Karen Bradley
Main Page: Karen Bradley (Conservative - Staffordshire Moorlands)Department Debates - View all Karen Bradley's debates with the Home Office
Modern Slavery Bill
Karen Bradley Excerpts(9 years, 8 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Karen Bradley)
I beg to move, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 72.
Mr Speaker
With this it will be convenient to take Government amendments (a) to (c) in lieu of Lords amendment 72.
Karen Bradley
As Members know, there has been considerable interest in the position of overseas domestic workers during debates on the Bill, both here and in another place. We have had excellent debates on this important issue. I am grateful to Members of both Houses for raising it, and I want to address it fully today.
At this point in my speech, I was going to wish the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) a speedy recovery, because he has been so instrumental in bringing us to this point in the Bill’s passage. I had not expected to see him here today, and I am delighted that he is present. I hope that he is feeling considerably better, and I look forward to hearing from him later in the debate.
Mr Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)
I am immensely grateful to the Minister for those comments, and Mr Speaker was nodding in agreement—so much so that I hope he may actually call me to speak in the debate.
Mr Speaker
That is a very ingenious way of signalling a desire to contribute, and the right hon. Gentleman might find that his desire is accommodated.
Karen Bradley
I look forward to hearing from the right hon. Gentleman, and it sounds to me as though you will be obliging, Mr Speaker.
Holding anyone in slavery or servitude or trafficking them is an abhorrent crime, which this Government are determined to stamp out. Such abuse of anyone on an overseas domestic worker visa is totally unacceptable. This landmark Modern Slavery Bill’s core purpose is to make sure both that law enforcement has the tools to ensure those who commit these appalling crimes are caught and punished and that victims receive the protection and support they need to recover. This is crucial to our approach to overseas domestic workers. This Bill means those who traffic overseas domestic workers or hold them in servitude can receive a life sentence and that the slavery, servitude and forced or compulsory labour offence reflects the particular circumstances of vulnerable victims.
Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)
I applaud and understand what the Minister says about ensuring that those who enslave domestic servants should be given a life sentence. If that was to happen and the law enforcement agencies were to get involved with the employer, what would happen to the employee?
Karen Bradley
I shall address later in my remarks exactly what is envisaged through the amendment in lieu to give support specifically to people on an overseas domestic workers visa who are victims of slavery.
The Bill means that all victims of modern slavery will have major new protections such as the statutory defence to prevent them from being treated inappropriately as criminals. I understand and share the sentiment behind Lords amendment 72. When my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and I looked at it and considered how to respond to the Lords vote, our priority was to improve the protection for victims of modern slavery. I know that that is in line with the spirit in which peers passed the amendment and I am grateful for their careful scrutiny of the Bill. That common focus on supporting and protecting victims of modern slavery is why I am not simply proposing that this House should disagree with the Lords amendment. Instead, even at this late stage of the passage of the Bill, we are proposing to add additional protections for overseas domestic workers who fall victim to modern slavery.
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
It is essential that we get this Bill on the statute book before the Dissolution of Parliament next week. Although the amendments coming from the other place, including amendment 72, have absolutely the right sentiment, does the Minister agree that it is vital that we ensure this legislation gets on the statute book at the earliest possible opportunity so that these fundamental and important protections can become the law of the land?
Karen Bradley
I thank my hon. Friend for his comments. He is right: we are at a very late stage and we want this Bill to become an Act of Parliament. We want the Modern Slavery Act, the first piece of anti-slavery legislation for 200 years, to be on the statute book. We must make sure we achieve that, but in a way that provides all victims, including victims on an overseas domestic worker visa, with the support and protection they need.
Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)
The hon. Lady emphasised that she wanted, through the Government amendment, to give additional protections to domestic workers, but in fact I think her amendment has either confused her or is designed to confuse the House, because it actually reduces the protections that exist under the national referral mechanism. Has she looked at the National Crime Agency report about what happens to someone who has conclusive grounds? First, they are given 12 months’ leave to remain, but the Minister is suggesting that domestic workers get only six months’ leave to remain and cannot get access to public funds. Those two things are available to every other enslaved worker, but will not be available to domestic workers.
Karen Bradley
I am afraid that the right hon. Lady has misunderstood the amendment. The protections available to all victims of modern slavery who go through the national referral mechanism will be available to victims who have come here on an overseas domestic workers visa. That includes the discretionary right to stay for 12 months and one day if they are assisting the police with their inquiries. In addition, we are including in the Bill the provision for six months’ leave to stay and work irrespective of whether the person is assisting the police with their inquiries. That is a minimum of six months, in addition to the 12 months’ discretionary leave. It is in addition to the support that is available to all victims of slavery who go through the national referral mechanism.
Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)
The good progress in the Lords reflects the comments that were made in the Bill Committee. Will the Minister say a little more about the guidance and tell us what is going to happen on the ground to ensure that enforcement action will not be taken against overseas domestic workers who are going through the national referral mechanism? Will the guidance have proper bite to ensure that no inappropriate action is taken and that victims are properly treated as victims?
Karen Bradley
My hon. Friend and the right hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) were strong and assiduous members of the Committee that scrutinised the Bill as it went through the House of Commons, which is when we started debating this issue. My hon. Friend is right to mention the guidance, and I shall explain more about that in a moment. It is absolutely clear that all front-line professionals need to understand that the visa situation of an individual is irrelevant in these circumstances: if they are a victim of slavery, they are a victim of slavery, and they will need the support that is available. As I have said, the amendment will give additional support for victims who are on an overseas domestic workers visa, and I shall explain why that is appropriate.
Before I explain the additional protections, which seek to address the important concerns raised in the other place, I should explain to the House why I am deeply concerned that Lords amendment 72 will not protect victims, however well intentioned it might be. There is a real risk that it will achieve the opposite. I want to ensure that a provision to support overseas domestic workers who fall victim to modern slavery will help those vulnerable people get the help they need and allow law enforcement to take action to prevent their abusers from doing the same to another domestic worker. I do not believe that the Lords amendment would achieve either of those things. Members will have seen from my letter that those worries are shared by senior law enforcement officers working in this field.
I should remind the House that the overseas domestic workers visa allows visitors to the UK to bring their existing domestic staff with them when they visit the UK, for a maximum of six months. Separate arrangements apply for the small number of overseas domestic workers who work in diplomatic households. Around 15,000 of these visas are issued every year, and the data suggest that visits typically last for only about 15 days, so the vast majority of overseas domestic workers will be here for a very short time. To qualify for this short-term visa, there must be evidence of a long-term employment relationship between employer and employee.
Even before the Lords debate on Report, the Government announced that the safeguards would be strengthened. There will be a new standard contract, along with changes to the immigration rules to strengthen the guarantees that overseas domestic workers will be paid at least the national minimum wage, pilot programmes of interviews for applicants overseas and the provision of information cards at the border. Given the specific circumstances in which the visa is applicable, it is not possible to change employer during the short period that the workers are in the UK or to extend the visa as a route to settling permanently in the UK.
Lords amendment 72 would change that, allowing overseas domestic workers to change employer and stay in the UK indefinitely, potentially gaining settlement. The Government have listened carefully to the debates on this issue, and we are keen to take an evidence-based approach. As the House will know, the Government have announced an independent review of the overseas domestic workers visa, which is to report in July. The review will look specifically at the ability to change employer. It is being undertaken by James Ewins, a respected expert on modern slavery who served as a specialist legal adviser to the pre-legislative scrutiny Committee on the Bill.
Emily Thornberry
Would not the Lords amendment effectively bring us back to the position that we were in in 2012, which is when the Government changed the immigration rules? My question to the Minister is why did they change the rules in the first place? Why could we not have kept them as they were?
Karen Bradley
The hon. Lady will know that there was abuse under the old regime. We wanted to ensure that we were giving maximum protection to victims. I shall shortly give the House some information from the anti-slavery commissioner designate, who is quite clear about the abuse of workers that he saw when he was working in the Metropolitan police. Those workers were here on the visa and were able to change employer, and they were trafficked and moved between employers by organised criminal gangs.
There was abuse under the old system, so going back to the old system is not the right answer. The answer is to find out what the problem is with the visa and to ensure that we are not importing abuse. That is what I am determined to do, and that is what I have asked James Ewins to look at. The measures in the Bill today are designed to give as much protection, support and information as possible to workers on this visa. By July, we shall have a full evidence base for the best way of supporting those employees, and that is the point at which changes should be made. They should be made when we have the evidence.
Emily Thornberry
I am grateful to the Minister for her answer, but I do not really understand why the rules were changed in 2012 if there was no proper evidence to enable them to be changed properly to give people protection. Why are we debating the issue now, three years later? The Government changed the rules, and they made things worse. I do not understand why we are having this debate three years on.
Karen Bradley
The evidence is not that it has made things worse. Kalayaan, the leading charity in this area, was getting 300 victims of slavery coming through its doors each year under the old system. The figure is now 60 a year.
Karen Bradley
I want to understand what is happening with the visa and to ensure that we do not import abuse. The fact is that we need to find the evidence and we need to understand the problem. That is why we have instigated the review and why we are taking the steps that we are taking today.
Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)
The Minister has just indicated to the House that the person who will look at this issue was the adviser to the Modern Slavery Bill pre-legislative scrutiny Committee. As she will know, that Committee advised the Government to accept the changes that are being proposed today.
Karen Bradley
The right hon. Gentleman is an experienced parliamentarian, but he knows that there were problems with that visa prior to 2012. We need to root out those problems. We need to find a solution, but the way to do that is not to return to the system under which the abuse occurred. The answer is to find out how to stop the abuse in the first place.
Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)
Will the Minister give way?
Michael Connarty
I have been listening to what the Minister is saying. In the past, under the Labour Government’s visa arrangements, a large number of people reported being abused because they knew that they could leave a bad employer. The Minister boasts that the figure has gone down to 60, but that has happened because people are now trapped with the same employer and can do only one of two things: they can go home, or they can run away. They are not protected under the present visa system, and that is why the number has fallen.
Karen Bradley
The hon. Gentleman will also know that we have reviewed the national referral mechanism and that we are ensuring that it is being extended to all victims of slavery, not just to victims of trafficking. An argument that was always put forward about overseas domestic workers was that they could not qualify for the national referral mechanism because they had not been trafficked. We are changing that, with the Bill and the modern slavery strategy, to ensure that support is available to all victims of slavery. I want to make it clear that anyone who is here on an overseas domestic workers visa can come forward, confident in the knowledge that they will get the support they need and that they will not simply be deported, as the hon. Gentleman is suggesting. They will be able to go through the national referral mechanism. At the end of that process, they will be able to work in this country for a minimum of six months to help them to get back on their feet. When we have the evidence from the review, we will be able to determine our final, definitive position on the visa, but I want to make it absolutely clear to anyone who is here on the visa and to any victim of slavery that the Bill, which I want to see become an Act of Parliament, is there to support and protect them.
Mr Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)
The Minister is moving the debate on, in that she is saying that a future Parliament will decide this issue. We have before us amendments that the Government hope the Lords will accept. The James Ewins review will presumably report after the election. I want to ask the Minister and my own Front-Bench spokesman, my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson), whether they will give a commitment that whoever is in government will implement James Ewins’s report.
Karen Bradley
We have asked for this review to take place and we look forward to the recommendations. I cannot commit a future Government, but the intention is that whoever is in government—I very much hope it will be the Conservatives—will implement the review’s recommendations.
Fiona Mactaggart
I tried to intervene on the point about Kalayaan, because I want to put on the record that Kalayaan would say the reason for the reduction in the number of people who sought its help was that the remedies available to them have gone away. Does the Minister share my concern that in primary legislation there is an entitlement to six-months’ leave, which may guide the courts and officers in what they do, but no entitlement to the one year she claims those helping the police with their inquiries will receive?
Karen Bradley
On the numbers, I accept and do not dispute what Kalayaan is saying. What I am saying is that through this Bill we are offering the support Kalayaan says it believes overseas domestic workers do not get. I can work only on the basis of the figures it has produced about the number of people who have come to it looking for support; that is the only evidence I have on this at the moment. I have the other evidence about people who have gone through the NRM having been on an overseas domestic worker visa, and they are far smaller in number than those going through the NRM for domestic servitude who are UK or European economic area nationals, or who are here completely illegally. I can work only on the evidence I have, which is why I have asked James Ewing to look at the point.
The right hon. Lady makes the point about the courts, but they are not determining whether somebody is given a conclusive grounds decision within the NRM. She knows we have reviewed the NRM and introduced, as we will discuss later, an enabling power to put the NRM on to a statutory basis, as and when we have completed the pilots. But it will not be the courts deciding whether somebody gets a conclusive grounds decision; it will be the decision makers within the NRM—those specialists, led at the moment by the Salvation Army, who run the care contract. So this measure will not make any difference to courts decisions or decisions about discretionary leave, but, as she rightly says, this will be the only set of victims who will have something in statute over and above what is available in policy. She should welcome that.
Mr Burrowes
We are all united in wanting to ensure that victims have the confidence to come forward, knowing that they will be supported and not deported. But should we not all share the concern that amendment 72 contains a gap and a flaw, which is that the cycle of abuse could lead to those on domestic work visas changing employers and then not coming forward to the authorities? That issue has been taken up by, among others, the Organised Crime Command. We need to look at what we have before us. We can agree that there is a gap in Lords amendment 72, which needs sorting out.
Karen Bradley
My hon. Friend sums it up perfectly—I could not sum it up better. The problem we have with a system that just allows somebody to change employer is we are brushing the abuse under the carpet; we are not bringing it out into the light. That flies in the face of what we are trying to do through this Bill, which is find the victim.
Karen Bradley
I hope the hon. Gentleman will not mind but I am going to make some progress.
The victims of slavery I have met are incredibly vulnerable people. We have a duty to give them support, look after them, and make sure that they take control of their lives and make the right decisions. I have met too many victims in domestic servitude who were not on visas and who have gone from one abusive employer to another because they were not brought out into the open—we did not find those victims—and we did not give them the support they need.
Suggesting that somebody who has been through the kind of suffering we are talking about could just walk out and find another employer and their life will be okay is disingenuous; it does not reflect the realities of this horrendous crime and the vulnerabilities of these victims. I want to find these victims and give them the specialist support the NRM offers, and I want to make sure they then have control of their own lives to move forward and do the right thing.
Karen Bradley
I said that I was going to make progress, but I will give way to the hon. Lady and the hon. Gentleman, and then do so.
Emily Thornberry
I am trying to think about this in terms of the real world. It seems to me that the best way of escape for someone who is in servitude and being abused would be to find another employer, who could then be supportive. In those circumstances, someone could explain what had happened to them. Such a person is more likely to come forward in those circumstances than they are to come forward to the police when they are still in servitude and still being abused.
Karen Bradley
Let me be clear: this is not about coming forward to the police; it is about victims coming forward to a professional first responder who will refer them into the NRM. If someone chooses to give evidence that allows the police to instigate inquiries, they may be eligible for the 12 months and a day of discretionary leave. But what we are saying is, “You don’t need to come to the police. If you are a victim of slavery, you can come forward to a first responder—a professional—and a charity such as Kalayaan can help you by putting you into the NRM. And if at the end of the specialist support you are given a conclusive grounds decision, you will be allowed to stay and work for six months while you get your life back on track.” If the matter was as simple as someone changing employer, we would not have UK or EEA nationals being victims of slavery. It is not that simple to solve; it is a far more complicated problem. We are talking about 15,000 people who are, on average, here for 15 days. How do we make sure we find those victims? That is the challenge we face and that is what I want the review to deal with.
Michael Connarty
The Minister is trying to explain a difficult subject. The difficulty I have is that she seems to be saying that, regardless of how someone leaves an abusive employer, they end up in a white van heading for some place they are put by the NRM.
Michael Connarty
That is what happens to victims now. They are transferred from a caring organisation such as Kalayaan into what people see as a sterile organisation. Unfortunately, at the moment all the evidence shows that when people went to the police under the last Labour Government’s policy—the three-year visa— the police would send them to Kalayaan and it would then find their escape route. It was something people cared about, supported and had confidence in. Sadly, at the moment the official line—the police line, which is contained in the Government’s amendment—is not attractive to people who are in these situations. Whether the Minister likes it or not, escaping from an abusive employer and finding other employment where their employer does not abuse them is the solution for many people I have spoken to—the ones I met outside, when they presented me with flowers. Their solution is not to be put into some organisation where they are in an official system they do not trust.
Karen Bradley
I have enormous respect for the hon. Gentleman, but the way that he has painted the picture of the support given to victims in the NRM completely flies in the face of what those incredibly dedicated organisations that run the refuges and safe houses I have visited do. These are not sterile environments; they are caring family homes. They are places where people get incredible support and the opportunity to get back on their feet. I want to make it clear, for the record, that where people come forward as victims of slavery, whether they are on any visa or no visa is irrelevant; they should come forward to a first responder, not to the police. The first responder will refer them into the NRM, and just to be clear, it is the human trafficking centre or UK Visas and Immigration that currently makes the reasonable grounds decisions and, of course, the conclusive grounds decisions.
The Salvation Army runs the care contract and makes sure that those individuals who have been given a reasonable grounds decision and are therefore put into the NRM are then given the support they need. It does not matter—[Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman talks from a sedentary position about visas, but the visa does not matter; they will be put into the NRM and they will be looked after, not in sterile conditions but in very caring, supportive environment, with specialists who make sure that they have the support they need. If, at the end of the time, they have gone through the NRM and the decision is taken that they have a conclusive grounds decision that they are a victim of slavery, they will then be given a six-month visa to work. [Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman knows—
Mr Speaker
Order. We must conduct this debate in a seemly manner. The hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty) cannot just stand up and make his point without having secured agreement to his intervention. We will leave it there for now, but the Minister is understandably animated on the matter.
Karen Bradley
Thank you, Mr Speaker, and I do apologise for that.
It is important to make it clear that victims who go through the national referral mechanism and who have a conclusive grounds decision that they are a victim of slavery will, at that point, have the right to claim six months to stay and work here in the UK. Whether they take up that claim is entirely down to the individual. If that victim assists police with their inquiries, they will receive an additional year and a day discretionary leave.
Returning to my former point, the Government believe that, given the very different views on the effect of the visa tie, this independent review—the one being conducted by James Ewins—is a great opportunity for a careful and objective look at the issue, and we should not pre-judge its findings. It is particularly important that we allow the review to do its work, because I am deeply concerned that the approach in the Lords amendment will not encourage victims to report the perpetrators of these heinous crimes, so that they can be held to account, or help victims access the support they need to recover.
If an overseas domestic worker who has fallen victim to modern slavery on their short stay in the UK has the ability to change employer, the likelihood is that, if they can escape, they will simply look for another employer and not tell the authorities what has happened to them. The perpetrator would then remain free to go on to abuse other domestic workers either in the UK or in their home country.
If we are to catch these very serious criminals and stop them offending again, we must incentivise overseas domestic workers who suffer abuse to come forward; it is absolutely crucial that we do that. My main concern is to ensure that victims, who are often deeply traumatised and vulnerable, receive the care and support they need to recover from the abuses they have suffered.
Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)
Given that the Minister has said that the Government amendment requiring victims to go through the national referral mechanism is aimed at ensuring that there are prosecutions, what is the evidence to date that shows that such cases have led to successful prosecutions and convictions?
Karen Bradley
The hon. Gentleman, who was a distinguished member of the Bill Committee, knows that there are not enough prosecutions. But this Bill is designed to secure more. Increased prosecutions combined with the reviewed national referral mechanism, which we will be piloting shortly and hope to roll out nationally very soon, will mean that we will get the evidence and information that we need. This is about not just legislation but the modern slavery strategy. We want all the agencies working together to ensure that we identify victims and treat them as victims, and that those victims get the support they need, so that they can give us the information we require to find the perpetrators of these awful crimes.
A victim who manages to leave an abusive employer and who is not receiving appropriate support would be very vulnerable and at risk of moving on to yet another abusive employer, leaving the original abuser free to abuse again. There is a real danger that Lords amendment 72 will allow abuse to go unchallenged. However good the intentions, that would not protect overseas domestic workers. It risks giving a free pass to the criminals who abuse them, creating the conditions for yet more victims. Quite frankly, if eliminating modern slavery was as simple as being able to change employer, we would have no UK nationals or EU members as victims as they could simply move on. As we all know, the truth is very different, and we have all heard the traumatic accounts of those abused by unscrupulous agricultural gangmasters or tarmac gangs.
This is a complex topic, and simplifying the issue to whether an overseas domestic worker can change employer risks doing a grave disservice to victims. That is not just the view of the Government. I have taken advice from the law enforcement professionals responsible for investigating modern slavery. Chief Constable Shaun Sawyer, the national policing lead for modern slavery, and Ian Cruxton, the director of the Organised Crime Command at the National Crime Agency, have both expressed concern that the Lords amendment would inadvertently undermine the fight against modern slavery because victims will not come forward.
Karen Bradley
The right hon. Gentleman fails to mention that I have managed to convince the Equality and Human Rights Commission. [Interruption.] It has said that it supports the Government’s position and recommends that our amendment should be accepted.
Mr Hanson
I might have been able to take the right hon. Gentleman at his word, had he not joined in the recommendation from my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead in the Committee. When I tabled in Committee word for word what he voted for in the draft Bill, he voted against it. With due respect to the right hon. Gentleman, he had his chance to put his case in Committee. We did not get this measure through the Bill Committee because he chose to vote with the Government, rather than for what he had recommended as part of the Joint Committee.
Lord Hylton said in the debate in the other place:
“There can be no doubt that domestic workers tied to one employer and living on his premises are extremely vulnerable.”
Baroness Hanham, a Conservative, said in the same debate:
“In this 21st century it is absolutely unacceptable that people are coming in to this country tied to an employer, unable to do anything for themselves and absolutely under the instruction of the person for whom they are working”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 25 February 2015; Vol. 759, c. 1690-93.]
Peer after peer, MP after MP, and my right hon. and hon. Friends in their submissions to date have said that the Government’s approach is wrong-headed and that they need to rethink it urgently.
If Lords amendment 72 is defeated, we will reluctantly not oppose the Government’s amendment in lieu. We will contribute to the debate. Should I be the Minister after May, which is entirely a matter for the electorate, I will revisit the principles that we are examining in relation to Lords amendment 72. As has been pointed out by my right hon. Friend the Member for Slough and my hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry), the Government’s amendment gives someone who has been determined to be a victim of slavery or human trafficking through the national referral mechanism the ability to change their employer. It does not untie the visa for all. It means that overseas domestic workers would need to meet a high threshold to prove that they had been victims of modern slavery.
Karen Bradley
We are debating the Modern Slavery Bill, aren’t we? What we are looking at here is how we protect victims of slavery, irrespective of their visa. If we give somebody the right to come to Britain on one of these visas and then they are abused as a slave, I want to make sure that we give them the right support. That is what we are debating today and that is what I want to achieve.
Mr Hanson
I am grateful. There is no disagreement between us, but the issue for me is still the position with regard to the tied visa. I do not think that the Government’s proposal in the long term, following the review that was undertaken effectively on a cross-party basis by my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead, is sufficient for the purpose.
Mr Hanson
With due respect to the hon. Lady, under the Government’s proposal an individual would have to find a way to report themselves and to activate the national referral mechanism and get involved in that, at a time when they are working for an employer. The principle that I want to support is movement on untying the visa.
Karen Bradley
If somebody is unable to get to an authority to report themselves as a victim of slavery when there are helplines in place, and first responders, such as people in public bodies and others who are available, how does the right hon. Gentleman think they can change their employer?
Mr Hanson
It is important that they have the ability to do so.
I come back to my starting point. If the hon. Lady’s position is so strong, why are Kalayaan, Amnesty International, the anti-slavery organisations, Liberty, Unite the union and other organisations involved in supporting the people whom she is trying to protect saying to her today from outside the Chamber, “The Government have got this wrong.” The Government have indeed got this wrong. They need to support amendment 72 and ensure that we deal with the issue in a fair and appropriate way.
For example, let me give the Minister one quote from Amnesty International. Anybody in the House will accept that Amnesty International is a respected organisation. Amnesty said to me in an e-mail only last night:
“We are gravely concerned at the amendment now put forward by the Government. Not only does this not provide any improvement in the position of these workers, but it would place on the statute book a regime under which overseas domestic worker victims of human trafficking and slavery would be provided with less protection than other such victims within the existing National Referral Mechanism system.”
The hon. Lady says that that is not the case. I contend that if Amnesty International is criticising the Government, if the other organisations are doing so, if the House of Lords has said that the Government are wrong and if a cross-party royal commission which has looked at the Bill has said that the Government need to change their position now, the Government need to consider that.
There will be no right of appeal against a negative decision and no legal aid. Many of the people involved have limited English, are poor and vulnerable, and are being abused by rich and powerful people. The challenges are too great to place upon them. We have an opportunity today to give the House of Lords our support, to put in place this measure which will ensure that the visa is untied and that a level of protection is available. There is still the possibility of tackling issues to do with the minimum wage and other exploitation and to take both criminal action and civil enforcement action outside this Chamber through the anti-slavery commissioner and other aspects of the Bill. The hon. Lady has the chance to do that today, and I hope she will take it.
Karen Bradley
The right hon. Gentleman is very generous in allowing me to intervene. He hits the nail on the head when he talks about the vulnerability of the victims. We are talking about people who are in an incredibly vulnerable situation and about their chances of making a reasonable and logical decision to move to a non-abusive employer, when the risk is that they will go back to more slavery, more abuse and more servitude, and with the employer they have just escaped from being able to put somebody else into servitude. I think that that risk is too great for us to take. We need to help those people. We need to find them. I fully accept the challenges of finding victims and bringing this crime out into the open, but we are not going to do it if we brush it under the carpet and just let the victims change employers.
Mr Hanson
There is a disagreement between us, as ever. That is the nature of the debate that we have in the House. I support the Government in trying to tackle long-term abuse by poor employers. I support the Government in trying to drive out abuse carried out through pay and conditions. I hope the National Crime Agency, the anti-slavery commissioner and others will work hard to do that. The difference between us today is the question of the tied visa for employment. The House of Lords, the Committee chaired by my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead, and the charities and organisations outside the House that are working on this issue believe that the Government should accept the Lords amendment. So do I.
Caroline Nokes
Of course we all want this to be good law, which is precisely what the Minister intends. We do not want loopholes that enable slave masters to find new victims; we do not want these slaves to be without the protection we are seeking to give them.
Karen Bradley
Has my hon. Friend reflected on the fact that when the Modern Slavery Bill becomes the Modern Slavery Act and we can say to employers applying for the visa, “If you bring your employee into the United Kingdom and abuse them, you will be subject to life imprisonment”, that will be a big deterrent that should prevent abusive employers who intend to bring in employees and treat them as slaves from doing so?
Caroline Nokes
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. Of course she is absolutely right—it is a massive deterrent, and we must have it on the statute book.
Chief Constable Shaun Sawyer, the national policing lead on modern slavery, and Ian Cruxton, the director of the organised crime command at the National Crime Agency, have expressed concern that the Lords amendment would inadvertently undermine the fight against modern slavery—a fight that we all agree has to be won. I therefore hope that my hon. Friend will advise the Lords to withdraw their amendment, well intentioned as it may be, to ensure that the Bill gets on to the statute book in this Parliament, that those guilty of modern slavery will not be allowed off the hook, and those suffering the misery of it will be given protection and hope.
Michael Connarty
The Minister has become much more skilful at arguing her brief than she was at the beginning of the process on the Bill. We forgave her for reading her text line by line in the beginning, but we will not forgive her for what she has done today. She rose to excuse a police-drafted clause with a fixation on criminality and catching bad people. Catching bad people is fine: I totally support it, as I have in the campaign that I have run for a long time and since long before there was engagement by the Minister or her colleague, the hon. Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith), who is sitting smiling on the second Bench. The reality, however, is that if we substitute the rights of victims with the overarching demand to catch criminals or bad people, we sometimes sacrifice the victims in that pursuit. Government amendment (a) takes the that line.
If an overseas domestic worker coming forward in relation to an employment situation is not paid, are they a slave? If they are held by somebody who has their passport but does not give it back and does not pay them—perhaps feeds them, and perhaps does not beat them—they are still slaves. Are the police likely to take information from those people to pursue the employer? Probably not. Will those people be able to leave their employer and say, “I want to go somewhere where I will be paid and treated correctly; where I will be treated with respect, not as a slave, but as a worker”? A worker expects to be treated properly. If people are treated badly by their employer who has brought them to this country, it is still slavery as far as I am concerned.
Karen Bradley
I say again that, yes, I want victims to provide information that enables us to catch the perpetrators and increase the number of prosecutions. However, when somebody comes forward and is referred to the national referral mechanism, it does not require the involvement of the police at any point in the process. The UK Human Trafficking Centre and UK Visas and Immigration make those decisions at the moment. As the hon. Gentleman knows, we have reviewed the national referral mechanism and will be piloting the use of panels to make those decisions. Those will not be law enforcement bodies. Law enforcement will be involved only if people can provide evidence that will enable us to catch the perpetrator. If somebody goes through the national referral mechanism and gets a conclusive grounds decision, they will be granted a minimum of six months to stay and work in the country for any employer. That does not need to involve the police at any stage in the process.
Michael Connarty
The Minister did not answer the question that I asked. If someone is not paid and their employer holds their passport, are they enslaved? I ask her to clarify that. It seems that she is not willing to speak about that. Of course, that is not likely to lead the police to prosecute the person who kept their passport and kept them in a domestic home in the UK. We might be talking about longer than 15 days. The Minister mentioned people who live with the staff of embassies. She did not elucidate on that point, but that is where some of the worst malpractice has happened.
Amendment (a) states that leave to remain will be granted to an overseas domestic worker
“who has been determined to be a victim of slavery or human trafficking, and…in relation to whom such other requirements are met as may be provided for by the rules.”
It goes on to specify what the rules must provide for. My concern is for the victim. My second concern is to create the conditions in which the victim wants to deal with an abusive employer. It might not be someone who beats them up. It might be somebody who refuses to pay them or who gives them just a small allowance like pocket money that is not adequate to live on, which is what many domestic workers get when they come here. Will we prosecute those employers? I hope we will, because that is a breach of our laws.
Karen Bradley
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. That is a breach of our employment laws. HMRC is pursuing the employers of overseas domestic workers to ensure that they pay the national minimum wage and observe our employment laws. However, where somebody is the victim of slavery, qualifies under the national referral mechanism for specialist support and gets conclusive grounds, amendment (a) will enable them to work here for six months.
Michael Connarty
Amendment (a) is deficient. Lords amendment 72 is simple and states that people can
“change their employer (but not work sector) while in the United Kingdom”.
That is the first choice they should be able to make. If a domestic worker who comes here is a victim and is not treated properly, they should be able to move to another employer while their visa is running. That was the basis of what was put forward by the Joint Committee on the Draft Modern Slavery Bill. That was the basis of what was proposed in the Public Bill Committee. However, it was not carried. We know about the deficiencies in the Liberal view at that time. I hope that the Liberal Democrats have changed their mind. Today, we can support the simple Lords amendment and carry the spirit of what was recommended by the Joint Committee.
My second point on the protection of victims is about the way in which we encourage people to take up the right to stay. The hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) said that nothing had been done in that respect. In 2009, the Labour Government brought in a three-year visa that allowed domestic workers to leave unacceptable or abusive employers, including the kind of employer I have described who does not pay wages or respect people properly as workers. The current Government overturned that and closed that door to people.
It is unlikely that the people I have met through Kalayaan and other organisations who work with these victims will go into the national referral mechanism, because they have an aversion to formal institutions. We know that. Through the Human Trafficking Foundation, we have talked to 60 or 70 non-governmental organisations, all of which have the same problem: the victims do not trust the institutions of the state in this country. Whether we like it or not, the Government’s proposal says that if people are willing to be a witness and help the police to prosecute their former employer, they will get support and be able to stay for up to a year. That is not the way to do it. The way to do it is to allow people to move employer and to create a structure that allows them afterwards to go willingly to those organisations that are willing to give them a bit of muscle if they feel aggrieved enough about the abuse they have suffered.
Most people who have not been paid or have just been paid pocket money are not likely to want to pursue their employer, but they have the same right to move as someone who is willing to go up against an employer who has beaten or stabbed them or treated them abusively. Why should we distinguish between these two sets of people? Legally, they are not being treated as they should be as workers, or are we to distinguish between foreign workers and our workers?
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
I commend the Minister for the passion with which she spoke earlier about the vulnerability of victims. I do not doubt her integrity or motives, and I am grateful for the time that she found to talk to me and the policy director of Focus on Labour Exploitation—that is one NGO in the long list cited by the shadow Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson), that shares the concerns about the way the Government are approaching this issue.
A number of Government Members have spoken with equal passion about the importance of getting the Bill into statute, and the Opposition share that. The simplest way would have been for the Government not to have challenged Lords amendment 72, because it helps to ensure that our efforts to combat modern slavery are not undermined by an immigration system that ties workers into slavery.
We are now agreed across the House that the tied domestic worker visa effectively gives all power to employers and none to their vulnerable employees. It forces domestic workers who are exploited by their employers to make the unenviable choice between breaching their visa conditions or staying with an abusive employer. As was mentioned earlier, there have been three reviews on this issue: the first was by the Centre of Social Justice, which so often has the ear of the Government; the second was by my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field); and the third was by the joint legislative Committee on this Bill. All reviews came to the same conclusion: the tied domestic worker visa strengthens the hand of the slave master against the victim of slavery. The Government should not ignore those reviews and should recognise that Lords amendment 72 seeks to address the concerns raised. The amendment is not a silver bullet; it simply wrestles a small amount of power back to the domestic worker from her or his employer—that is all. If accepted, however, the amendment will help to prevent many cases of abuse.
As was mentioned earlier, those with an interest in these issues struggle to understand why the Government are so unwilling to accept the amendment. The Home Secretary has suggested that the Bill seeks to be “world leading”, but that was our pre-2012 position on this issue. My right hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) cited the kafala system that has led to countless cases of abuse in Lebanon, and NGOs used the pre-2012 UK overseas domestic worker visa as an example of best practice. We were commended for immigration rules that recognised
“the particular vulnerability of migrant domestic workers to exploitation and incorporate fundamental protections as a result.”
Later that year, we lost those protections, and the amendment seeks to restore them. If the Bill is to be taken seriously as a genuine effort to tackle modern-day slavery, Lords amendment 72 should stand unchanged.
Many of us are concerned that the Government are proposing not only to reject the amendment but to insert their own amendment that would provide domestic workers with the right to remain in the UK, but—this is an enormous but—only if they are determined to be a victim of trafficking by the authorities. I understand the Government’s reasoning, which the Minister has outlined, in seeking to secure prosecutions, but the protection of victims and securing prosecutions are not mutually exclusive aims.
Karen Bradley
The hon. Gentleman is making a powerful speech, and I thank him for mentioning Focus on Labour Exploitation, which is now part of our stakeholder group working on modern slavery. I want victims to go into the national referral mechanism to give them the support they need and to ensure that those vulnerable people who have been subjected to the most horrendous abuse get the right level of expert support. I want them to go into the NRM, so that we ensure that we give them back control of their lives. We have gone through a review and I fully accept that the NRM needs changes, but the new reviewed NRM is designed to give people the support they need.
Paul Blomfield
I understand what the Minister is saying, but let me explain why I think the Government’s approach is problematic. The Government’s amendments would mean that a domestic worker will have to take the risk of presenting to the authorities to gain the determination of being a victim of trafficking. The domestic worker would have to do so without legal advice, as legal aid would be granted only once referral is made. Secondly, they provide for no immigration enforcement action to be taken against domestic workers, should they breach immigration conditions, again only if they are found to be a victim of trafficking or slavery. That will do nothing to allay the genuine fears of domestic workers that, if they put their heads above the parapet to seek assistance, they could face deportation.
My hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) has made it very clear how the criminal justice system might treat victims in that situation. Indeed, they would face deportation if they decide they do not wish to go through the NRM, which should be their right. Therefore, far from achieving the desired result the Minister seeks to outline, the amendment risks achieving the absolute opposite: stopping victims coming forward and reducing the chances of prosecutions.
Mark Durkan
As any evidence emerges, we will have to consider what it suggests about this sector of employment in general and individual employers in particular. This goes back to some of the arguments the Government have used in support of their own amendment and against the Lords amendment. If a domestic worker were to change their employer under the visa entitlement the Lords amendment would give them, it would be known to an authority, and the authority should be duly asking questions. It would then be for somebody else—perhaps not the victim—to notify the national referral mechanism and for issues to take place there.
In separate interventions today, the Minister seemed to make different arguments. On the one hand, the Government amendment was defended on the grounds that it would lead to more prosecutions of abusive employers by ensuring that victims co-operated with the national referral mechanism and therefore that their victimhood would translate into active cases. That is what we were being told by the policing lead and the National Crime Agency. Then, in another intervention, the Minister made the point that the national referral mechanism was not of itself hidebound in achieving prosecutions and not necessarily police or prosecution-driven in any way. We cannot have both arguments being used in contradictory ways here.
I ask the Government to listen to their own arguments and to think about some of the things they are relying on in respect of their own amendments. They should think again about pressing those amendments; the chances are that they will have to revise them in the light of subsequent reviews and evaluations. The sensible thing to do—and most in keeping with the spirit claimed for this Bill, as being “world-leading” legislation—would be to accept the Lords amendments and, if necessary, qualify them by revisiting the issues in the light of subsequent reviews.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
With the leave of the House, I will call the Minister briefly to speak again and answer the debate.
Karen Bradley
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am grateful that you have given me the House’s leave to respond to the points raised.
I am grateful to all right hon. and hon. Members who have spoken in the debate. I know, as do we all, that there is a shared desire across this House and the other place to protect all victims of modern slavery. I will endeavour to address as quickly as I can the specific concerns raised, but I first want to note the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Mrs Spelman) about the pre-legislative scrutiny committee’s various recommendations. She made the important point that the vote and recommendations for the committee took place before the Bill was published and the Government amendments were framed—before the review was announced and before the amendment in lieu we are debating today. I want to put on record my thanks and to pay my tribute to the members of the pre-legislative scrutiny committee, the Bill Committee and Members in the other place who have helped the Government to amend the Bill, making it a stronger and better Bill as a result.
The right hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) talked about not ratifying the International Labour Organisation’s convention on domestic workers. She will know that we do not believe that ratifying it would strengthen the extensive measures we already have in the UK to prevent slavery and human trafficking. We believe we go further in respect of slavery and human trafficking than the convention asks for. It is important to strike the right balance between protecting vulnerable workers and ensuring that aspects of employment law which can carry criminal sanction are not extended to private households. Ratifying the convention would require the imposition of unnecessarily onerous obligations on, for example, people employing home helps or personal carers, and would be neither practical nor proportionate.
The right hon. Lady also said that she did not consider a six-month visa for victims to be sufficiently long. The Government’s initial intention is to grant a six-month visa to enable victims to earn some money and begin to rebuild their lives as they plan their return home. We believe this to be an appropriate period. It is of course the maximum time for which an overseas domestic worker visa is usually issued—they are issued for six months, and we will proceed with six months. We will of course consider any recommendations that James Ewins makes in his review as to whether the period should be varied, along with other evidence put forward. Six months is the minimum, and it can be amended in immigration law.
Sir Andrew Stunell
I appreciate the Minister’s giving way and I know she is working hard in this area. If six months is the minimum, will she describe the circumstances in which that would not be the automatic figure? In what circumstances might a period longer than six months be granted under the guidance she is suggesting?
Karen Bradley
If the right hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I would have to say that it depends on the individual circumstances. Perhaps I shall write to him with some examples, if that would be acceptable.
The right hon. Member for Slough also made a point about people carrying their passports through the border. If she has evidence that people are being treated in this way while going through the border, will she please supply it to us, because I would like Border Force and others to look at that and act on it.
The hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty) expressed his view that the Bill is not victim focused. I disagree: I think it is. The Bill before us has changed significantly from the draft Bill published in December 2013, and almost all the amendments made in the other place are in support of victim protection. I thus feel strongly that we have made it a victim-focused Bill.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
Order. Members have put many questions to the Minister during a long debate. She is now answering them, and the House should have the courtesy to listen to her.
Karen Bradley
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.
As I was saying, I am slightly confused. It worries me that we are having a debate about immigration when we should be debating slavery, which is what this Bill is about.
Chloe Smith
Does the Minister agree that we seem to have heard the Labour Front-Bench team and the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty) being what some might call soft on immigration, in the sense of opening up this debate to all workers? The hon. Gentleman said explicitly that this was not just about victims, but about everybody.
Karen Bradley
My hon. Friend makes an important point. I have been confused. I thought we were discussing modern slavery, yet I have heard that this is about opening up immigration rules.
Michael Connarty
The Minister is setting up a straw man to knock it down. In the specific case I mentioned, someone is brought to this country and not paid—or given only pocket money, which many of the Kalayaan victims tell me is what happens. They are not physically abused, locked in a cupboard and fed the scraps the dog does not want—they are just not paid. There is a kafala system, in that the domestic visa and passport are held by the employer. Is such a person enslaved or not? I would say yes; does the Minister say no?
Karen Bradley
The hon. Gentleman will know that it would depend on the individual circumstances. It is clear, however, that in the situation he describes, British laws have been broken, so I would expect action to be taken to ensure that that was rectified. The point remains that the right hon. Member for Delyn, speaking for the Opposition, said that he wants the tie to be removed for all employees, even if they are not being abused. That sounds a strange and surprising position to take, given that there is so much concern about loopholes and other ways through which immigration rules can be flouted.
Michael Connarty
In taking evidence about Qatar in the Committee I chair at the Council of Europe, I heard about a case mentioned by the Union of Construction, Allied Trades and Technicians, in which people had their passports taken off them by their employers and were not paid. The person giving evidence said that these people were slaves, and I agree. If that is happening in Qatar and the same is happening in this country—people not being paid by their employers, who are holding their passports—I would say that it is an exact example of slavery in the modern world.
Karen Bradley
As I have said, I cannot get drawn into individual examples. It would depend on the individual circumstances and on what has been said. Clearly, however, the law has been broken in that case, so action should be taken.
The hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) accepted that workers were abused in the previous system—but then seemed to suggest that she wanted to go back to such a system. That is not acceptable. She also talked about the EU directive. We are confident that we fully meet all our obligations under the EU directive for all victims of trafficking, including those on overseas domestic worker visas.
The hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) made the point that this issue is very complicated, and he is absolutely right that there is no silver bullet. If there were, we would not have between 10,000 and 13,000 victims of slavery here in Britain today. That is unacceptable and shows why the Modern Slavery Bill is so important. We need to ensure that it is enacted, so that we can take action against the perpetrators and protect the victims.
The hon. Gentleman questioned the use of the term “world-leading”. Let me give the House some facts about countries with similar immigration systems. In Australia, the domestic worker visa allows a person to work only for the named employer. The employee cannot become unemployed or work for someone else. In Canada, only the diplomatic route allows a change of employer, and the change must be approved by the Protocol Office. In the United States, overseas domestic workers may work only for a diplomat, an international employee or a visitor. Those who accompany visitors must certify that they will not accept other employment while working for the employer. In Ireland, workers are expected to leave at the end of their employment. It seems to me that we are not out of step with international comparators, and that we can be proud of the fact that this is a world-leading Bill.
The hon. Gentleman also mentioned the independent review. Its terms of reference are available, and I will forward them to him if he cannot find them in the Library or elsewhere. The review will consider the issues and what the best solutions are, so that victims can be helped and further abuse prevented.
The Government acknowledge that some domestic workers may have been employed abroad with terms and conditions that do not accord with United Kingdom law and expectations. However, the requirement to prove, as part of an overseas domestic worker via application, that there is a pre-existing, ongoing employment relationship outside the United Kingdom provides the best assurance available that an established employer-employee relationship is in operation.
As for the hon. Member for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless), I am grateful for his support for the Bill. I am not sure whether he supports the amendment, but I will say to him, rather cheekily, that if I see him in the Lobby today, it will probably mean that I am seeing him more frequently than I did when he sat on my side of the House.
The hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) talked about prosecutions and the focus of the Bill. Its focus is on finding the victims, but we will not protect them if we do not catch and convict the perpetrators. That is absolutely vital. The two strands of this work cannot be disaggregated; they are both important, but victim protection is at the forefront of what we are doing.
I know that some Members feel that the overseas domestic worker visa should not be linked to a single employer. The Government have taken their concerns as seriously as possible by holding an independent inquiry. There will be a report by the end of July, and changes to the visa can still be made under the immigration rules without the need for further primary legislation. However, if we simply accepted the Lords amendment now in its entirety, we would be ignoring the advice from law enforcement practitioners and the designate independent anti- slavery commissioner.
I urge Members to support the motion. The amendments in lieu will encourage more overseas domestic workers who are victims to come forward, they will allow law enforcement to lead to the investigation and prosecution of more abusers, and they will help vulnerable victims to rebuild their lives.
Question put, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 72.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
With this it will be convenient to consider Lords amendments 2 to 71 and 73 to 95.
Karen Bradley
These are the amendments that the Government introduced in the other place to improve the Bill. They focus particularly on strengthening the provisions on support and protection for victims. They were broadly welcomed across the parties in the other place and they also deal with many issues raised in debates in this House. I shall not go through them in detail now but will, with the leave of the House, respond to specific points at the end of the debate. I hope that right hon. and hon. Members will feel able to welcome them.
Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
I thank the Minister. I was a little taken aback by the brevity of her opening remarks, considering the number of amendments that have been proposed. I may not be as brief as she was, because there are several points I want to put on the record.
It is important to stress again that the Labour party has always supported the introduction of this important Bill. We recognise that human trafficking is a heinous crime and that its complex nature demands specialist legislation, but it has been a little difficult at times fully to understand the Government’s approach. When the original Bill was first published, many charities, organisations and lawyers shared the view that the Government had failed to provide the level of support for victims that we all wanted to see. There were also some large gaps: for example, at the outset it contained nothing on supply chains.
Progress has been made in Committee in this House and in the other place. I pay tribute to my noble Friends the right hon. Baroness Royall, Lord Rosser and Baroness Kennedy for their work in ensuring that we received this much improved Bill today. I also pay tribute to the work done in the Committee that considered the draft Bill. Tribute has already been paid to my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) for the work that he and all the members of that Committee did on a cross-party basis to make a set of recommendations that we have been able to consider, question and argue for as the Bill passed through the House.
I want to comment on some of the progress that has been made through the Government amendments in the other place. The position of anti-slavery commissioner has been transformed; it originally seemed to me that they would be nothing more than a Home Office civil servant with a remit exclusively covering prosecutions and with no independent overview of their work programme. Even though that change has not gone as far as we hoped—we hoped for something more akin to the Children’s Commissioner—we are pleased that the commissioner will have control over their finances, will be able to appoint their own staff and promote good practice across the world and that public bodies will have a duty to co-operate with them. Most of all, I am pleased that the commissioner’s remit will include the support available to victims and survivors of trafficking and exploitation.
There have been significant improvements in the formulation of the statutory defence for victims of slavery who commit crimes in the course of their enslavement. The original defence did not recognise the unique nature of child exploitation and the fact that a child cannot consent to their own enslavement. The Opposition therefore welcome the removal of the compulsion element of the statutory defence in relation to children, but we think that a problem remains not just in the conviction of perpetrators of slavery but in the prosecutions and charging decisions. We are disappointed that the Government have not suggested an amendment to require the Director of Public Prosecutions to issue specific guidance on charging in cases of human trafficking victims. Whichever party is in Government after 7 May will need to consider that again.
Another big area on which there has been movement is that of child advocates. Although the new system introduced by the Government is not the system of child guardians required by the EU directive on child trafficking, which was called for by the Joint Committee on the draft Bill and the charity coalition involved in the Anti-Trafficking Monitoring Group, some improvements have been made. I pay tribute in particular to my right hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart), who championed child advocates forcefully in the Bill Committee.
We now have an assurance that advocates will definitely be brought in and that they will be independent of other statutory bodies with responsibility for the child; that they will have access to the necessary and appropriate information; that they will be appointed as soon as is reasonably practicable where there are reasonable grounds to believe that a child may be a victim of human trafficking; and that they will have the power to appoint and instruct legal representatives where appropriate.
I also welcome the practical moves in relation to the Gangmasters Licensing Authority and the fact that we will have a Government report looking at the GLA’s work and a possible extension of its role within 12 months.
On another positive note, we are very pleased with the significant progress that has been made on the reporting requirements placed on large firms in relation to their supply chains. The Government could never claim to be genuinely committed to eradicating slavery in the UK if we did not address slavery in the supply chains of our large companies. It was absurd that the Government did not include supply chains in the original Bill. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty), who has done so much to champion this issue over many years. I am pleased that his tireless efforts have paid dividends in changing the Bill.
The Opposition were clear from the outset that we wanted a reporting requirement that was comprehensive, that allowed direct comparability between companies and that included an enforcement mechanism. Although we welcomed the moves originally announced by the Minister on Report, we still wanted them to go further. She will remember that we were particularly critical of the Government for repeating some of the mistakes that have hampered the transparency of supply chains legislation in California. It has not always been clear which companies that legislation applies to, and it has been hard for non-governmental organisations to find out which companies ought to be complying and whether they actually are complying. Moreover, when two reports were looked at side by side, they were often not directly comparable.
That is why we made it clear that the reporting requirement has to contain clear instructions as to what a report has to have in it. A large firm may have 100,000 suppliers and it will be able to fill a report with good practice, but what we need firms to do is to create a fair evaluation that addresses the key issues, which means that we have to specify the key things to be addressed in the report.
We welcome the guidance as to what a report should contain and we hope it will encourage best practice, but we still think that that should be compulsory guidance rather than just a steer. We would also have liked it to contain a requirement for companies to report on what work they are doing to support victims who are found in their supply chains. I recognise, however, that the Bill has come a long way and I thank the Minister for the way in which she has dealt with the changes to it over the past few months.
Fiona Mactaggart
The Minister will not be surprised to find that I want to ask for more—I feel like Oliver sometimes—but let me start by saying thank you to all the members of the pre-legislative scrutiny Committee, to the members of the Public Bill Committee and to the Minister, because we have made real progress—I say that to Members from all parties. The Minister has often said that this is the first UK Bill to deal with modern slavery, but it will not be the last. So one thing I should like her to commit to—she has time in this debate to do so—is a review of the effect of this legislation within three years of its commencement. We are passing so much here that we need to test whether some of our anxiety about whether it will work, and some of her confidence that it will work, is well founded. Such a review would be a good foundation for looking to the future.
The second thing I want to ask for relates to Lords amendment 61, where the power to make regulations about victim care is explicit, but it is only a power to make regulations. There is a risk that for many months after this Bill victims of modern slavery in England will be less well cared for than victims of modern slavery in the other parts of the UK, which have passed legislation including powerful mechanisms for victim care. So will the Minister commit now—I believe that she is willing to do so, but it would be helpful if the commitment was made on the Floor of the House—to take the earliest opportunity to introduce regulations to ensure high standards of victims’ care following the review of the NRM.
My final point is about the Connarty-Mactaggart-Bradley issue, which is about supply chains. I really welcome the fact that supply chains are provided for in the Bill. The Minister will have noticed the debate in the House of Lords, which told us to learn from California about having no central spot where supply chain reporting happens. I have been struck by the keenness of companies on having a central spot, because good-quality companies will benefit from this legislation on supply chains. They are keen to ensure that there is proper comparability between the reports of different companies. The Minister could now say—it does not require legislation—that she will work with the commercial and voluntary sectors to try to establish a single repository for those reports, because if we do that, customers will be able to hold companies to account.
Karen Bradley
With the leave of the House, I should like to respond briefly to the comments that have been made. May I start by saying that I am pleased the Bill has been so well received by Members from all parts of the House? I am grateful to all the right hon. and hon. Members, both here and in the Lords, who have worked so tirelessly in assisting the Government to make the Bill as effective as possible. We have had some animated debates and differences of opinion, but I think all right hon. and hon. Members will agree that the Bill today looks very different from the one first presented as a draft Bill in December 2013.
I wish to pay specific tribute to my colleagues Lord Bates and Baroness Garden, who steered the Bill through the 95 amendments we are discussing today, and to the shadow Ministers, both here and in the other place, who worked constructively with the Government to make sure we get the right result: by the end of prorogation, a Modern Slavery Act—something of which we can all be incredibly proud.
Some specific points were raised. I welcome them, but do not have much time to cover them. Briefly, many of them, particularly those raised by the shadow Minister and others, were debated in the other place, and there is much on the record about our position. Let me just say that we will continue to consider those points. From my point of view, the Bill is a means to an end; it is not the end itself. It will enable us to identify more victims, using the anti-slavery commissioner and the victim support that we have outlined, but that cannot be the end. We have a long way to go, working on the strategy and working with partners, to ensure that the measures are implemented on the ground.
I pay tribute to all members of the pre-legislative scrutiny Committee and the Bill Committee, including my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes), whose work on trafficking and child trafficking advocates has put us in the position that we are now in, and he should take great credit for that. I also pay tribute to the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty) and the right hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) for their work on supply chains, which they did for many, many years before the Bill was introduced. They know that we wanted to do this in the right way; we wanted to have the right evidence to get the Bill right. I can tell the right hon. Lady that we are consulting on the statutory guidance, including on how best to make statements available online. We are working with the voluntary sector and businesses specifically on a website or a comparison tool for statements.
This Bill is important and historic, and I am incredibly proud of it. For the victims of those most heinous and horrendous crimes, we have done something very good today in this place.
Lords amendment 1 agreed to.