Oral Answers to Questions

Karen Bradley Excerpts

Monday 12th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng (Spelthorne) (Con)]

17. What steps the Government are taking to tackle hate speech.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Karen Bradley)]

No one in this country should live in fear because of who they are. We have made progress in tackling hate crime, but we are determined to do more, including challenging those who spread extremist messages and seek to divide our society. We will therefore develop a new hate crime action plan, working in partnership with communities and across Government to ensure that we have strong measures to stop these deplorable crimes.

[Fiona Bruce]

Can my right hon. Friend reassure me that in tackling hate speech, the Government will continue to protect and cherish freedom of speech in this country, and, in particular, that Christian Ministers need have nothing to fear when preaching biblical principles in their own pulpits, as their predecessors have done for more than 1,000 years?

[Karen Bradley]

I assure my hon. Friend, who campaigns so much for the protection of religious freedoms, that we value the role of faith in society, and will protect everyone’s right to practise their faith. Freedom of speech is a fundamental value that binds our society together, and we will always protect that right. Nothing that we are doing, or planning to do, to tackle hate crime and extremism will stop the United Kingdom’s long tradition of preaching.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I am very grateful for the Minister’s answer. Will she assure the House that nothing in legislation will undermine not just Christianity, but people who preach other faiths?

[Karen Bradley]

I assure my hon. Friend that we are doing nothing in legislation that will prevent the right to believe, and the right to practise and preach. What we are doing is focusing on people who seek to use religious texts as an excuse to promote hatred and extremism. That is what we want to stop.

[Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)]

Does the Minister agree that the Secretary of State’s speech to the Conservative party conference could itself be defined as hate speech, and that it did nothing for her bid for the leadership of the Conservative party and everything for a potential bid for the leadership of UKIP?

[Karen Bradley]

I can give a one-word answer: no.

[Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)]

Is the Minister aware of the current case of Pastor James McConnell in Belfast, who is being prosecuted for a sermon he delivered in his church to his congregation, and does the Minister accept that, with all the best will in the world, it is ordinary, decent citizens who are fearful of stepping over a line who will be prosecuted and persecuted under the crime of hate speech, and not those paramilitaries and terrorists we need to focus on?

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I listened intently to what the hon. Gentleman said and from the phraseology he used it seems that a prosecution is currently under way. If that is so, the sub judice rule applies and therefore a degree of caution in the ministerial response would be prudent.

[Karen Bradley]

Thank you, Mr Speaker; you took the words out of my mouth. I clearly cannot comment on that matter, but I do want to assure the hon. Gentleman that using religious texts as an excuse for hatred and as a reason to incite hatred is not acceptable and we will not stand for it.

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

Last week the Women and Equalities Committee visited Oldham, Manchester and Birmingham and heard from a number of local organisations about their continuing concern about hate crime, and particularly hate speech. I know the Government take this issue very seriously. Can the Minister update the House on the progress they are making in terms of the reporting of hate crime, which is clearly still a considerable concern in many communities?

[Karen Bradley]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that question. We met last week and discussed some aspects of this. We are looking at the feasibility of the reporting of hate crime and will be making a decision shortly.

[Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab/Co-op)]

Balancing freedom of speech with the need to ensure we have a strong, diverse and cohesive society is a challenge for any Government, but what practical funding does the Home Office offer to support communities like mine that want to run initiatives to bring diverse communities together and promote that more cohesive society?

[Karen Bradley]

As I just said, we are looking to introduce a new hate crime action plan and we are looking at all the ways we can support those local communities who want to work actively to promote community cohesion and our shared values.

[Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

The Government want universities to ban speakers who say things that do not break the law but which do promote hatred or violence. Can the Minister give one clear example of a statement made in a UK university which should now be banned?

[Karen Bradley]

I welcome the shadow Minister to her place and look forward to working with her. I think she will agree that this is about how we protect our shared values and how we make sure we work together and keep our citizens safe. I hope she will work with the Government to make sure we do that.

[Dr Lisa Cameron (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (SNP)]

8. What steps she is taking to tackle domestic violence. [R]

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Karen Bradley)]

Tackling domestic violence is a key priority for this Government. We have created a new offence of domestic abuse, we are making improvements to the police response and this year provided over £20 million to fund specialist domestic and sexual violence services, national helplines and refuges.

[Dr Cameron]

What steps will the Minister take to improve the witness testimony experience of survivors of domestic abuse through special measures, which may increase reporting and conviction rates?

[Karen Bradley]

We are looking through the refreshing work we are doing in our whole violence against women and girls strategy and we are considering how we can make sure the victim experience is such that victims are treated with the dignity and respect they need. We are working with the Ministry of Justice to make sure that happens.

[David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that forced marriage is a particularly iniquitous and hidden form of domestic violence that is going on in this country at the moment, and will she look at funding for the forced marriage unit, which is doing excellent work in the Foreign Office to try and protect young British girls from being married off against their wishes?

[Karen Bradley]

I have visited the FMU, which is a joint Home Office and Foreign Office unit. It does excellent work and I know that its outreach programme is getting to those girls who may be victims of forced marriage and making sure this does not happen.

[Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)]

23. Does the Minister support the HeForShe campaign which many world leaders have signed up to as impact champions, and will she encourage her own party colleagues, including the Prime Minister, to sign up to help end discrimination and violence towards women?

[Karen Bradley]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. Could she perhaps provide more information about that campaign? We support many campaigns and I would like to find out more about that one.

[Andrew Stephenson (Pendle) (Con)]

Will the Minister join me in supporting the work of citizens advice centres across the UK and their Talk about Abuse campaign, a national campaign to help friends and family members to support the victims of domestic abuse?

[Karen Bradley]

I attended the launch event of that excellent Citizens Advice campaign, which has already helped me with a case in my own constituency, in which I was able to refer someone to the citizens advice bureau to get the specialist and expert support that they needed.

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

Reports of domestic and sexual violence are increasing across the country. However, in an attempt to deal with the relentless Government cuts, local authorities and the police are stopping specialist abuse support to victims and instead providing generic services or no services at all. Will the Minister commit to ensuring that everyone, regardless of gender, sexuality or ethnicity, feels safe and supported in their home?

[Karen Bradley]

I welcome the hon. Lady to her place on the Front Bench and I look forward to working with her. We have worked together on a number of previous campaigns and I know that she will be excellent in her new role. As I have said, the Home Office is refreshing its violence against women and girls strategy, and part of that involves looking at commissioning and local commissioning to ensure that those specialist services, which she rightly says victims need to get the support that they require, get the funding that they need.

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[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

T5. The Modern Slavery Act 2015 was a great achievement for my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and her colleagues. What progress is she making in working with other European countries to tackle modern slavery, especially in the light of the report from the Centre for Social Justice on organised crime groups that move men, women and children across EU borders into slavery?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Karen Bradley)]

I thank my hon. Friend for his compliments about the Modern Slavery Act. A number of measures from the Act, including the new offences, are now live. We shall shortly implement the section on transparency in supply chains, which has the potential to change international opinion on slavery. We have also been successful in having modern slavery included in the sustainable development goals at the UN, which should mean that there is increased focus on the issue. We are also working with other European Governments to ensure that slavery is at the top of their agenda too.

[Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)]

T4. A month ago a very impressive young woman came to my surgery asking for my help. She is in her mid-20s and is a high-flying accountant—or she would have been had her wings not been clipped by the shock news that she has no status in this country through no fault of her own, but because her parents have overstayed their welcome. She is now estranged from them. Does the Home Secretary have any sympathy with children in those circumstances who have done nothing wrong? Could I write to her and ask her to use some discretion in looking at this case?

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[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

T6. As Ministers will know, crisis funding for domestic violence refuges ends on 31 March 2016, so where should the many thousands of women and children fleeing violence now turn for lifesaving support after that date? In particular, will the Minister commit to the provision of sufficient permanent funding for women’s refuge in future?

[Karen Bradley]

In response to earlier questions, I talked about the refreshing of our violence against women and girls strategy, which includes looking at how we commission services, but it also looks at prevention. We need to make sure that women are not in the position where they need to go to refuges, so we are looking at how we make sure that the right provision is available and at how we do all we can to prevent this crime happening in the first place.

[David Morris (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Con)]

T9. In my constituency the CCTV equipment is coming to the end of its functional life. What funding is in place to replace this scheme?

Stalking (Protection of Victims)

Karen Bradley Excerpts

Thursday 17th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Karen Bradley)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk) on securing the debate and thank him for raising this important issue. He has made some excellent points on behalf of his constituent and I am genuinely and terribly sorry to hear about this case. It emphasises why we must get the first response right, identify stalking behaviour at the earliest opportunity and ensure that the criminal justice system does deliver justice.

First and foremost, stalking is a dangerous and devastating crime. The impact on the victim—physically, psychologically and emotionally—cannot be overstated, as we have seen in Dr Aston’s case. We owe it to the victims of this terrible crime to do everything we can to afford them the protection and support they need. It is, as my hon. Friend has said, a horrible, violating crime. This Government continue to work closely with victims, stalking support services, the police and criminal justice agencies to ensure that we are doing just that.

It may help if I set out the laws that apply to stalking. As Members will be aware, in November 2012 two new offences of stalking were introduced into the Protection from Harassment Act 1997. That was in recognition of the fact that, while stalking could be prosecuted under that Act, there was a gap in the law. Those specific offences bridge that gap in order better to protect victims and to bring perpetrators to justice more effectively. They have made a difference.

The most recent data from the Crown Prosecution Service show that in 2014-15, more than 1,100 prosecutions commenced under the new stalking offences—almost a 50% increase on the previous year. A significant number of those prosecutions were brought under the more serious of the two offences, involving fear of violence and serious alarm or distress. Those figures are encouraging and show that the new legislation is beginning to take effect. However we know, and we have heard today, that too many victims of stalking are not getting justice and that more can be done. As my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster) pointed out, the ability to offend online increases the opportunities available to offenders, although I must make it clear that that which is illegal offline is also illegal online.

Of course, legislation alone is not enough to tackle the problem. If the new laws are to be used to best effect, it is vital that front-line police officers and prosecutors are equipped to recognise the patterns of behaviour that lie behind the fixated obsessions of a stalker. Since October 2012, the College of Policing training package on investigating stalking has been completed more than 68,000 times by police staff. More than 1,600 CPS staff have completed training on stalking and the Director of Public Prosecutions has commissioned more work to identify actions to increase stalking prosecutions even further.

The difference between stalking and harassment has always been a challenge, particularly when trying to bring a successful prosecution. The CPS is working with Government and other partners such as Paladin, which runs the national stalking advocacy service, and the Suzy Lamplugh Trust, which runs the national stalking helpline, to identify additional training to enable CPS prosecutors to address the issue.

We also continue to work closely with the College of Policing and the police to ensure that appropriate tools are available to put in place protective measures for victims. In July, I met the national policing lead for stalking and harassment, Assistant Chief Constable Garry Shewan, to discuss options for further work. ACC Shewan is currently undertaking a review of police information notices in the light of recent concerns over their use. He will consider whether PINs should be rebranded to make their purpose in addressing low-level harassment more explicit. A PIN may not be an appropriate measure in stalking cases, and guidance to officers will be refreshed to reflect that point.

The Home Secretary and I are considering further evidence on the measures available to tackle stalking and looking at whether there is more that the Government can or should do. For example, the Government have introduced civil orders to help the police deal with domestic abuse, female genital mutilation, forced marriage and sexual offending. We are actively looking at whether a new stalking and harassment protection order could provide an additional route to early intervention to stop this crime.

Prolonged campaigns of the kind involved in the case raised by my hon. Friend highlight the fact that both the new offences are needed. Stalking must be acknowledged as the fixated, obsessive offending that it is. We now need to focus on the early identification of stalking behaviour so that perpetrators can be stopped before someone has to suffer for so many years. The legislation has provided a springboard to drive such a shift in approach, but consideration of a new protection order is another step in ensuring that we do all we can to stop stalking at the earliest opportunity. A new order may include the option to place restrictions on an offender.

[Alex Chalk]

The court already has the power to impose restraining orders—in other words, it can order someone not to go to a certain place—but it is in the nature of such offending that offenders ignore court orders however they are badged. Does the Minister recognise that that is an issue for the criminal justice system?

[Karen Bradley]

My hon. Friend is right. In the case that he has raised, the offender was given a restraining order banning him from 11 counties. However, we need to look at whether we can bring in more civil orders in addition to the criminal justice legislation. Anything we can do to stop offending at the earliest opportunity and prevent it from becoming a prolonged campaign would be positive. The example he has cited really brings home the fact that we need to intervene sooner, including by identifying the signs of such behaviour as soon as possible and deciding whether any measures can be used. I do, however, understand that once an offender has started such a prolonged campaign, there is a difficulty in using civil orders, and that action must then be taken through the criminal justice system. If my hon. Friend will allow me, I will return to his point about the criminal justice system.

I must also say that we cannot look at stalking in isolation from the broader work being done across Government to tackle violence against women and girls and to protect vulnerable people and tackle exploitation in all its forms. Wider work on tackling violence and abuse may help to support an improved response to stalking. For example, the College of Policing has developed an immersive training programme for officers on domestic violence and abuse. That programme is relevant, because nearly half of stalking cases involve a former intimate partner. That was not the case in the example my hon. Friend has cited, but that has been shown by the statistics. Such training will be crucial in helping officers to tackle domestic abuse and implement the new offence of coercive and controlling behaviour, both of which will benefit domestic abuse victims who may experience stalking. By supporting officers to identify patterns of abuse and promoting a culture of victim belief and empathy, the new training packages will improve the police response to a range of safeguarding and public protection issues, including those of victims who are stalked by a casual acquaintance or a complete stranger, as well as those who know their stalker.

My hon. Friend and I have discussed outside the Chamber the specific points that he has made in relation to Dr Aston’s case, including his wish for stalking to be a specified offence in order to increase the level of sentencing, and for section 265 of the 2003 Act to be looked at in relation to consecutive versus concurrent sentencing. I have met my right hon. Friend the Lord Chancellor to discuss those points. He was disturbed by them, and very much wants to meet my hon. Friend to discuss them and to consider what the Government can do to make a practical difference. This goes back to the point that the criminal justice system has to deliver and be seen to deliver justice. Victims such as Dr Aston deserve no less.

I am proud of the progress that we are making in getting to grips with this complex offence, the effects of which can be deep and long-lasting for victims. Today’s debate has been timely in informing us of the impact and what more can be done. Once again I congratulate my hon. Friend, who is a true champion of his constituents. Dr Aston is very lucky to have him as her constituency MP. I know that he will continue to campaign for her and other victims of stalking. As the Minister with responsibility for preventing abuse and exploitation, I am determined to do everything I can, with him, to protect victims and bring perpetrators to justice.

Question put and agreed to.

Disclosure and Barring

Karen Bradley Excerpts

Thursday 16th July 2015 Written Statements

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Karen Bradley)]

In April 2015 the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) informed the Home Office that information in a number of files they held on behalf of the relevant Northern Ireland departments had been destroyed between 2010 and 2013. The bulk of this action was undertaken as part of routine data management procedures by the service’s predecessor organisation, the Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA), to ensure compliance with data protection legislation. The disposal of the information was, however, in contravention of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the ISA and the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety, Northern Ireland and the Department of Education, Northern Ireland. The MoU was developed in preparation for the ISA taking over responsibility for barring services for Northern Ireland from March 2009, and specified that the files were on loan to the ISA and that information was not to be destroyed.

While it is extremely regrettable that these files have been destroyed I can, however, assure the House that the disposal of this information does not present a safeguarding risk to the public. Nevertheless in the interests of transparency I wanted to inform the House of this matter.

The DBS has conducted a comprehensive internal review to establish the number of files affected. In addition, the Home Office’s Permanent Secretary instructed the DBS board to commission an independent review to establish how many files had been destroyed, and their content where known. Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PwC) were commissioned to undertake this work and a copy of their report on the first phase of the review, including the DBS’s management response, will be placed in the Library of the House today and published on www.gov.uk.

PwC’s report confirms that in total 826 case files were loaned. Four hundred and four files related to individuals who had been previously barred; and 422 files related to individuals where the decision had been not to bar. It concludes that 64 files were destroyed: 62 by the ISA; and a further two files by the DBS. It also confirmed that some information in a further 18 files had been destroyed and a further two files remained unaccounted for. In all cases where the file had been destroyed, the authorities in Northern Ireland had made a barring decision before the files were loaned. In 62 cases the individual had not been barred, and in two cases the individual had been barred. The ISA reviewed these two barred cases and decided that the two individuals should not be transferred onto the new barred lists in line with revised legislation. All cases are reviewed by the DBS if new information comes to light. In the additional 18 files where some information had been destroyed, the DBS confirmed that the information destroyed was not material to the case.

The DBS is taking further steps to identify whether they can locate the remaining two files that are unaccounted for. In both these cases the authorities in Northern Ireland had made a barring decision prior to the loan of the files and neither person was barred. In one case where the original file was unaccounted for, further information came to light and, following normal procedures, the ISA made a determination and the individual was then barred.

In her statement of 12 March 2015 the Home Secretary made it clear that the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, chaired by Justice Goddard, would have the full co-operation of Government and access to all relevant information. The Home Office has informed the inquiry secretariat about this matter and the relevant Northern Ireland departments have informed the Hart Inquiry.

On announcing the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse, the Home Secretary requested a moratorium on the destruction of material. Following this announcement the DBS revised its data retention policy to stipulate that information in any barring cases that identify sexual abuse should not be destroyed. Any further changes to this guidance will be approved by the Home Office. On 23 June the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse issued further guidance on the detail of what may or may not be destroyed across government and by other agencies. The DBS has assured the Home Office that the DBS will fully comply with the inquiry guidance.

The second phase of PwC’s review will look at wider file management processes and provide a view on the relevant application of, and compliance with, data retention polices. I will make a further statement to the House when PwC’s review is completed.

I also wish to announce that the 2014-15 annual report and accounts for the Disclosure and Barring Service (HC 309) is being laid before the House today and published on www.gov.uk. Copies will be available in the Vote Office.

[HCWS116]

Gangmasters Licensing Authority

Karen Bradley Excerpts

Tuesday 14th July 2015 Written Statements

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Karen Bradley)]

The 2014-15 annual report and accounts for the Gangmasters Licensing Authority are being laid before the House today and published on www.gov.uk. Copies will be available in the Vote Office.

[HCWS99]

Oral Answers to Questions

Karen Bradley Excerpts

Monday 6th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Karen Bradley)]

Future levels of Government funding for all public bodies will be considered as part of the next spending review. We are committed to resourcing the Gangmasters Licensing Authority to ensure it can deliver on its purpose of protecting vulnerable and exploited workers.

[John Pugh]

The Minister will recognise that the GLA is massively important in combating people trafficking and illegal working. Can she guarantee that its workforce will not be reduced?

[Karen Bradley]

I know that the hon. Gentleman takes a great interest in the GLA, which I agree does excellent work. He will know that we committed in the Modern Slavery Act 2015 to a review of it, and that is now taking place as part of the wider cross-Government review of a single labour market enforcement agency.

[Stephen Phillips (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)]

6. Whether she plans to increase funding for Lincolnshire police.

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[Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)]

15. What recent discussions she has had with the Secretary of State for Justice on the potential effect on victims of domestic abuse of repealing the Human Rights Act 1998.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Karen Bradley)]

The new British Bill of Rights will continue to protect fundamental human rights, including those for victims of domestic abuse. The Government are committed to strengthening victims’ rights further with a new victims law, which will enshrine key rights for all victims.

[Christina Rees]

The Ministers knows that the UN rapporteur, Rashida Manjoo, is worried about violence against women in the UK and the impact of the Government’s austerity programme on relevant services. She has appealed for safeguards and guarantees that local authorities will continue to operate within the human rights framework in compliance the UK’s international obligations. Does the Minister agree that repeal of the Human Rights Act 1998 would further undermine efforts to tackle violence against women and girls in the UK?

[Karen Bradley]

I am tempted to give the very short answer of no, I do not agree. Human rights did not come into existence in 1998 with the Human Rights Act. The Government are absolutely committed to maintaining Britain’s high standards of human rights, which we have had for at least 800 years.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

Prior to the Human Rights Act 1998 and its incorporation of the European convention on human rights into UK law, victims would have had to go to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg to enforce their rights. What the incorporation of the convention into domestic law did was to allow them to enforce their rights here in the UK. Will the Minister acknowledge the benefits, to victims, of the Human Rights Act 1998?

[Karen Bradley]

I suspect victims would like to be able to go to the Supreme Court here in Britain to have their rights upheld. That is what the Government are looking at.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

10. What recent guidelines her Department has issued on requirements in crime reporting.

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[Natalie McGarry (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

In June 2012, the United Kingdom Government signed up to the Istanbul convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence. Will the Minister tell us why, three years later, organisations such as Women’s Aid are criticising the Government for not taking further action?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Karen Bradley)]

The hon. Lady will know that primary legislation is necessary if we are to comply with all the articles in the Istanbul convention, including article 44, which concerns extra-territoriality. We are negotiating with the devolved Administrations to ensure that we can introduce such legislation. I should add that the Government comply with everything else in the convention. We have criminalised forced marriage, for example, and we have taken steps to deal with female genital mutilation. We have done more than any previous Government, but we do not ratify conventions until we are absolutely certain that we comply fully with them.

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[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

Does the Home Secretary share my concern about the wellbeing of women survivors of domestic violence, many of whom have been denied legal aid and are then repeatedly brought back to court by their former partners because they are not represented by skilled advocates?

[Karen Bradley]

I take the treatment of victims and survivors incredibly seriously, as do my right hon. Friends the Home Secretary and the Prime Minister. We are determined that victims will have their voice heard, that they will be listened to, and that they will be treated with dignity. That is why we have introduced 144 independent domestic violence advocates, stationed at police stations and custody cells to make sure that victims get the respect and dignity they deserve.

[Caroline Ansell (Eastbourne) (Con)]

T7. On the occasion of her visit to the Eastbourne and Willingdon constituency, I was very pleased to show the Home Secretary the new partnership-working between local officers at the borough council and local police officers; that is shared space, partnership-working which is really delivering for local people because of the ease with which communications can be shared. I am very pleased to say that that also extends to elected Members, having just received a call from the district commander about this. Does my right hon. Friend agree that such partnership-working, neighbourhood policing rooted in the community and working with agencies is a successful model?

National DNA Database: Ethics Group Annual Report

Karen Bradley Excerpts

Tuesday 24th March 2015 Written Statements

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Karen Bradley)]

My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Bates) has today made the following written ministerial statement:

I am pleased to announce the publication of the 7th annual report of the National DNA Database Ethics Group on 24 March 2015. The group was established on 25 July 2007 to provide Ministers with independent ethical advice on the operation and practice of the National DNA database.

I welcome the recommendations made within the report including the need to ensure rigour across DNA methodologies to minimise the risk of error and contamination and the importance of sharing DNA information internationally in order to assist in the apprehension of those that commit crimes across national borders.

The Ethics Group’s annual report can be viewed on the website of the National DNA Database Ethics Group and I am arranging for a copy to be placed in the Library the House.

[HCWS471]

Oral Answers to Questions

Karen Bradley Excerpts

Monday 23rd March 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Karen Bradley)]

The Government are committed to tackling the threat of serious and organised crime. In 2013 we launched a comprehensive new strategy and a powerful new crime-fighting organisation—the National Crime Agency—which are already making a difference. We continue to strengthen our response through the Serious Crime Act 2015, the Modern Slavery Bill and strategy, and the anti-corruption plan. We have also forged new collaborative relationships with the private sector to tackle money laundering and to combat online child sexual exploitation.

[Sir Tony Baldry]

The National Crime Agency has clearly had a good start, with 300 convictions in just the first six months. Will my hon. Friend confirm that the Serious Crime Act 2015 will ensure that the National Crime Agency continues to have the resources and powers to address serious and organised crime?

[Karen Bradley]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his question. He is right that the National Crime Agency has made a good start. We have looked carefully at where powers are needed to increase the weapons that it has in its arsenal, and the Serious Crime Act really assists the National Crime Agency and other police forces in making sure that they can tackle particularly criminal finances to stop the Mr Bigs keeping hold of their money.

[Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)]

One of the most serious forms of organised crime is child sexual exploitation. The National Crime Agency was given information over a year ago about 20,000 people who had downloaded abusive images of children. Twelve months later, only 2% have been fully investigated or charged. What has happened to the other 98%? With that kind of backlog of CSE cases, does the Home Secretary really think that this is the right time to cut thousands more police?

[Karen Bradley]

The hon. Lady disappoints me. We have had this conversation on several occasions. The fact of the matter is that the National Crime Agency, through Operation Notarise and others, has protected more children from abuse than any other agency, and it is ensuring that children at risk of abuse are looked after and protected in a way that has never happened before.

[Damian Green (Ashford) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the signal successes of the NCA is that it has made more than 600 arrests in dealing with online child sexual exploitation through the operation that she has just mentioned? Will she assure the House that this will continue to be a high priority, not just for the NCA but for each individual local force?

[Karen Bradley]

My right hon. Friend, who has considerable experience in this area, will know full well that the National Crime Agency and local police take this issue incredibly seriously. Bringing the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre into the National Crime Agency, as a command within it, has increased both capability and capacity to consider such crime and to make sure that we find those criminals who want to hurt our children and prevent them from doing so.

[Mr Dominic Raab (Esher and Walton) (Con)]

8. What steps she is taking to reduce crime rates.

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[Mike Crockart (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

13. What discussions she has had with the Secretary of State for Scotland on the potential introduction of a scheme to allow international students graduating from Scottish further and higher education institutions to remain in Scotland to work for a defined period of time.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Karen Bradley)]

My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary meets colleagues regularly for discussions on a range of issues, including how we can continue to attract the brightest and best to study here while bearing down on abuse.

[Mike Crockart]

The recommendation comes as part of the Smith agreement. It recognises that the higher education sector is a multi-billion pound industry, and Edinburgh university is one of the most successful participants in that. More than 10,000 foreign students are now studying at Edinburgh, generating some of the highest quality research in the UK. Does the Minister agree that keeping more of those excellent students in the UK while their research is commercialised would be of enormous benefit, not just to the Scottish economy but to the UK as a whole?

[Karen Bradley]

My hon. Friend will know that the Russell Group of universities, of which Edinburgh is a member, has seen a 30% increase in the number of applications from overseas students since 2010, showing that studying in the United Kingdom is an attractive offer to students. There is no cap on the number of students who can stay in the UK after completing their degree, provided they have a graduate-level job, get an internship or become a graduate entrepreneur.

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

The Minister will have seen the Scottish Government’s post-study work working group, which recommends that a post-work study visa is reinstated for a wide range of people, including businesses, education and student representatives. Will the Minister consider that or will she ignore it again? What can the Scottish people do to progress that agenda and ensure that our economy and higher education institutions benefit?

[Karen Bradley]

What the Scottish people can do is clear: stay part of the Union. I repeat that there is no cap on the number of graduates who can stay on after their studies, provided they have a graduate job, an internship or a graduate entrepreneurship.

[Ann McKechin (Glasgow North) (Lab)]

The Minister will be aware of the reduction in the number of students from the Indian subcontinent. One of the major reasons for that is that they are unable to remain in the United Kingdom for a few years to work and to pay off their fees. This policy, therefore, discriminates against those who come from poorer nations, rather than those from richer families.

[Karen Bradley]

I repeat that since 2010 there has been an increase in the number of visa applications from overseas students. It is difficult to say what the drivers are for our seeing more students from some countries and fewer from others. For example, we are seeing a significant increase in the number of students from China, which indicates that it is not the reforms that are stopping people coming.

[Rosie Cooper (West Lancashire) (Lab)]

14. What assessment she has made of the financial condition of police forces in England and Wales.

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[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

Crime rose by 6% in Greater Manchester last year. Will the Minister update us on her improvement plan with Action Fraud, and can she assure me that the defrauding of my constituents will be investigated and they will be kept up to date with the progress of that investigation?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Karen Bradley)]

The hon. Lady and I have had several discussions about Action Fraud. Let me bring her up to date with the latest figures from the organisation. As we have established in earlier discussions, fraud is historically an under-reported crime. The number of recorded offences has almost trebled, from 72,000 before the introduction of Action Fraud’s centralised reporting system to 211,000 now. As the hon. Lady knows, Action Fraud is also embarking on an improvement plan. It has resulted in a reduction in the number of complaints, which should be welcomed, but we are still keen to ensure that local police forces in particular treat and correspond with victims in a way that enables them to understand the action that is being taken to deal with these crimes.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

T6. Yesterday huge crowds turned out in our most multicultural city, Leicester, to celebrate English history. Did not that celebration of monarchy and continuity provide a fine example of British values, and should we not learn from that example of history that it is not a good idea to get on politically by bumping off one’s close relations?

Modern Slavery Bill

Karen Bradley Excerpts

Tuesday 17th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

Will the Minister give way on that point?

[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?

[Karen Bradley]

Of course. How could I not give way to the hon. Gentleman?

[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.

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[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.

[Michael Connarty]

rose—

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[Michael Connarty]

rose—

[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.

[Karen Bradley]

indicated dissent.

[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.

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[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[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]

rose—

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[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.

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[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.

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[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]

rose—

[Michael Connarty]

Is that slavery as far as the Minister is 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.

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[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?

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[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

[Karen Bradley]

rose—

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

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[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.

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Slavery, servitude and forced or compulsory labour

[Karen Bradley]

I beg to move, That this House agrees with Lords amendment 1.

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

Violence against Women and Girls

Karen Bradley Excerpts

Thursday 12th March 2015 Westminster Hall

[Fiona Mactaggart]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is also right to admit that dealing with such things is complicated for teachers. We need to support and educate teachers. I remember reading a story that a pupil of mine had written; it was obvious to me that she had been watching utterly inappropriate movies at home. I thought that they must have strongly informed her writing, because I did not believe that she could have imagined all the things that she had written about. As quite a young teacher, I did not really know how to respond to that situation. Young teachers will encounter that kind of thing, and we need to train them to deal with it.

Education is one of the keys to prevention, but I believe that there is another way of reducing violence against women and girls. Hon. Members probably know that I regard prostitution, as it actually happens, as usually being a form of violence against women and girls, particularly vulnerable women. I believe that the way to prevent that form of violence is to reduce girls’ vulnerability to being seduced into prostitution.

There has been much greater awareness of child sexual exploitation in debate and discourse recently, and that is an important step, but we need to reduce the number of women who are prostituted. As a state, we need to help women leave prostitution, and we need to deal with the demand for prostitutes. In my view, we should follow the Swedish example and criminalise the customers, who have choice, rather than criminalising the women, who have little.

I praise the Government for creating section 76 of the Serious Crime Act 2015, which makes controlling and coercive behaviour an offence. That offence has the capacity to play a role in the prevention of physical violence, because physical violence is often not the first step; it follows on from, and is bound up with, controlling and coercive behaviour. Will the Minister tell the House the exact steps that she will take to ensure that police forces deliver on that? Earlier in the debate, we heard how for decades we have had legislation against cutting girls’ genitals, but there have been no successful prosecutions. I want to make sure that section 76 of the 2015 Act does not follow that trend, and that it is instead used by police services as an effective way of preventing violence against women and girls.

The hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Mary Macleod) referred to the additional £10 million of support for refuges announced in November 2014. I was glad to see that, but I have to say that, too often, services for women, whether it be Rape Crisis helplines or funding for refuges, are sorted out at the last minute with no time for people to apply. The requirements often mean that, as on this occasion, lots of brilliant services cannot get themselves together to access the money, because they get the rules and regulations too late.

We need to make sure that in the provision of such services, as with other things, women are not seen as an afterthought. It must not be a case of a Department—in this case, I believe it was the Department for Communities and Local Government—saying, “Oh, whoops, we have a £10 million underspend here, and we do not know where it came from. Let’s shush the women by giving it to them.” I suspect that that is what happened, although I might be wrong. That happens too often, and we need to make such services absolutely mainstream. If we protect women and girls, we will reduce violent assaults and cut by a third the number of women who are murdered. We must make sure that that is front and centre of everything we do.

The Minister will speak on Tuesday next week in ping-pong on the Modern Slavery Bill. I believe that the Bill gives us an opportunity to help a number of women who have come to Britain as domestic workers and who have been vilely exploited and hurt. I am glad that the Minister has agreed to take a step in the right direction on the Bill, and I hope that she might turn it into a leap and support the Lords amendment. The Bill offers us another opportunity to support a number of people, mostly women, who have been victims of violence and exploitation. I look forward to the Minister’s response on that.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Karen Bradley)]

I know that the right hon. Lady—she is a passionate advocate on this topic—cannot be here for my closing remarks, so I wanted to comment now. We are drawing up an implementation plan to deal with the domestic abuse offence. Officials from the Home Office have met the national policing lead on domestic abuse and the College of Policing, and they will be meeting the CPS, to work on implementing the offence in such a way as to ensure that it genuinely offers better protection to victims. We have debated the generalities today, but I wanted to make sure that the right hon. Lady knew the specifics before she left.

[Mr Peter Bone (in the Chair)]

Ms Mactaggart, had you concluded your speech?

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Karen Bradley)]

I congratulate my hon. Friends the Members for Brentford and Isleworth (Mary Macleod) and for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham) and the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Katy Clark) on securing this debate, and I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting it. The Committee showed great foresight in granting a debate on violence against women and girls, an important subject, on today of all days: we have seen so many young women coming to Parliament to see what we do here and to learn about the debates we have on such important issues that rightly concern us all.

There is no doubt that violence against women and girls ruins lives and has a devastating impact on victims and their families. The Government have taken strong measures to tackle all forms of violence and abuse, including domestic violence, sexual violence, forced marriage, female genital mutilation and stalking. Too many women have been subjected to unacceptable violence. We have heard in contributions to this debate some powerful examples of the sort of violence that women endure, both here and overseas. The Government have been unequivocal that such violence must stop, and I am proud of the progress we have made since 2010 to realise our vision of a society where no woman is subjected to violence and abuse.

My hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire and my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Maria Miller) made the point that the issue is wider than raising awareness among women and girls; we need to educate boys and men and ensure that people understand social media. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend for her tireless work on revenge pornography. That is the sort of work and those are the sorts of measure that will make tangible differences for women and girls here in Britain. She should be incredibly proud of what she has achieved.

We have made significant legislative changes since 2010 and ensured that more forms of violence and abuse are explicitly enshrined in law as criminal offences. The Government understand that domestic violence and abuse are more than just physical. To quote one victim who responded to our consultation last summer,

“my bruises faded, but the psychological scars didn’t”.

Last week, the Serious Crime Act 2015 received Royal Assent, and with it we created a new law that will ensure that manipulative, controlling perpetrators who cause their loved ones to live in fear will face justice for their actions. The new law captures coercive and controlling behaviour in intimate or family relationships and is a significant step forward in improving the protection available for victims of this sinister and pervasive form of abuse. The right hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) asked what approach we would take to ensure that it works on the ground, and in my intervention I specified what action we are taking to make that tangible difference.

Within the same Act, we also introduced a requirement for mandatory reporting of female genital mutilation. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire, who has done such incredible work on that issue. I will say more later about our work on it but in terms of legislative change, it is another significant step forward. We introduced two new offences of stalking in 2012 to reflect properly the seriousness of that insidious crime, and I am pleased that in 2013-14, more than 700 prosecutions were brought under the new legislation. We criminalised forced marriage last year, and the possession of realistic depictions of rape and revenge pornography both became offences under the Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015.

Protecting those at risk is fundamental to reducing violence. We rolled out the domestic violence protection order and domestic violence disclosure scheme, or Clare’s law, nationally last year. Those innovative measures are about stopping violence in its tracks, and there is clearly a demand for them; more than 2,500 domestic violence protection orders are now in place across England and Wales.

The orders sanction the perpetrators of violence and lay the culpability exactly where it should be. Victims are able to stay in their own homes, as they should be able to, and the perpetrator is the one who must stay away. More than 1,300 disclosures have already been made under the domestic violence disclosure scheme, which allows people to make an informed decision about their relationships. Women are absolutely entitled to know whether the person whom they have met has a violent history and to get out of the relationship before it is too late.

These crimes are often hidden and under-reported, but positive indications are emerging from data sources. I am particularly encouraged to see that the prevalence of sexual assault against women has fallen to its lowest ever level since the data began to be captured in 2004-05. At the same time, the reporting of sexual offences has increased by 19%, showing that more victims have the confidence to come forward. The Office for National Statistics has said clearly that the increase in reporting is due to more victims coming forward and better recording by the police. We must continue to do everything that we can to ensure that the victims of those terrible crimes have the confidence to come forward and that the criminal justice system does all in its power to support them through the difficult journey to justice.

Criminal justice outcomes for violence against women and girls have improved, with rape referrals from the police to the Crown Prosecution Service increasing after swift Government action to tackle a fall-off in referrals last year. In addition, the Director of Public Prosecutions anticipates that the number of rape cases going to trial this year will be about 30% higher than in 2012-13, meaning that there will be about 550 extra jury trials this year and 650 extra decisions to charge.

My hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth made an important point about body-worn cameras. We want them used to ensure that we have appropriate evidence and to make the criminal justice process as painless as possible. For women and girls who have already suffered horrendously at the hands of perpetrators to go through the criminal justice system without the support that we can give them through body-worn cameras is not acceptable.

Prosecutions for domestic abuse have increased. In 2013-14, there were just over 78,000 prosecutions nationally. Current projections estimate that the figure will increase to nearly 90,000 by the end of this financial year—by far the highest number ever—while out-of-court disposals for domestic abuse at the pre-charge stage have reached their lowest levels. “No crime” rates for rape have fallen year on year since 2010. More adult sex offenders are currently in prison—11,119 in 2014, compared with 8,980 in 2010—and the average sentence length has increased from 50 months in 2010 to 60 months in 2013. The number of sexual offenders with multi-agency public protection arrangements charged with a serious further offence has dropped from 162 in 2009-10 to 143. The conviction rate for domestic violence and abuse is also at its highest ever level: almost 75% in 2013-14, up from 72% in 2009-10.

Those figures are encouraging, but as we know, criminal justice and legislation are only one part of the picture when it comes to an effective strategy to tackle violence against women and girls. That is why we have taken a wider-ranging approach in our work—for example, by launching our “Body Confidence” campaign to challenge media representations of women and the highly acclaimed “This Is Abuse” campaign alluded to by my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth, to encourage teenagers to rethink their views of violence, abuse, controlling behaviour and what consent means within their relationships. Since we first launched the campaign in 2010, the website has had more than 2 million unique visitors to the website, and we have spearheaded groundbreaking awareness campaigns within communities affected by forced marriage and female genital mutilation, which, as numerous contributors have said clearly, is child abuse, with no ifs or buts.

[Seema Malhotra]

The Minister is highlighting the effective work of the “This Is Abuse” campaign. Have the Government any plans to rerun the public campaign to raise awareness through marketing?

[Karen Bradley]

There are a number of plans to ensure continuing awareness. I could not tell the hon. Lady definitively about that specific campaign, but may I write to her on the Government’s plans to ensure that we continue to raise awareness? She is right that we need to keep hitting it home. We cannot let up now; we must ensure that we get the message across.

Ending those terrible forms of child abuse within one generation has been an ambitious vision of this Government. Through our work, public and media awareness of those crimes has rocketed. Our work to tackle FGM is an example of how the UK has provided global leadership on issues of violence against women and girls. My hon. Friend the Member for South Basildon and East Thurrock (Stephen Metcalfe) made the point that there have been no prosecutions to date for FGM. Legislation was first introduced in 1985, but not even a single referral was made to the CPS until 2010. Raising awareness is key, and we all hope that the measures in the Serious Crime Act 2015 and other legislation will prompt more prosecutions and convictions.

My hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire mentioned protection orders and their wording. We had lengthy discussions about the wording of the orders, but I assure her that protection orders are meant specifically to protect girls at risk of FGM; there is no doubt or ambiguity about that. The Serious Crime Act 2015 introduces statutory guidance that will make it clear to all front-line professionals what indicators they should look for and how to ensure that we protect girls, including those being taken abroad who are at risk of FGM. We have played a significant role, as have my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire and others, in pushing hidden, sensitive and neglected issues into the spotlight—not only FGM, but sexual violence in conflict and the need to address violence against women and girls in humanitarian emergencies.

We have hosted three major international summits on violence against women and girls: the call to action on protecting women and girls in emergencies; the global summit to end sexual violence in conflict; and the Girl summit, on eliminating female genital mutilation and child, early and forced marriage in a generation. By doing so, and by driving forward the agenda for change, we have cemented our standing as a world player in relation to this important issue.

However, if raising awareness leads to increased reporting of these crimes, then we need to ensure that the systems are in place to manage that increase—not only in the criminal justice system, but across the board. Broader recognition of violence as a public health issue, and specific training on domestic and sexual abuse, means that at every point of contact—whether in A and E, or with a midwife, health visitor, teacher or police officer—there is a greater chance that abuse will be spotted and stopped.

Sadly, I myself had to visit A and E last weekend with my little boy, who was not very well. However, I was very impressed by the way that the health care professionals there treated us as a family and asked what I now consider—with the knowledge I have about this issue—to be really appropriate questions, to get to the bottom of whether there was any risk of abuse within the family relationship. I am pleased to say that they did not think that there was any such risk, and clearly there is not. Nevertheless, I was impressed by the way they handled matters, and I pay tribute to the A and E professionals whom I encountered last weekend.

We have invested more than £600,000 since 2010 to provide training programmes for independent domestic violence advisers and independent sexual violence advisers, an FGM e-learning package and stalking training for professionals. We have also supported enhanced training on VAWG for health visitors and general practitioners, with more than 6,500 professionals having been trained in recognising domestic violence and abuse.

Our investment has had an impact. For example, following intervention by a multi-agency risk assessment conference and an IDVA service, up to 60% of domestic abuse victims reported that there had been no further violence against them. For victims who had engaged with an IDVA following the charge of a perpetrator, 72% reported a complete cessation of abuse, compared with 59% of victims when there was no charge following a report to the police.

We have taken steps to ensure that every agency, including the police, responds to VAWG crimes to maximum effect. In 2013, the Home Secretary commissioned Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary to undertake a comprehensive review on how the police deal with domestic violence, because she was concerned that the response was inadequate. HMIC’s report, published in March 2014, exposed significant failings, including a lack of visible police leadership and direction, poor victim care, and deficiencies in the collection of important evidence.

The Government have been determined to ensure that HMIC’s recommendations are implemented across all police forces, with the establishment of a national oversight group chaired by the Home Secretary. Every police force has now published its own action plan, setting out how it will address the findings of HMIC in its own area.

The Government have ring-fenced nearly £40 million of funding up to the end of 2015 to provide stability for specialist local support services, such as IDVAs and ISVAs, and for national helplines. Of course, that money is for England and Wales. The hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran talked about the situation in Scotland, where this matter is, of course, a devolved issue. Last week, we confirmed that that funding for England and Wales will continue at the same level into 2015-16 for those services, with an additional £10 million up to March 2016 for the funding for refuges.

My hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth talked about the Chiswick refuge. Of course, that was the starting point for the Refuge charity, one of the leading charities in this sector. I was delighted to visit its head office recently and to learn about so much that they are doing to protect victims of sexual and domestic abuse. We have also announced an uplift of £7 million in additional funding to support victims of sexual abuse during the next two years, which will provide a critical bedrock of support to victims.

Of course, we have to get things right locally. We need to support local areas to get their responses to violence and abuse, and their provision of services to victims, right and correct on the ground. We have devolved power, resources and accountability to local areas, which is the right thing to do. Local areas are best placed to make decisions about local need. However, we need to ensure that they deliver those services in a consistent way.

In conclusion, we have made significant progress during the course of this Parliament and we have seen some encouraging outcomes. However, when it comes to violence against women and girls, we can never be complacent. There is always more to do to ensure that no woman ever suffers in silence or lives in fear of violence.

Police and Children

Karen Bradley Excerpts

Thursday 12th March 2015 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Karen Bradley)]

It is an absolute pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Brooke. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) on securing this debate and bringing this important matter to the House. I congratulate the members of his all-party group, of which you are an esteemed member, Mrs Brooke, as is the noble Baroness Massey, among others. The report “It’s all about trust” is a comprehensive, extensive and thorough piece of work that shows what all-party groups can achieve when their members get together to do incredibly detailed and thorough work.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Norman Baker), then Minister for Crime Prevention, attended the launch of the report. His successor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Lynne Featherstone), gave the Government’s response to the noble Baroness Massey on 14 November last year.

Young people may come into contact with the police for various reasons and it is crucial that, when they do, police treat them in a way that is appropriate to their age and status as children. The police have a statutory duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and they must take it very seriously. My hon. Friend made interesting points about early familiarity and getting to know the police, and about not being fearful and there not being a “them and us” situation. He makes exactly the right points. The report is informative about such ideas, and I will mention my thoughts about how those can be achieved.

My hon. Friend also said that children are often treated as mini-adults. We are in a strange world for children and young people. They grow up so quickly: the age of sexual maturity is being reached at an ever younger age, but the age of emotional maturity is not coming down. There are children who are sexually mature, but not emotionally mature. There is a temptation to treat children as adults.

As a mum, I often want to treat my children as mini-adults and expect them to behave as mini-adults, but I have to remember that they are children. Children behave in ways that adults would not, and they do things that an adult simply would not do. A child’s relationship with certain individuals can mean that those people appear almost parental. Those in authority—particularly the police—have to remember that their relationship with a child is a distorted one compared with their relationship with adults.

My hon. Friend talked about the use of stop-and-search on under-18s, as did the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey). I am proud of the steps taken by the Home Secretary with regard to stop-and-search across the board. The Government are clear that powers of stop-and-search, when used correctly, are vital in the fight against crime. Regardless of age, the powers must be applied fairly and only when needed. No one should be stopped on the basis of their race, ethnicity or age.

My hon. Friend mentioned different outcomes in various forces, some of which are clearly better than others. He also talked about the police and crime commissioner in his constituency, Katy Bourne, who was the first evidence giver in the report’s evidence sessions. Clearly, good work is being done in Sussex. He is right: we should all learn from that and ensure that all forces take on board such good work. All forces can learn. There is always more that can be learned, even for those that are exemplary at the moment.

In summer 2013, the Government launched a broad public consultation on the use of stop-and-search powers, following which the Home Secretary announced a comprehensive package of reforms. The measures are designed to ensure that the powers are used lawfully and proportionately and in a targeted and intelligence-led way.

An important announcement was the best use of stop-and-search scheme, to which all 43 forces in England and Wales and the British Transport police have voluntarily signed up. The scheme introduces public scrutiny and ensures that the police collect and publish thorough data on the outcomes of stop-and-searches. Additionally, the Government have revised Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 code of practice A to provide clarity to police officers on what “reasonable grounds for suspicion” means.

There is no doubt that the Government’s reforms will impact positively on all sections of society, including children. To support all that work, the Government commissioned the College of Policing to review the national training on stop-and-search for all officer ranks. It is undertaking that review with the Equality and Human Rights Commission, and we have specifically asked that the college consider children as part of it.

On young people in custody, children who come into contact with the police are afforded important safeguards by virtue of section 11 of the Children Act 2004. It places the police under an obligation to make arrangements to safeguard and promote the welfare of children when exercising their functions. Additionally, the 1984 Act provides a clear legal framework for all interactions in police custody, and there are special provisions for children and young people.

In the past 18 months, two significant legal changes to the PACE codes of practice have impacted specifically on children and young people. The first was an amendment to code G to ensure that police officers ascertain whether when adults are arrested it is also necessary to arrest a child and bring them into custody. The second change was that, following the Hughes Cousins-Chang judicial review in April 2013, the Government amended PACE codes of practice C and H to give 17-year-olds the same safeguards in police custody as children aged 10 to 16. Specifically, that concerned the provision of an appropriate adult and the provision for the police to inform the child’s parent or legal guardian of their detention.

I feel particularly strongly about that because of the work we are doing with the modern slavery strategy and the Modern Slavery Bill. We have seen significant evidence that child victims of trafficking need additional support. We are trialling child trafficking advocates with the assistance of Barnado’s. I hope the evidence from that trial will enable us to introduce those advocates across the country in the near future specifically for child victims of trafficking. Obviously, the learning and evidence we receive from that trial will assist in all children-in-custody issues.

My hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham talked about the identification of victims, an issue that appears across the board in so many areas of safeguarding and vulnerable people. Often, the first time the authorities will find out that someone is a victim, whether that is of slavery, child sexual abuse or other forms of abuse, is when they come into contact with the police through a custody sergeant. They often will have been arrested for committing crimes that they were forced to do as a result of their circumstances. We need to make it a matter of course that the police and in particular those first points of contact identify victims, spot the signs and do not treat them as criminals. By getting in at the earliest possible opportunity, we will ensure that children are not criminalised when they should not be and be able to give them the support they need and find the genuine criminals. I feel strongly that we need to ensure that all police officers are trained in victim identification.

My hon. Friend talked about 17-year-olds. We discussed that issue in the Modern Slavery Bill, which refers to those “under 18”, and the Serious Crime Act 2015, where we looked at how various provisions affected 16 and 17-year-olds. The Government have recognised that there continue to be some ways in which 17-year-olds are treated as adults in the 1984 Act. For that reason, the Government launched a review of the provisions, and it reported to the Home Secretary in October. It recommended that all provisions in the legislation that treat 17-year-olds as adults should be amended. The Government are clearly committed to making that change.

Another recent change we made was in the Serious Crime Bill, which I am pleased to say became an Act this month. That change was to remove the term “child prostitution” from legislation, which was an incredibly important step. It could be called symbolic, but it is more than that, because it says that children cannot choose to enter into a life of prostitution. Children never choose to be prostitutes; they are always the victims. I am pleased that we could make that change through the 2015 Act.

The most significant provision of PACE concerning the overnight detention in police custody of 17-year-olds has been amended. The Government seized an opportunity in the Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015 to ensure that the requirement to transfer children to local authority accommodation will now also apply to 17-year-olds who have been charged and denied bail. In addition, just this week Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary published its thematic inspection of the treatment by the police of vulnerable people in custody. The report covers the treatment of children and some of its findings are extremely concerning. It is hard-hitting in its call for improvements, particularly on the unnecessary overnight detention of children in police custody. The Government welcome the report and are carefully considering its findings.

The police play a crucial role in safeguarding children and young people from abuse. As well as their duty to investigate criminal offences, the police have emergency powers, for example, to enter premises and ensure they can provide immediate protection for children believed to be suffering, or likely to suffer, significant harm. Officers work with a number of partners in protecting children, including community safety partnerships, drug action teams, the multi-agency risk assessment conference and the multi-agency public protection arrangements. They have a duty to share information with other organisations, if that is necessary to protect children. Shared offices and such models as the multi-agency safeguarding hub are designed to encourage partnership working and the exchange of information needed to protect children and the public.

The police have an important role in protecting missing children. Children and young people make up approximately two thirds of missing reports in the UK. Although the vast majority of people who go missing return or are quickly found, many vulnerable children and adults suffer harm and exploitation while missing. Some never return. Identifying and ensuring the safest return possible for those vulnerable children and adults is a key part of the police service’s child protection and wider safeguarding roles. Protecting those at risk of abuse and exploitation is a key priority for the Government, and we work closely with the police to deliver the aims of the cross-Government missing children and adults strategy. The strategy highlights the issue’s importance and provides a core framework for local areas to consider whether they can and should do more to protect children and vulnerable adults who go missing. It requires a range of local and national partners, including the Government, to contribute to the prevention, protection and provision of support for missing persons and their families.

Every effort must be made to prevent looked-after children from being drawn unnecessarily into the youth justice system. Where the police come into contact with looked-after children who may have committed an offence, they have a range of powers that enable them to exercise discretion on the necessary response. Such approaches as community resolution may allow them to resolve the situation without children being charged over relatively trivial incidents.

I was struck by Members’ contributions on antisocial behaviour. My father is a pub landlord, and he was the chair of the local pubwatch. They had problems with kids playing football in one of the car parks, and all the residents were complaining. My dad said, “Why do the police not pick a ball up and play football with them? Why are they trying to arrest them? These are kids. They are not doing anything wrong. They are playing.”

I visited a slavery safe house recently that backs on to a primary school. I asked, “Do you have a problem with the school? Is the school nervous about the fact that you have people in here who have been through some of the most horrendous experiences?” They said, “No, the school is very understanding. There is nothing more wonderful for those victims than hearing the laughter of schoolchildren playing at lunch time. To hear those children out at break time, kicking a football, playing and laughing—those joyous noises make such a difference for those victims.” I will suggest the Midnight Football idea to my local police.

I want to mention the street pastors. I am sure many of us have them in our constituencies. I went to join the Leek street pastors a while ago, on the night the Christmas lights were being switched on. Lots of young people were around. The street pastors were fantastic. They have many weapons in their arsenal, but my favourite were the lollipops. They would go around near the bus station and places where young people might be hanging around—possibly looking like they were about to cause trouble, if one wanted to see it that way—and hand out lollipops. It turns out that, particularly when any sort of tension or aggression starts, the lollipops act like dummies. People suck away on them and the sugar rush gets a bit of sobriety into their bloodstreams, should they be slightly older and therefore allowed to drink, and they all calm down. They suck away like a child sucking on a dummy, and all the aggression goes. It was fantastic, so I recommend lollipops as a very good approach.

The Government take domestic violence and abuse extremely seriously and recognise that young people can be victims in both the home and their relationships. We are continuing to work with victims groups and other Government Departments to raise awareness and signpost where to seek help, which is why, in March 2013, we extended the definition of domestic violence and abuse to include 16 and 17-year-olds, with additional wording to capture coercive control.

The Government deplore the sexual abuse and exploitation of children and will not tolerate at any level failure to prevent harm, support victims and bring offenders to justice. We must protect children from sexual exploitation so that we never again have another case like those in Oxford, Rochdale or Rotherham, where local authorities and the police failed the children whom they had a duty to safeguard. The police have already taken action. For example, all chief constables have committed to a policing action plan that aims to raise the standards in tackling child sexual exploitation. Police and crime commissioners also have a clear role in holding chief constables to account. Nevertheless, the Government are clear that more can and should be done to protect children from sexual abuse.

There are three key challenges for the police. First, to improve the quality of their child sexual abuse investigations in order to bring offenders to justice. Secondly, to improve the identification of victims and survivors, including victims of organised offending, which we discussed earlier, so that they can better target offenders and protect those at risk of further abuse. Finally, the police must improve the support that they provide to victims during investigations. That means that they must focus on the credibility of the allegation, not the victim and their behaviour; they must work together with local agencies, particularly social services, and better share information to ensure that victims and offenders do not slip through the net; and they must work together with the National Crime Agency and other police forces to better identify organised child sexual abuse.

On 3 March, in our report on tackling child sexual exploitation, the Government set out a number of actions to support the police and local agencies to address the challenges that they face. Those actions include: giving child sexual abuse the status of a national threat in the strategic policing requirement; funding a new network of regional police co-ordinators, located in regional organised crime units, who will help to better identify organised child sexual abuse across police force boundaries and ensure that cases are tasked appropriately; and setting up a new centre of expertise to combat child sexual exploitation. All that will help the police and other agencies to understand national data and evidence and the front-line practice and models of integrated working that work best.

Preventing and disrupting offending must be a priority for the police. That is why, on 8 March, the Government commenced new powers, including sexual harm prevention orders and sexual risk orders, which the police can apply for where an individual poses a risk of sexual harm in the UK or abroad, and powers to close an establishment that might be used for sexual activity with a child. Finally, the National Crime Agency has a key role to play in tackling these disgusting crimes. Through the national tasking process, it leads work to identify those individuals and organised groups of offenders who pose the greatest risk to children, and agree a comprehensive, targeted response.

Clearly, this is not a simple matter; if it was, we would have dealt with it years ago. The report from my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham and the all-party group makes for compelling reading and sets out some excellent recommendations. He has worked so hard, both with the all-party group and when he was a Minister, to raise awareness of this incredibly important issue. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend and his all-party group, and I pay tribute to this debate.