Lord Alton of Liverpool
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Modern Slavery Bill
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Lord Alton of Liverpool
My Lords, with her customary clarity, passion and eloquence, my noble friend Lady Cox has set out the arguments for Amendment 94, to which I am a signatory and which other noble Lords support, too. I was very struck in the representations we received about this amendment by what was said by the Trades Union Congress. It supported the recommendations of the Joint Committee and particularly highlighted paragraphs 224, 225 and 227, to which I shall come in a moment.
Before referring to those paragraphs in detail I will simply make the point that a reinstatement of the position that my noble friend has described, the pre-2012 position, is what we should look towards; the one that was originally enacted in 1988, with very good reason. Her amendment also concentrates our mind towards those who are in domestic service attached to diplomats. We have heard from my noble friend Lord Sandwich and others during the course of these proceedings and during other debates about the particular circumstances that such workers often find themselves in.
Returning to the Joint Committee, it is worth the Government looking again at what the Joint Committee had to say. In paragraph 224, it said:
“The difficulties faced by this group of workers appear to have been compounded by changes made to Immigration Rules in 2012 which had the net effect of removing their right to change employer, and thus denying them one means of removal from an abusive situation”.
In paragraph 225, it said:
“Evidence we received challenges the assumption that such mechanisms provide adequate protection … Tying migrant domestic workers to their employer institutionalises their abuse; it is slavery and is therefore incongruous with our aim to act decisively to protect the victims of modern slavery”.
Paragraph 227 states:
“We recommend the Home Office reverse the changes to the Overseas Domestic Worker Visa. This would at the very least allow organisations and agencies to remove a worker from an abusive employment situation immediately. It would also enable the abuse to be reported to the police without fear that the victim would be deported as a result. This in turn would facilitate the prosecution of modern slavery offences”.
I do not think one can do better than to rehearse those arguments from the Joint Committee because it clearly looked at this issue in some detail and everything that is in my noble friend’s amendment would give statutory provision to what it said.
I was also struck by my noble friend’s comment about what happened in another place. David Hanson MP moved an amendment similar to the amendment moved by my noble friend. As she said, it was narrowly defeated in Committee on a Division only after the chair added his vote to the no votes—so opinion in another place is clearly divided. That is another good reason why we should revisit this issue.
Sadly, the Government have so far declined to accept the Joint Committee’s recommendations and have claimed that existing and planned measures will be sufficient to protect migrant domestic workers. They have put significant emphasis on the fact that theoretically all overseas domestic workers have the protection of UK employment law while working in the UK. While in theory that may be so, and in theory they can take a case against an employer to an employment tribunal, in reality and in practice that right is denied to domestic workers on a tied visa. In addition to barriers, such as cuts to legal aid, which we have already referred to, if they want to avoid breaching the Immigration Rules, tied domestic workers must take a case against their employer while remaining in that employer’s home. It is totally unrealistic for these workers to take any kind of legal action against an employer who has potentially trafficked them, exploited them and denied them their most basic rights while still living with their home.
The noble Baroness referred to the charity Kalayaan. It told me that of the 120 domestic workers that it had registered on the tied visa system in the two years since the April 2012 changes, fewer than five had taken an employment case and none had gone to a tribunal. Domestic workers often report to organisations such as Kalayaan that their employers confiscate their mobile phones or refuse them permission to make calls during working hours, which can be excessively long, thereby ensuring that they cannot access services such as ACAS.
I asked for an example to illustrate the situation, and I will briefly mention it. It is a case study of a young woman called Nerita. She was brought to the UK by her employer to work in their private household. She explained that she came from a poor family in south India and her husband, children and elderly parents are dependent on her remittances for their support. This is a very important point. If someone is dependent on the money that you are sending them, that plays into all the emotional arguments and the blackmail that can be used against people in that situation.
An agency found Nerita work with a family who lived in the Middle East. She described having to borrow the agency fee from various relatives. It took over a year to save the money on her meagre salary to repay the loan. She accompanied her employer to this country in 2014. Her conditions of employment changed little when she came to the UK. She worked seven days a week from 7 am until midnight. She was not permitted to leave the employer’s home unaccompanied. Her passport was taken from her when she started working for them and was never returned to her. She slept on a small mattress in the children’s room. Her salary was the equivalent of £150 a month while she was in the Middle East, but she was not paid at all during her time in the UK.
She described being regularly verbally abused by her employer. She was told that she should not speak because she was a servant. The employer also threatened to send Nerita back to India. Nerita speaks very little English and was not aware of the terms and conditions of her visa. Her family’s situation in India is desperate and she was distressed to learn that as she had come to the UK on a tied visa she could work only with the employer who brought to the UK—and then only for a maximum of six months. When she asked for Kalayaan’s support in getting her passport back, it had to explain that involving the police—the point referred to a few moments ago by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee—would almost certainly result in her being detained and her passport being confiscated until she left the UK. Kalayaan has spoken to Nerita about referral to the national referral mechanism, which we discussed earlier on, as a victim of trafficking. However, that would provide only short-term support for this very vulnerable woman. As she came to the UK on the tied overseas domestic worker visa, she will not get the justice she deserves. That is why we should support Amendment 94 in the name of my noble friend.
Lord Alton of Liverpool
I am grateful to the noble Baroness for giving way. Does she not accept that the figures that she has just given to the Committee are very dubious? How can evidence of this kind by collated? By definition, many of these will be people who are frightened out of their minds about going to any of the authorities. The Kalayaan figures demonstrate that: the discrepancy between the number of people who approached it and then those whom it was able to take on was a very tiny percentage. Is this not just the tip of an iceberg? By ignoring it we are not going to help the situation at all.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
I entirely accept what the noble Lord says; it may well be the tip of an iceberg. However, I am setting out that the Government are trying to tackle this problem, in a way that previous Governments have, by the dual action of contacting the employers and the workers to ensure that both are aware, before they come to work in this country, of their rights and responsibilities.
I entirely accept the difficulty of identifying the people who are abused, but I assure noble Lords that anyone who is abused, once that comes to light, will be treated with the sort of help and support that one would expect from a country with our rich tradition of giving refuge to people who have problems. While working over here, they of course have the protection of UK employment law. Anyone who believes that they are being mistreated can take action to report it. As I say, the measures we are taking extend the ones that previous Government have taken. The numbers that are coming forward appear to be stabilising because we are taking measures to try to ensure that the employers and the workers have a full view of their rights when they come here.
Lord Alton of Liverpool
My Lords, I support noble Lords who have spoken in favour of these amendments, moved and spoken to so ably by my noble and learned friend Lady Butler-Sloss and the noble Baroness, Lady Royall.
At Second Reading, and indeed in the debate on my Amendment 32 about the proceeds of crime and creating a victims’ fund that could be used to resource the authorities that are involved in trying to police trafficking, I referred to the tragedy that occurred in Morecambe Bay, which led to the initiative of the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, in helping to create this authority. Noble Lords will remember that 23 Chinese men and women drowned in Morecambe Bay, having been taken there by gangmasters in order to go cockle-picking. A local fisherman, Harold Benson, said at the time that what happened was,
“not only awful beyond words—it was absolutely avoidable”.
However, the lessons of Morecambe Bay have not been fully learnt. As we consider this legislation, which provides us with the only vehicle to tackle these kinds of issues—it is timely, it is good legislation and it is an opportunity—the question for the House is: is there more that needs to be done? At Second Reading, I referred to academic work that has been done at the University of Durham, which identified not only the need to extend the mandate of the Gangmasters Licensing Authority but the need for more resources. In 2011, 30 miles away from Morecambe Bay, in the River Ribble—not far from where I live—17 cockle-pickers of eastern European origin had to be rescued when they were in precisely the same situation as those in Morecambe Bay. We have not overcome the problem. We have set up an authority to deal with it but we have not adequately resourced that authority or put sufficient powers into its hands.
Indeed, when I looked at the figures, I was struck by the fact that only 37 people are employed by the authority and they have to cover the whole of Great Britain. Between 2011 and 2014 its budget was cut by some 17% and in 2013—I asked for the numbers of convictions—only seven people had been convicted. That does not fill me with great confidence that it is able to do the job that it was asked by Parliament to do. The authority is a wonderful creation. It has been given reasonable powers but they need to be extended. It certainly needs more resources.
This enabling provision, which my noble and learned friend referred to as being a modest amendment, would provide Ministers with the necessary belt and braces in the future to do more as and when the authority feels it wishes to. Not to put such a provision in the Bill will lead, as my noble and learned friend said, to the messiness of having to come back to Parliament. As the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, told us, it would require parliamentary time. That seems to be the wrong way to go about this. We have the opportunity here to put something into the legislation that would give the Government the ability to act, and it is an opportunity we should seize.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble and learned Baroness for tabling this amendment, and to other noble Lords who have spoken with such concern about the issues around the Gangmasters Licensing Authority, particularly its remit.
This Government are committed to ensuring fairness in the workplace, tackling worker exploitation and encouraging and raising levels of compliance with workplace rights across all sectors. We are already doing this through the use of existing enforcement arrangements. We very much welcome the many comments that have been made in support of the GLA and its vital work. It has been operating for less than 10 years but it is a successful organisation doing excellent work in tackling harmful activity affecting workers who are particularly vulnerable to exploitation in the sectors that it currently covers.
We need to consider this carefully and ensure that in seeking to broaden the GLA’s remit, we do not risk undermining the good work that is being done already. As the noble and learned Baroness pointed out, it is a comparatively small body, with only 66 staff. It performs a targeted role in an effective way and has a positive influence in the broader fight against exploitation. We very much want that to continue.
Following the Red Tape Challenge exercise and the triennial review, the GLA is implementing changes that will lift unnecessary burdens on compliant businesses while enabling a stronger focus on enforcement action. It is important that both these aspects are developed and move forward together.
Amendment 97 provides for a very broad power, enabling expansion of the GLA’s scope, remit and powers. Changes in the scope or remit of the GLA may very well be sensible; that is something that we will wish to consider further and which the Government have said that they wish to keep under review. However, we are not convinced that Amendment 97 meets that need or is the appropriate way to deal with the issue at the moment.
The amendment is open-ended. The enabling power could be used to set up the GLA to tackle all forms of slavery, trafficking and exploitation far beyond employment. That is a very big step away from the GLA’s current remit, where it has been so effective. It would require a dramatically different organisational and funding model to achieve a much broader role, which would likely require further primary legislation, as has been alluded to. Amendments 97A and 101A focus specifically on the remit, enabling the current licensing regime to be extended to additional industrial sectors beyond agriculture and food. Noble Lords have mentioned a number of sectors where this would be particularly relevant.
I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, who introduced the Bill in 2004 that established the GLA as a body to carry out a licensing regime and to take enforcement action against unlicensed activities. We need to progress on both these fronts. It would be interesting to discuss with the noble Lord why he did not seek to extend the remit from the two sectors that were mentioned in the original Act.
We have concerns about extending the regime to new sectors without clear evidence that that represents the most effective and efficient approach. Licensing affects the compliant business and the rogue gangmaster alike. The majority of gangmaster businesses are highly compliant small and medium-sized enterprises that are generating employment and economic growth for the UK. We would not want to burden them unnecessarily with regulation.
Simply extending the current licensing regime into new sectors would not necessarily improve efforts to tackle exploitative employers who flout the law. We need to focus on seeking and bringing to justice serious criminals who enslave innocent victims. So we wish to see a GLA with a strong focus on anti-slavery and worker exploitation that will support the Government’s broader strategy on modern slavery. We are working for that through an approach that builds on the GLA’s already excellent work.
I will set out some of the work that is already happening to develop the GLA. Bringing it into the Home Office has already increased collaboration and capability through easier contact with other law enforcement agencies engaged in addressing and disrupting serious criminal activity, including human trafficking for worker exploitation in the UK. The GLA is playing a full part in the better business compliance partnerships—a programme that will begin operation shortly. These pilots will look at more efficient ways of bringing together a wide range of compliance and enforcement officers locally. We expect the GLA to bring knowledge and experience to the problems identified in these areas to tackle worker exploitation and illegal working.
The GLA is working with the University of Derby to devise training and to develop an anti-slavery training academy for use by supply chain businesses. This will build on the GLA’s excellent existing collaboration with business in its regulated sectors. The GLA is well placed to tackle the serious worker exploitation that lies between the more technical compliance offences that fall to be investigated by HMRC and the serious and organised crimes that are addressed by the National Crime Agency.
My noble friend Lady Hamwee raised the concerns of the CBI, which we share, about the appropriateness of this measure and the expansion not just into other sectors but of the remit of the GLA. We have a very good working agency in the GLA and it is tempting to extend it beyond its natural remit too quickly and without due consideration of all the factors that would be required to make entirely sure that any extension was appropriate and as efficient as the GLA.
The noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, mentioned the inadequacy of the fines and the sentencing. Sentencing is a matter for the courts and there have been some low fines issued against convicted unlicensed gangmasters, but she may be reassured to know that the first custodial sentence for an offence under the Gangmasters (Licensing) Act was imposed in December 2013 when a Lithuanian national was given seven years for operating without a licence. He ran an organised crime operation in Norfolk and controlled scores of workers brought over from his homeland, using tactics including debt bondage, psychological and physical intimidation, and violence. We have heard from other noble Lords of some appalling examples of the way in which workers can be treated by gangmasters. Fines have been increased for magistrates’ courts and Crown Courts, depending on the seriousness of the offence, so hopefully the levity of the fines is currently being tackled.
I can assure the House that there is a great deal of work going on within government to improve the work of the GLA and to consider its future. We will, of course, ensure that today’s contributions are considered during that work and we will further consider whether it might be expanded in sector or in remit. For the moment we do not feel that this particular legislation and these particular amendments are the best way of moving forward, but obviously we will discuss this again and I hope that meanwhile noble Lords will feel able not to press their amendments.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
It is indeed. I do not have that evidence directly to hand but it is probably something that the University of Derby will be considering in its work in investigating and reviewing this.
Lord Alton of Liverpool
My Lords, pursuant to that point, would the Minister also look at the evidence that I referred to earlier from the University of Durham, which looked at the mandate, the remit and the resources available to the gangmasters? In the case I referred to in 2013 they found that the gangmaster had given no safety equipment, issued no guidance and had no knowledge of the sea or the tides, and yet 17 eastern European workers were exposed to what was potentially a fatal situation in the Ribble estuary. Surely that demonstrates that something is amiss here and that we need to do more. Perhaps between now and Report we could look further at the empirical evidence that is available.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
My Lords, that is an excellent idea. We will do that and come back at Report.
“Slavery and human trafficking statements
(1) For each financial year, a commercial organisation within subsection (2) must prepare a slavery and human trafficking statement.
(2) A commercial organisation is within this subsection if it—
(a) supplies goods or services, and(b) has a total turnover in respect of that financial year of not less than £60 million or such lesser amount as may be prescribed by regulations made by the Secretary of State.(3) For the purposes of subsection (2)(b) an organisation’s total turnover is to be determined—
(a) by reference to the activities of that organisation worldwide;(b) by aggregating the worldwide turnover of that organisation with any other organisation which forms part of the same group undertaking; and(c) otherwise in accordance with regulations made by the Secretary of State.(4) A slavery and human trafficking statement for a financial year is—
(a) a statement of the steps the organisation has taken during the financial year to identify and address slavery and human trafficking—and which complies with the minimum requirements set out in subsection (5); or(i) in any of its supply chains, and(ii) in any part of its own business,and which complies with the minimum requirements set out in subsection (5); or(b) a statement that the organisation has taken no such steps with an explanation of why the organisation considers such conduct to be appropriate.(5) A slavery and human trafficking statement shall give details of—
(a) actions taken to assess the risk of the presence of slavery and human trafficking in the organisation’s operations and throughout its supply chains;(b) who has been involved in the assessment of such risks and the extent to which such persons are independent of the organisation;(c) what risks have been identified, and what action has been taken to mitigate any risks which have been identified;(d) whether any slavery or human trafficking has been identified and, if so, what steps have been taken to address it, including action to support victims;(e) the extent to which information for assessment and monitoring has been gathered directly at suppliers’ sites and whether such information has been verified by independent persons; and(f) any such other matters that may be specified in regulations made by the Secretary of State under this section.(6) The organisation must publish the slavery and human trafficking statement in each of the following ways—
(a) if the organisation has a website, it must—(i) publish the slavery and human trafficking statement on that website, and(ii) include a link to the slavery and human trafficking statement in a prominent place on that website’s homepage;(b) upload the slavery and human trafficking statement report to the website maintained for that purpose by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills under subsection (8);(c) an organisation which is obliged to prepare a director’s report in accordance with section 415 of the Companies Act 2006 shall include in that report— (i) the name of any director who has taken responsibility for slavery and human trafficking issues within the organisation (or a statement that no director has taken responsibility),(ii) a fair summary of the slave and human trafficking statement, and(iii) the web address where a copy of the report may be found, or if the company does not have a website a statement that a copy of the report will be provided on written request.(7) If the organisation does not have a website, it must provide a copy of the slavery and human trafficking statement to anyone who makes a written request for one and must do so before the end of the period of 30 days beginning with the day on which the request is received.
(8) The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills shall maintain a website—
(a) on which it shall publish slavery and human trafficking statements which are uploaded to the website or delivered to it under subsection (6)(b);(b) in a form in which the published data is freely searchable by the public.(9) The Secretary of State—
(a) may issue guidance about the duties imposed on commercial organisations by this section; and(b) must publish any such guidance.(10) Evidence under subsection (9) may in particular set out the kind of information in addition or supplemental to that set out in subsection (5) which may be included in a slavery and human trafficking statement.
(11) The duties imposed on commercial organisations by this section are enforceable by any of the Secretary of State, the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner, the Equality and Human Rights Commission, the Financial Reporting Council; or such other person as may be specified by way of regulation, any of whom may bring civil proceedings in the High Court for an injunction or, in Scotland, for specific performance of a statutory duty under section 45 of the Court of Session Act 1988.
(12) Where a commercial organisation is in breach of any duty under this section the commercial organisation and every director, partner, or other person occupying an equivalent position shall have committed an offence.
(13) It is a defence for any person charged with an offence under subsection (12) to prove that he took all reasonable steps to ensure compliance with this section.
(14) A person guilty of an offence under subsection (12) is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum and on conviction on indictment to a fine.
(15) This section shall be reviewed by the Secretary of State 3 years after the section comes into force and following this review the Secretary of State shall lay before Parliament a report assessing the effectiveness of the section and recommending whether any amendments should be made.
(16) For the purposes of this section—
“commercial organisation” means—
(a) a body corporate (wherever incorporated) which carries on a business, or part of a business, in any part of the United Kingdom, or(b) a partnership (wherever formed) which carries on a business, or part of a business, in any part of the United Kingdom,and for this purpose “business” includes a trade or profession;“group undertaking” shall have the meaning set out in section 1162 of the Companies Act 2006;
“partnership” means—
(a) a partnership within the Partnership Act 1890,(b) a limited partnership registered under the Limited Partnerships Act 1907, or (c) a firm, or an entity of a similar character, formed under the law of a country outside the United Kingdom;“slavery and human trafficking” means—
(a) conduct which constitutes an offence under any of the following—(a) section 1, 2 or 4 of this Act, (b) section 57, 58, 58A or 59 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 (trafficking for sexual exploitation), (c) section 22 of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2003 (traffic in prostitution etc), (d) section 4 of the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc.) Act 2004 (trafficking for exploitation), (e) section 71 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 (slavery, servitude and forced or compulsory labour), (f) section 47 of the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010 (slavery, servitude and forced or compulsory labour), or(b) conduct which would constitute an offence in a part of the United Kingdom under any of those provisions if the conduct took place in that part of the United Kingdom;“supply chain” means those raw materials, purchases, processes, products, labour, services and transportation by means of which the company’s goods and services whether or not for sale to customers are acquired, manufactured, assembled or otherwise produced from their original source up to and including their sale or provision to the company’s customers;
but a company’s supply chain shall not include those products and services that are acquired, rented, leased or otherwise used by a company for a purpose which is incidental or ancillary to the matters referred to in the definition of supply chain above.”
Lord Alton of Liverpool
My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Bates, said, this is the second of three amendments that consider supply chains. It is an issue that I flagged up at Second Reading. The amendment emerged from a meeting which I chaired in this building with many of the charities and non-governmental organisations involved in this question. I particularly thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Kennedy of Cradley and Lady Mobarik, and my noble and right reverend friend Lord Harries of Pentregarth, who are all signatories to the amendment. I also thank those Members of your Lordships’ House, some of whom are here this evening, who signed a letter to the Times last Saturday supporting the arguments outlined in the amendment—about 20 Members from all sides. On the same day, the Daily Telegraph published a letter signed by 19 of the leading charities and non-governmental organisations, also supporting the proposal.
Inevitably, we want in the amendment to take the opportunity, while legislation is before your Lordships’ House, to tackle the problem, not to leave it, as the Minister said, to a consultation and review process, which can seem like the long grass. The Government have every reason to be very proud of the Bill. I welcome the fact that they introduced Clause 51—Part 6—at a late stage in another place, but clearly it was not subject to all the pre-legislative scrutiny that everything else in the Bill received. There was some, but not much, and it was not considered in Committee in another place. Therefore, we have a particular duty, while these issues are before your Lordships’ House, to spend some time on them. There are 16 subsections in the amendment, so I hope that the patience of your Lordships’ House, even at this late stage in our deliberations on the Bill, will not be too exhausted as I try to describe why so many Members and organisations outside the House feel that they are necessary. All the signatories of both letters I have mentioned welcome the inclusion of a new requirement for business to report on slavery and forced labour in their supply chains, but the provision must be strengthened if it is to drive real change in company supply chains.
Lord Bates
I agree, and my noble friend Lady Mobarik made a very good point by making it clear that it is out of enlightened self-interest that business ought to be pursuing these things. We also need to recognise that we introduced into the Companies Act the requirement for ports to carry a statement on human rights. As with so many of the issues raised by the noble Baronesses, Lady Kennedy and Lady McDonagh, this relates to human rights. You could almost say, without waiting for anything else, that the current legislation that requires a report on human rights could be broadened to include a statement on the human rights of the people involved in the supply chain. Those types of things might give urgency to it. On the assets idea, from my experience of business, nothing grabs the attention better of the chief financial officer, the chief executive or the chairman of the board and the people who invest. The noble Baroness, Lady Mobarik, referred to about 20 institutions of the size of Hermes, which is a huge fund, and Rathbone. When they put weight on that, when they hold shares and hold votes to determine who is the chairman of the board and the non-executive directors and what the remuneration of the senior employees should be—that is precisely the type of group that will grab more attention for these important issues than possibly even more specific legislation.
I am conscious of time, but I am also conscious that I want to pay respect to the two tablers of the amendment, the noble Baroness, Lady McDonagh, and the noble Lord, Lord Alton, with an undertaking to meet and continue the dialogue; and to give an assurance that we will do further work, if or when we meet between Committee and Report, when we will have the terms of reference for the consultation to look at. We can get some early responses to that and see what can be done further to reassure the noble Lord that the Government see this very much as a way of starting down the road. As with all these things, business should be aware that once you start putting down legislation such as this, it tends to be a one-way street. You do not go back. If people do not comply and if business does not take it seriously, this Government or future Governments will say that there is a demand and that they need to act to put more legislation down for businesses to comply with. So I hope, with that canter around the issues, but with some specific commitments to look carefully at this, that the noble Lord, Lord Alton, feels able to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Alton of Liverpool
My Lords, the Minister has been generous in how he has dealt with the issues that have arisen, especially at this late hour. I was struck that he talked about how sinners repenteth, when I was thinking more that Ministers are damned if they do and damned if they do not. I am personally appreciative of the fact that the clause is now in the Bill and, of course, it is incumbent on noble Lords to try to build on provisions in the amendment.
One might use another metaphor about the bird in hand. On this occasion there is a Bill in hand, and a legislative opportunity. We cannot come back in another year from now with legislative proposals. This is the time to make them and I do not think that any of us wants to feel that the moment has passed without our doing justice. I reiterate that, because this is something that came into the Bill so late in another place, it is something to which, outside your Lordships’ House, we should give more time and attention. I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Kennedy of Cradley, Lady McDonagh and Lady Mobarik, as well as my noble and right reverend friend Lord Harries of Pentregarth for the contributions that they have made in supporting the principles that underpin this and the other amendment before your Lordships. I am also grateful for the Minister’s willingness to meet those who tabled the amendments and the large array of those involved in this issue.
The Minister said that the important thing was to grab the board’s attention to get them thinking about these things. He is right about the power of investment and resources. I was very struck that Matt Crossman at Rathbone Greenbank Investments, which has more than £900 billion of investment, said:
“It is in the best interests of business to join the fight against modern slavery … Specific, but proportionate, legislation can allow companies to continue making progress, whilst ensuring that firms can no longer turn a blind eye to these issues”.
Naheeda Rashid of Hermes, referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Mobarik, said:
“Companies which are able to demonstrate that they understand and are actively addressing the complexities of the risks in their supply chains will be better placed in managing both their reputation and disruptions to their operations”.
That is what these amendments seek to do—they put real flesh on the bones of Clause 51. I hope that, when the House resumes after the Christmas break, we will have a chance to hold the meetings to which the Minister referred. I hope that Report will not be reached for some weeks, which gives us some time to do that. With the assurances that the Minister has given us, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
“Review
(1) Within 5 years of the passing of this Act, the Secretary of State must—
(a) carry out a review of the provisions of this Act,(b) carry out a review more broadly about the current position of slavery, servitude, forced or compulsory labour, and human trafficking within the United Kingdom and internationally, and(c) prepare and publish a report setting out the conclusions of the review.(2) The report must in particular—
(a) set out the objectives intended to be achieved by this Act, (b) assess the extent to which those objectives have been achieved,(c) assess whether those objectives remain appropriate and, if so, the extent to which they could be achieved in another way, and(d) consider the strategic plans and annual reports submitted by the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner.(3) The Secretary of State must lay the report before Parliament.”
Lord Alton of Liverpool
My Lords, I fear I have drawn the short straw and may be exasperating one or two noble Lords, but this is the last amendment and I do not intend to delay the Committee for very long. In many ways, the amendment is self-explanatory: it calls for a review of the legislation within five years of the passing of the Act—the review could come much earlier than that, if it was so desired. The report would,
“set out the objectives intended to be achieved by this Act, … assess the extent to which those objectives have been achieved, … assess whether those objectives remain appropriate … and … consider the strategic plans and annual reports submitted by the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner”.
Lord Bates
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for proposing the amendment. The Government are committed to post-legislative scrutiny of legislation under the existing arrangements agreed with Select Committees. The Government believe that post-legislative scrutiny is generally preferable to ad hoc and potentially inconsistent specific statutory requirements in individual Bills. The Political and Constitutional Reform Committee’s report into legislative standards praised the Government’s record on post-legislative scrutiny, saying:
“We urge the Government to continue to produce these useful memoranda. In return, we will undertake, and we take this opportunity to encourage other Select Committees to undertake, more visible post-legislative scrutiny work when opportunities arise”.
Since 2012, the House of Lords has established committees on an ad hoc basis specifically to conduct post-legislative scrutiny. I am sure that the House will consider carefully whether the future Modern Slavery Act would be a good candidate for such scrutiny.
However, I would like to place on record once more the Government’s commitment to providing a post-legislative scrutiny memorandum on the Bill within three to five years of Royal Assent. The Government will consult the Home Affairs Committee on the timing of publication of the memorandum, but that is a commitment. In the longer term, the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner will continue to assess the response to modern slavery and how it is provided, and if new forms of abuse emerge. In addition to the commitment of a memorandum in three to five years, we will also have the update of the Modern Slavery Strategy, produced by the interdepartmental ministerial group on modern slavery. We will also have the anti-slavery commissioner’s annual report, which I am sure will be awaited with great interest by Members of your Lordships’ House.
There are therefore a number of opportunities for this type of scrutiny to happen. Having taken part in the Leader’s Group, which considered ways to improve the workings of your Lordships’ House and elsewhere, I have to say that one of the joys of this Bill is that it has been a textbook example of how legislation should work: first, producing a Bill, which is scrutinised in pre-legislative scrutiny. The Government then come back with a revised Bill and go through a meaningful stage in another place where amendments are made. The same happens in this place, so it seems to me absolutely logical that we should not leave the job unfinished but follow it through right to the end. That is why we are very much behind this commitment. We will produce the Explanatory Memorandum to ensure that that post-legislative scrutiny does arise.
Given that this may well be the last time that I am on my feet in Committee, I thank your Lordships for the way in which we have engaged in this very tough and passionate four days. It has given a huge amount of work for officials to think about and work on between now and Report. Somebody once said: “To govern is to choose”. There are going to be so many issues that we are going to have to work on that we will have to engage in some prioritisation about what is absolutely critical to get in the Bill before Royal Assent and what work can be continued under the watchful eyes of your Lordships and the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner thereafter. That work and the meetings will continue and we look forward to making further progress on Report. I thank the noble Lord and ask him to consider withdrawing his amendment.
Lord Alton of Liverpool
My Lords, if, as the Minister has said, this legislation has been exemplary in the way in which it has been handled, and I think it has been, then I would also say, and I do not think I would be alone in saying this, that the Minister and the noble Baroness, Lady Garden of Frognal, have been exemplary in the way in which they have treated each of us. I can only speak for myself as a Cross-Bencher, but I suspect that it is a view shared across the Chamber that throughout proceedings we have been treated with great courtesy and thoughtfulness in the way in which the amendments have been considered, not least this amendment. I am grateful to the Minister for the way in which he has promised that post-legislative procedures will be put in place. Obviously, I would prefer it to be in the Bill, but he will not be surprised by that. However, I feel very pleased with the assurances that he has given to your Lordships. I am happy to withdraw the amendment.