UK in September via a boat. He was trafficked for gang and drug exploitation. It was clear to the Border Force that he was young and malnourished, and that he had significant learning difficulties. He was provided support, including from the Children’s Commissioner’s Help at Hand team, but the point the commissioner makes is that

“without the NRM decision…he would have not been processed through the immigration/asylum route as quickly and he would have not received the adequate support to meet his needs.”

Upon receiving the positive decision for the NRM, the social care team was able to transfer him to a suitable placement. That 16-year-old would otherwise have potentially been detained and deported by the Government.

It is important that we consider the impact on children who are victims of slavery. I put the arguments earlier about making it harder to prosecute the slave drivers, and that covers child victims as well, but there may well be an added element for the traffickers to use to keep children enslaved, by which I mean the situation in Rwanda. UNICEF said:

“In Rwanda, over half of all girls and six out of ten boys experience some form of violence during childhood. Children are usually abused by people they know—parents, neighbours, teachers, romantic partners or friends. Only around 60% of girls in Rwanda who are victims of violence tell someone about it, and the rate is even lower for boys.”

I recognise that that quote relates to children in Rwanda being abused by people known to them, but the environment is hardly conducive to the good care of children.

Amendment 4 would remove the problem by ensuring that those identified as being exploited into slavery here in the UK could still access the support provided under the Modern Slavery Act. We have led the world in providing support for those in slavery by what we have done here in the United Kingdom. The Bill significantly damages the operation of that Act. It is bad for victims, bad for the prosecution of slave drivers and bad for the reputation of the United Kingdom.

I was grateful to my right hon. Friend the Minister for saying from the Dispatch Box that he was willing to talk and listen to us to see whether we can find a way through this. I say to him quite simply that the best way to do that is through amendment 4. That is what removes the problem in relation to the victims of modern slavery, so I hope the Government will be willing to look very carefully at that amendment and to listen to what we have said. What we are talking about is not just what we say, but what those who are identifying and dealing with the victims of modern slavery are experiencing day in, day out. They worry that more people will be in slavery as a result of the Bill.

Chinese Police Stations in UK

Iain Duncan Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 19th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Chris Philp]

The shadow Home Secretary asks a number of a questions relating to the specific individual named in The Times today in connection with his activities in Croydon, which is, as she will appreciate, the borough that I represent in Parliament—this is of great concern to me as well as to the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones). I can tell the House that I have been briefed today, as one would expect—at short notice, as this is not ordinarily part of my ministerial portfolio—and there is a live investigation of this matter by the law enforcement community. As I said in my opening remarks, I cannot comment on the details of such an investigation while it is live for reasons that will be obvious to all Members of this House. As soon as my right hon. Friend the Minister for Security is in a position to provide an update on the results of that investigation, he will do so. I will also ask him to brief privately the hon. Member for Croydon Central as soon as possible.

It is worth mentioning that the Chinese activity in this area is not confined to the United Kingdom. We are aware of approximately 100 alleged stations of the kind we are discussing around the world—they are not unique to the United Kingdom—and, as the shadow Home Secretary said, earlier this week arrests were made in New York in connection to an investigation conducted by the FBI similar to the investigations that we are conducting.

On party politics, all political parties need to be alert to the danger of representatives of hostile states seeking to infiltrate or influence their activities. It is fair to say that other Members of this House have been similarly targeted—those we know about—so I ask all Members of Parliament and all political parties to be alert to that risk. We all owe that to democracy.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

May I bring my right hon. Friend back to the real issue? Investigations into individual transgressions are absolutely fine, and they progress. The problem is that we in this House and the Government have known for a considerable time—it has been raised by many of my colleagues—about the activity of the three illegal Chinese police stations. We know that they are bringing Chinese dissidents in, confronting them with videos of their families, and threatening their families in front of them if they do not co-operate, leave and go back to China. We know that. The security services have warned the Government about it. The question today is this: why in heaven’s name have we not acted, alongside the Americans and even the Dutch, to shut those stations down and kick those people out of the country?

[Chris Philp]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his question and for his long-standing campaigning on this issue and the activities of China more widely, which are rightly of great concern to this Government and to Members on both sides of the House. The activity that he describes—interference with Chinese nationals in this country—is something that we take incredibly seriously. We saw that terrible incident in Manchester not very long ago, where members of the Chinese consular staff dragged someone inside their compound. As a consequence of that, six Chinese officials have now left the United Kingdom.

The activity that my right hon. Friend describes is incredibly serious and unacceptable, and it must and will be stopped, but the three particular locations that he referred to are subject to a live investigation and work by the law enforcement community, so I am afraid that I cannot say any more from the Dispatch Box today. As soon as my right hon. Friend the Minister for Security can provide an update, he will do so.

Illegal Migration Bill

Iain Duncan Smith Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 28th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way. She is describing the journey that we need to go on. We should explain to the Government that the whole issue about modern slavery is that when people feel secure, they give evidence to the police, and the police then get after the traffickers. One of the big problems here is that, because 60% of the cases are within the UK, people may suddenly feel that they are about to get kicked out and then they will stop giving evidence.

[Mrs May]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. I will refer to that issue myself later on, because the Government have not thought through the implications for the numbers of traffickers and perpetrators caught as a result of this Bill.

I said that I was not going to dwell on the legal issues, but there are genuine questions of incompatibility with article 4 of the European convention on human rights, which is, of course, part of UK law through the Human Rights Act 1998, and with aspects of the Council of Europe convention on action against trafficking in human beings, such as articles 13 and 10.

However, the heart of the problem is, I believe, very simple. If someone is trafficked into the UK by illegal means, coming from a country where their life and liberty were not threatened, and is taken into slavery here in the UK, they will not be able to claim modern slavery or have the protection of the Modern Slavery Act. That would cover most of the men, women and children who are trafficked into slavery in the United Kingdom.

Let me let me give an example. A woman from, say, Romania, who is persuaded that there is a great job here for her in the UK, is brought here on false papers and put to work as a prostitute in a brothel. She has come here illegally from a safe country, but she is experiencing sexual exploitation and slavery here in the UK. That is just the sort of case, in addition to British nationals who have been enslaved here, that the Modern Slavery Act was intended to cover. Let us say that she manages to escape and meets some people willing to help. She is taken to the police, but the Government say, “You came here illegally. We’re deporting you to Rwanda.” Alternatively, the traffickers may fear that she is looking to escape, so they take her to one side and explain, “It’s no good doing that, because all they’ll do is send you to Rwanda.” We could have handed the traffickers a gift—another tool in their armoury of exploitation and slavery.

The Government might say that it will be okay if the woman helps with an investigation, because the Bill contains that caveat, but that seriously misunderstands slavery and the impact of the trauma of slavery on victims. It can take some considerable time—weeks and weeks—for somebody to feel confident enough to give evidence against their slave drivers. Under this Bill, by the time they might have been able to get that confidence, they will have been removed from this country. As my right hon. Friend said, it will become harder to catch the traffickers and slave drivers.

I could give another example. Perhaps someone comes here illegally and works in the economy, which, sadly, people are able to do, but then finds themselves vulnerable on the streets and is picked up by slave drivers and taken into slavery. Again, even if they escape, perhaps after years of exploitation, the Government will shut the door on them and send them away under this Bill. I could give other examples, but the hon. Member for Glasgow Central has already given some and I think the point has been made.

There are a number of possible solutions. At the weaker end, the Government could delay the commencement of the Bill’s modern slavery provisions; I note that the official Opposition have suggested doing so until a new Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner is in place and has assessed the impact of the Bill. It would be good to have a commissioner in place and to hear their views on the Bill, but I think that there is more to consider.

First, the Government should not introduce the modern slavery provisions of the Bill until they have assessed the impact of the changes that they made in the Nationality and Borders Act 2022, the relevant provisions of which came into force at the end of January. They are piling legislation on legislation that they have already passed, and they have no idea whether it is going to work. This approach is therefore not necessary. Secondly, they need to assess the impact of the deal with Albania, because in recent times a significant number of people coming on the small boats have come from Albania. Thirdly, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green and I have both pointed out, they need to assess the Bill’s impact on people’s ability and willingness to come forward, to be identified as slaves and to give evidence against the traffickers and the slave drivers.

--- Later in debate ---

The separation of powers between the Executive and the judiciary is absolutely fundamental, and those powers and those checks and balances are axiomatic to our democratic values, so I urge Conservative Members to think long and hard before they launch any further assaults on our judiciary, because we do not want to live in a Trumpian version of Britain. We want to live in a vibrant democracy that is based on upholding the independence of the judiciary, defending the separation of powers and respecting the integrity of our institutions.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

I am grateful for being called as early as this and I will try to be brief. I want to focus specifically on what my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) has talked about, which is the modern slavery elements of the Bill, and keep to a reasonable amount of time. I want to draw attention to the reality of what we sometimes seem to get mixed up. There is a fundamental difference between people who are trafficked and people who pay traffickers to come here for reasons that are economic or whatever—I do not want to dwell on that; the important thing is that we mix these terms up. There is a clear definition of being trafficked. It involves people who do not want to be here and who are brought here against their will and are then used for various services that they should not be used for. They are slaves.

The Centre for Social Justice brought forward an important paper on this, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead, when she was Home Secretary, picked that up and turned it into legislation. We were the first country in the world to bring such legislation through, and although it may now be a little unfashionable to say it, I am very proud of that. I think that what we did is worth celebrating and protecting, and if there are faults in it, we need to correct them.

There is a problem in the Bill, and I know that the Minister for Immigration, my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), has been very accommodating and talked at length about this, and I thank him for that. I will make a few comments now about the problem and how we could possibly help, because we want to help to rectify this. I understand what the Government are trying to do, but I want to protect some of the modern slavery bits.

My first point relates to commencing the modern slavery clauses only after publishing an assessment of the problems and impacts. I understand that the Opposition have put down various tools to do this in their new clauses. The Government have argued that the Bill is needed to address illegal migration and that the modern slavery clauses are needed to address and prevent abuse of the modern slavery support system by false claims from people seeking to bypass removal. So the modern slavery clauses in the Bill should be targeted at the problem of false claims with a clear assessment made of the level of false claims and the impact on wider modern slavery policy.

The Government should therefore specify in the Bill that the modern slavery clauses—clauses 21 to 28—would be commenced only when a specific threshold of the false modern slavery claims and an increase in those claims is reached, demonstrated by evidence. I think that is fair. Alongside the false claims that would trigger the modern slavery clauses, the Government could commit to publishing evidence on the current level of false modern slavery claims and any increase or decrease in that level. Section 63 of the only recently passed Nationality and Borders Act 2022 would enable the collection of that data on bad faith claims since 30 January 2023.

The modern slavery clauses should not commence until an assessment has been published of the impact of the clauses disapplying modern slavery protections on the identification of victims, including their willingness to come forward, and on the prevention, detection, investigation and prosecution of slavery and human trafficking offences. This is important because, at the end of it all, we need to know whether there is evidence.

I understand the Government’s fear that this will somehow be used as an alternative vehicle to escape a claim and to avoid being sent back, but we do not see any evidence of that. Only 6% to 7% of those who have come over on the boats have made a modern day slavery claim. That is a tiny number. They will know by now that they can do that, but the reality is that it has not happened. I bring that to the attention of the Government: there is no real evidence of it at the moment. I understand that the Government think we need to protect ourselves against that potential, but we need to see the evidence that that trend is being broken.

[Jess Phillips]

I agree with everything the right hon. Gentleman is saying and I look forward to working with him to get some of the things that we all want to see. Does he agree, though, that there would be no risk of modern slavery victims—or those making fake modern slavery claims, who the Government seem to be convinced exist—being held up in the system and being allowed to stay here if it did not take an average of 553 days for them to be assessed? If we went back to the 45-day system that used to exist, which might be the case if more had been put into it over the years, there would be no risk that people might use it to stay in the country longer.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

Clearly the faster the claims can be assessed, the better it is for everybody, as they can be discovered either to be illegal or to be genuine victims. That is the key thing.

Clear evidence of abuse of the system needs to be published, because it is important that the figures are there to be understood. A very small number are actually claiming it, and the 73% that we were told about on Second Reading in fact refers to those who are detained for removal after arrival. That amounted to 294 people. We need to get the figures in context, then we can understand what the problem is and how we deal with it. If the evidence shows that there is an increase, we will then be able to use parts of the Bill.

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

The right hon. Gentleman and I have discussed the lack of an evidence base for this aspect of the Bill. When the former modern slavery commissioner, Professor Dame Sara Thornton, gave evidence to the Joint Committee on Human Rights recently about this issue, she suggested that because no replacement for her had been appointed for over a year, there was a lack of a proper evidence basis for the modern slavery aspects of the Bill. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that she is right about that, and will he use his good offices with the Government to try to ensure that an anti-slavery commissioner is appointed?

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

I am flattered by the idea of my good offices with the Government, and I will take that at face value—thank you very much indeed. I will speak to the Government about that, and I accept that we need to get that replacement made very quickly.

The most important point is that we need to think about exempting any victims exploited in the UK from the disapplication of modern slavery protections. There is a very good reason why that is the case. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead laid out clearly, if we do not do that, those who are affected will simply dismiss any idea of coming forward to give evidence, because they will fear that they will not be accepted and that they will therefore have to go. Many of them will not yet have given evidence to the police. The Bill suggests that the Secretary of State will be able to assess whether they have given evidence to the police, but this a longish process. This accounts for more than 60% of cases, and I really wish that the Government would think carefully about protecting them. I think the police will back us on this, because they want those people to give evidence.

The irony is that the more we help those people and the more they give evidence, the more traffickers we will catch and close down, which will probably result in fewer people coming across the channel on boats. This is all part of a circle of trust, identification and final prosecution, and it is really important. We should amend clause 21 to exempt victims exploited in the UK, and the new threshold for a positive reasonable grounds decision requiring objective evidence would prevent spurious claims. The whole point of this is to find a way.

I think we can agree on this. The work the UK has done on modern slavery, the evidence and all the rest of it, is now helping to prosecute the traffickers. If we lose that delicate flower of success, we will find ourselves in a worse position, with many more people being deliberately trafficked because we have become a soft touch on trafficking.

I fully understand why the Government are trying to deter the illegal use of these boats to cross the channel, both for people’s safety and because it puts huge, unnecessary pressure on services here, but I beg my right hon. Friend the Minister for Immigration to accommodate these concerns about modern slavery and to make sure that we do something in the Bill to protect these people in the long run.

[Apsana Begum (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)]

I support the amendments on the rights of children, because the Bill punishes children just for being refugees and puts unaccompanied children at risk. There is not enough time to go through every clause, but I will highlight some of the many cruelties.

The measures before the Committee today not only abolish the protections afforded to children but allow unaccompanied children to be routinely detained beyond the 24-hour time limit, and to be detained anywhere the Secretary of State considers appropriate. Detaining children for prolonged periods is utterly unacceptable and poses serious risks to their health, safety and protection.

Clauses 2 to 10 will create a large and permanent population of people, including children with families and unaccompanied children, living in limbo for the rest of their lives. Clause 3 could see a child who arrives alone, fleeing war and persecution, being allowed to integrate into UK society, only to be forcibly removed from the UK as soon as they turn 18.

Clauses 15 to 20 give the Secretary of State a range of astonishingly far-reaching powers, including the power to terminate a child’s looked-after care status and the key legal protections provided by local authorities.

--- Later in debate ---

The right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green was right to say that the legislation, if it is ever implemented—which remains to be seen given that we have only just completed the implementation of the Nationality and Borders Act 2022—will push vulnerable victims of slavery back into the shadows and away from the protection that they most undoubtedly need and deserve.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

And the evidence.

[Mr Carmichael]

And the evidence. The lack of evidence and impact assessments runs like a silver thread through the Bill. Have the impact assessments been done? Will they ever be done? If they have been done, will they be published? The hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) made much of that in his speech, and he was absolutely right to do so. I was tempted to intervene on him to say, “Hold on a second here, man. You shouldn’t be going so fast; you should allow the Minister to get to his feet and tell us the position.” But the Minister did not do so then, and I suspect that he will not do so now, either. There have been times when I have seen Ministers on the Treasury Bench look more uncomfortable than the Minister for Immigration did when listening to the speeches of his right hon. Friends, but I am struggling to think of when that might have been.

The points that I will focus on relate to the question of detention and, in particular, the detention of children. The detention of children is something that I thought we had seen the back of. Although that initiative was driven by my former colleague, Sarah Teather, when she was the Minister with responsibility for young people, I again pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Maidenhead, who did so much to support it in the Home Office. It was an absolute stain on our country that we kept children locked up in immigration removal centres such as Dungavel in Scotland.

I remember visiting Dungavel—it must have been in 2007 or 2008. I also remember, I have to say, successive Home Office and Immigration Ministers in the then Labour Government standing up at the Dispatch Box and saying that I was a bleeding-heart liberal, and that this was just something that we had to live with and nothing could be done. Of course, as we know, there were things that could be done, and they ultimately were done—we did them five years later.

I think it tells us quite a lot about the journey that the Conservative party has been on since those years in 2011 and 2012 that the Government feel it necessary to reintroduce detention for children. We have had 10 years without it now, and what have the bad consequences of that been? I do not see any. Nobody is saying that it has caused a massive increase or spike in any particular problems, but now, for the sake of sheer political positioning, we are going to return to a situation in which children will be placed behind razor wire in places such as Dungavel.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Jenrick]

I am not going to give way. I am going to bring my remarks to a close, because I think I have spoken long enough.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

rose—

[Robert Jenrick]

But I will give way to my right hon. Friend.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

Can I gently suggest to my right hon. Friend that the whole purpose of raising this issue was not to bandy the figures? There is a real disregard for some of the real figures here. He is quite right to say that the Government are concerned that there will be an exponential rise, as an alternative to coming across illegally. We should bear in mind that these people are trafficked; that is the key difference. All we are asking the Government to do is to look carefully at this and not take the power until they can see and show the evidence. After all, we have yet to see the impact of the Nationality and Borders Act 2022. All I am asking of him, gently, is please just to accept that the Government will think about that before the Bill comes back on Report.

Illegal Migration Bill

Iain Duncan Smith Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 13th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

I rise to make a simple point, because in the time available that is all we can do. I will draw a little bit of light rather than heat into the issue. I want the Government to succeed in restricting the boats coming across, and in getting rid of them eventually, because of the danger for all those who try to take that route. It is incredibly dangerous and people have died, particularly children.

I want to make a point about one specific area. The Centre for Social Justice brought through the original paper on modern-day slavery. I was enormously proud of it and I was enormously proud that my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May)—the Home Secretary, as she was then—was able to bring that into legislation. We were the first country to adopt that. It is not perfect but there are things that can be changed.

I say gently to the Minister for Immigration, my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), and others on the Front Bench, that I do not understand why the Bill makes such a big deal of modern-day slavery when that represents a tiny proportion of people who come over using that route. Let me give a few figures: 6% of small boat arrivals in 2022 claimed modern-day slavery. It reality, the total number is even smaller. When the Government say 73% of people

“detained for return after arriving on a small boat…then referred to the NRM”,

that amounts to 294 people. We are talking about small numbers.

I suggest to my right hon. Friend the Minister that we genuinely need to recognise that we have to be careful when treading on this. We are dealing with those who are trafficked, not people smuggling; there is a big difference between the two things. Some 60% of the claims on modern-day slavery are domestic claims, here within the UK, by people who have been trafficked into brothels or who are working in chain gangs. Those are the sort of people we really do want to stand up for, and I recognise that there is a big difference.

The people who my Government—my right hon. Friends, with their legislation—want to seek to stop are those who are coming across illegally, using smugglers. By the way, the single group that gives us the greatest credibility and likelihood of prosecuting those people smugglers, are those who have been trafficked and who then give evidence.

I simply want to say to my right hon. Friend the Minister that we need to look carefully at what we are saying in the Bill. How will my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State be able to make a judgment about whether somebody has come illegally or has come illegally and is trafficked, if the national referral mechanism is not to be used for that purpose? If we can get that down to 30 days, most people could be processed without having to take an arbitrary decision. I want my Government to succeed in this matter, but I beg them to be very careful about the modern-day slavery legislation and to protect it.

Illegal Migration Bill

Iain Duncan Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 7th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

Unspeakable tragedy is occurring in the channel and through all maritime routes around the world because of the global migration crisis. That is why it is absolutely essential that the UK takes a robust but compassionate approach. That is at core a humanitarian package of measures that sends the message to people: “Do not come here illegally.”

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

I welcome my right hon. and learned Friend’s statement. Once we strip away the rhetoric, of course, the key to all this is how we save the lives of the people who are dying while trying to get across the channel and are abused by the traffickers. I listened very carefully to her statement, and I understand all the other features—although we may have a debate about the numbers that she quotes on modern-day slavery problems—but could she expand a little on the issue that stopped the migrants being taken to Rwanda last time, which was the intervention of the European Court of Human Rights? I did not really hear anything in the statement to suggest that anything has changed on that matter.

[Suella Braverman]

My right hon. Friend is right to identify the difficulties that we had in effecting flights to Rwanda in the summer of last year. As I mentioned, the Strasbourg court issued a rule 39 order pursuant to an opaque process at the last minute without UK representation or right of challenge. We will introduce some detail in the Bill to address that scenario and inject some conditions upon which we will deliver the measures in rule 39.