Modern Slavery Bill

Lord Bishop of Derby Excerpts

Wednesday 25th March 2015 Lords Chamber

If I thought that this amendment would solve this problem, it would be worth pushing. However, it may ameliorate it a little, but it will not solve it. We will have to come back to it, and I would prefer to do that in better circumstances and with more information. After all, that is what the Government have suggested.

[The Lord Bishop of Derby]

My Lords, I, too, pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, for his inspirational leadership on this issue. He has frequently expressed that this is a moral and a practical issue, which is why we take it so seriously. I am also grateful for the way that the Government have responded positively to the discussion around the noble Lord’s first amendment, for which I voted. However, I am afraid that I cannot support this amendment, for reasons much along the lines of the noble Lord, Lord Deben.

The issue is very complex. In the debate in the House of Commons, there were all sorts of complex strands, which are in the background of some of the statements being made in your Lordships’ House today. There is a discussion about the nature and the length of visas. There is also discussion about the scope and limitations of the national referral mechanism. We have heard today about the spouse’s visa and where that model fits in. There is discussion about the principles of domestic labour and employment law and about what particular provision should be made for overseas domestic workers. This is a complex issue.

I applaud the Government for appointing James Ewins to lead the review because all these issues need to be looked at in the round so that overseas domestic workers can be best supported and cared for. We need to let the review do its work and not foreguess it in the way that the amendment tries to do. I am batting for the review and trusting that it can be implemented by regulation. Therefore, I am with any future Government who are serious about this issue—as they should be on moral and practical grounds—and pursue it appropriately.

I am uneasy about the details of the amendment on two counts. There is a real danger, as the Minister alluded to, of separating the victim from the crime. It is important for future victims that any system of care and support for those caught up in this terrible crime, and oppressed and abused by it, can kick back into where the crime is coming from and how it is manipulated and engineered. There is a danger that this could encourage people to try to escape from it but not be invited to play a responsible part, if they can, in challenging the crime and seeking to stop it.

Again, I applaud the desire to offer other alternatives in terms of work—the James Ewins review could look at that—but we are talking about people who have come into this country on a particular and intimate relationship and who often have a particular dependency, as those of us who have had the harrowing experience of meeting overseas domestic workers who have been abused in this way will know. They are not migrant labourers who can easily get up and go and get another job. The situation is more complex than that and needs a more subtle and careful approach.

I cannot support the noble Lord on the amendment for those reasons. I hope that we will give James Ewins the opportunity to look at all the complex issues and to come up with a more joined-up approach that we can continue to gather round and support in the future.

[Baroness Williams of Crosby (LD)]

My Lords, we have had some remarkable contributions to this debate. I certainly do not wish to delay the outcome but I would like to ask two or three questions before we make a decision on the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Hylton. Before I do so, I pay tribute to the 30 years of his life that the noble Lord has given to the effort to get social justice for this particularly badly treated group in society. I have absolutely no qualification in saying that. Of course, like everyone else, I thank the Minister for his endless persistence in trying to get answers that will satisfy the House.

My questions are very simple. The first is about access. Noble Lords have referred to the extreme risks that domestic workers in difficult situations may face in attempting to access the system we have now begun to establish, including the NRM. We need to make sure that they do have access. I ask the Minister whether access to, for example, the churches or non-governmental organisations can then be passed on by them on behalf of the person who is objecting and concerned. Is that a possibility? I ask this because the trust that overseas domestic workers—for example, Filipinos—have in a church or an NGO might be much greater, sadly, than the trust they might place in the authorities. I am sorry to have to say that, but it has been my experience in talking in particular to Filipino migrants, who are among the most helpful and forthcoming that we have in this country. They have deep concerns—from their own experience back home as much as anything—about whether the authorities will be fair in the way that they treat their complaint.

My second question concerns the issue raised by the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, as well as by the noble Lord, Lord Deben, and others, including my noble friend Lady Hamwee. There is a complete lack of any form of legal aid for this pathetically waged group in society. I am not sure whether they would get any money at all to pursue these issues, which is why it is of such great concern to me that access to employment tribunals and the civil courts is not made available in some form that would enable these people to bring their cases forward. There may be no answer to that, but we cannot pretend to ourselves that passing laws that cannot be implemented because the people they affect do not have the money to do so is a satisfactory outcome.

I have two more questions. The third is about the inquiry. The Minister said that the inquiry would be in July, but my impression is that that is not when it will be concluded, but when it will be started. As we know, an inquiry can be a very long process indeed, particularly when it comes—as this one will—between the end of a Parliament and a general election that will be followed by the creation of an effective Government. Is the Minister telling us that the inquiry will start in July but not giving any indication of when it is likely to be terminated?

Secondly, will the inquiry look not only at the law but at the implementation of the law? It was mentioned in the Commons that there had been 63 cases where exploitation or other forms of slavery were clearly identified. There has been just one prosecution. That reminds me a little of the issues around the banks. It is no good having a law that is not implemented. Perhaps the Minister will be kind enough to say whether the inquiry will be able to look into the issue of implementation as well as at the law itself. This seems to me to be absolutely crucial.

My final point concerns the issue of serious crime associated with, for example, cases of exploitation. I will give an example from my own experience, because I used to lecture on this subject when I was at the Kennedy School in Harvard. One of the most dreadful pieces of evidence I came across was that one of the single largest exports to the Philippines from the Trucial States of Saudi Arabia was that of coffins for those who had been domestic workers. I do not point the finger now; maybe things have changed. However, they were very serious in the past.

My last question is this. If someone who makes a complaint refers to a capital or substantial crime such as rape or assault, could we take that into account in the way that we deal with the issues that are now before us? Will the Minister say how that is dealt with at present, because my impression is that sometimes it is not dealt with at all?

Modern Slavery Bill

Lord Bishop of Derby Excerpts

Wednesday 4th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Derby]

My Lords, I support these amendments and thank the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for his leadership. I associate myself with the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, about websites and technology.

I have had the privilege of being in conversation with the Minister about the importance of this legislation and what we are trying to achieve for our country as a mark to the world: that is, helping business to develop and change its culture, and to take responsibility for good practice. Of course, the discipline of using a website will enable businesses to be accountable to their investors, their consumers and their shareholders in a transparent and open space. That will encourage good business practice and help the businesses that have fallen short to be challenged. Therefore, this very sensible and practical suggestion will not only help the Bill to achieve its objectives but will help the culture of business to change in a positive way and make the employment of people in slavery less likely.

I want to make a couple of other small points. Amendment 3 includes the word “may”. Therefore, it is inviting the Minister to agree to this direction of travel as a priority to deliver what we all want to achieve through the Bill. This has been a long journey and we have learnt a great deal on it. As other noble Lords have said, we have been extremely grateful for the way in which the Minister has listened, negotiated and developed the Bill appropriately when persuasion has been there. I think that that process will go on. The website will provide for learning to go on and, with practice, to develop.

My final point is that last week, in talking about the Gangmasters Licensing Authority, we were reminded that organisations like that were able to access proceeds of crime to help fund the work. If we need to find a way of funding a website, which could be quite labour-intensive in answering all the niggly questions to which people expect a reply, the proceeds of crime might be a proper place from which resourcing might be found.

[Baroness Young of Hornsey (CB)]

My Lords, I support the amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Alton. The Minister has referred several times to the California Act during the passage of this Bill. In both Houses it has often been cited as a sort of reference point or a benchmark. We should learn from that experience. As has already been said, the Californians are saying that this is the one aspect that they regret having missed out on. They see the work embodied in the two amendments as an essential tool. The essence of this part of the Bill is transparency. We cannot have full transparency without information and knowledge.

As I said at earlier stages, many young people in particular, in the wake of disasters in the clothing industry such as Rana Plaza, are keen to know about the provenance of their clothing. As my noble friend Lord Alton has already noted, the internet is a key tool, and many young people—and some older people, too—use social media to communicate about companies they see as not upholding their values. Pressure from consumers is something that the Government have said they are keen on. It is a way of holding businesses to account and a way of ensuring that they think about their reputations and how to protect them. Therefore, consumers have some power. However, while I argue that it is not solely down to consumers to keep a check on unscrupulous businesses, I accept that they have a role to play. Without the requisite knowledge and information it is hard to play any kind of role at all.

How could such a role be played without the kind of centralised information, the potential for which this amendment allows the Secretary of State to explore? Who, apart from specialist researchers, would even know which companies met the threshold for inclusion under the Bill, let alone find the required statements from those companies that would enable them to make their choices? I wish we could say that all companies are so concerned about reputational damage that they act in ethical and sustainable ways, but unfortunately they do not. That is one of the reasons why we need the Bill. Good businesses have said that transparency is an aid for them, not a burden. Given the widespread support for this measure in the House, from business, NGOs and, indeed consumers, I hope that the Minister, who, as everybody has said, has been so helpful in not just listening to what we have had to say but in acting on so many of the concerns expressed here and elsewhere, will take this opportunity to respond positively to the amendment and help the Government to become genuine world leaders on this aspect of the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bates]

My Lords, this amendment inserts a new clause before Clause 55. I thank noble Lords for the excellent debates that we have had on the Gangmasters Licensing Authority during the passage of the Bill, as well as the important discussions that we had outside the Chamber ahead of Report. I welcome the support expressed in this House for the vital work undertaken by the GLA—the Gangmasters Licensing Authority, that is. It is obvious that there is a shared interest right across the House in increasing the GLA’s effectiveness and indeed that of all the agencies engaged in the fight against worker mistreatment.

On Report last week, I welcomed the spirit—no pun intended—of the proposal from the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby, which was supported by the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, and the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of Cradley. I highlight that my concerns about it were of a technical nature; as in the previous group, there is no difference over the principle that we want to see in the Bill. I said that I would look again at this before Third Reading, and I have done so; the government amendment reflects our revised thoughts on the issue. It commits the Government to publishing a consultation paper on the role and responsibilities of the GLA within one year of the Bill being passed. This amendment achieves several important things, including a full public consultation on the role of the GLA, which will be placed in the context of the wider landscape of organisations fighting worker mistreatment. It provides for an evidence-based approach to further improving the role of the GLA in tackling abuse of workers. In addition, this new clause places this commitment to a consultation in legislation, meaning that a future Government must live up to the commitments that have been made during the passage of this Bill and ensure there is an urgent focus on the work of the GLA at the start of the next Parliament.

I believe that a clause on the work of the GLA in this Bill reflects the concerns expressed through pre-legislative scrutiny, debates in another place and in this House. All through the passage of this Bill, there has been a common view that we need to focus on getting the role of the GLA right, and this amendment reflects that clearly in the Bill. Through this full public consultation, we will be able to take proper account of the activity of other organisations devoted to tackling serious crime and protecting workers and make sure that, in whatever we do, we avoid creating duplication and overlaps between agencies, thus avoiding wasting time and money which could be better used than in allowing the perpetrators of mistreatment of workers potentially to escape scrutiny. Preparatory work on the consultation document will start immediately so that it can be published as soon as possible in the next Parliament.

I know that some noble Lords have supported the idea of an enabling provision to allow extension of the GLA remit by secondary legislation. Our assessment is that would not achieve its main purpose of avoiding the need for further primary legislation should a decision be taken to extend the GLA remit. We have not, therefore, focused the government amendment in this area. Any significant change to the GLA would be likely to require both reform of the Gangmasters Licensing Act 2004 and substantive changes to wider primary legislation related to how the labour market is regulated, such as the Employment Agencies Act 1973. A focus on how the remit of the GLA is set out in legislation in isolation fails to consider the need to make sure that our legislation provide for a coherent enforcement landscape that can be used by the police, the National Crime Agency, HMRC, the Employment Agency Standards Inspectorate and others.

I assure the House that the Government welcome and share the commitment expressed in this House to considering how best the GLA can tackle and punish those that abuse, coerce and mistreat their workers. Our proposal for a full and speedy public consultation reflects that commitment.

I add one other thing, on the subject of consultation. I know that we have had many consultations, but that in itself is part of the strategy. The more that we engage with organisations and individuals about different aspects of how this Bill is going to work in practice, the more awareness there will be of the problem and of the new, robust legislative landscape that is there to tackle this abuse. I hope that noble Lords will support this amendment to ensure a comprehensive consultation. Again, I particularly thank the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby for his work in this important area.

[The Lord Bishop of Derby]

My Lords, I thank the Minister. This is another excellent example of listening, learning and working together and taking seriously what was said at Report. On Monday, I was privileged to be at the GLA national conference, which was in Derby, where the Minister, Karen Bradley, who I see is present, was the keynote speaker. I was privileged to speak, along with the new independent commissioner designate. The GLA is alive and well and thinking creatively, but it will be very important for it to use its expertise in a targeted way and negotiate how that expertise is employed alongside other inspectorates. I welcome this proposal.

At the event on Monday, there was the launch of an academy by Derby University in partnership with the GLA to help businesses to learn good practice at a professional benchmarked standard to enable them to comply with the spirit and direction of the Bill and for there to be proper professional training of those employed in businesses to administer supply chains and employment.

The GLA is fulfilling all the expectations that it raised with the Select Committee and Members of this House. It is very important that we undertake this work. I am grateful that the amendment contains the word “must” because it is important to do this scoping out and I thank the Minister for tabling it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, from the Liberal Democrat Benches I also thank all those who have already been mentioned. It is only so as not to be tedious that I will not go through the list again but my thanks are sincere.

This has been such a good example of how Parliament can work well across parties, with people of no parties and with organisations outside this House, as the noble Lord said. I have been particularly struck, which I am sure is in no small part thanks to the efforts of both Minsters present, that even at this last stage, with the last of the substantive amendments on the Gangmasters Licensing Authority, the Minister came forward with an amendment which he did not need to make. I do not think there would have been complaints. We would have taken the good faith of what he had said about the work that the Government were going to be doing on this. I know that he will agree that this is the end of the beginning rather than anything further, including at a personal level. I do not know whether the Bill team has counted up for him the number of commitments to extra meetings that he has made following the passing of what will soon be an Act but I know that we will all want to continue to be involved in making sure that the Bill, as implemented, fulfils its promises.

[The Lord Bishop of Derby]

My Lords, I want to very briefly say from these Benches what a privilege it has been to participate. My colleague, the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury, had to get special permission for me to sit on the Select Committee. It has been a wonderful opportunity for the church to contribute and, through me, for the voluntary sector to be involved both with the crafting of the legislation and with working further afield on grass-roots responses and the wider cultural and learning changes that need to happen in our society. I also want to say a final “thank you” to the Minister whose leadership of this whole process has been exemplary, as other colleagues have said.

Bill passed and returned to the Commons with amendments.

Modern Slavery Bill

Lord Bishop of Derby Excerpts

Wednesday 25th February 2015 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[The Lord Bishop of Derby]

92: After Clause 51, insert the following new Clause—
“Enforcement agencies
(1) The Secretary of State shall consult on ways to strengthen and improve the resources of enforcement agencies such as the Gangmasters Licensing Authority and the Employment Agency Standards Inspectorate using confiscated assets and proceeds of crime recovered under the provisions of section 7.
(2) A consultation under subsection (1) shall end no later than 1 January 2016.
(3) The Secretary of State may by order amend section 3 of the Gangmasters (Licensing) Act 2004 to include other areas of work where the Secretary of State believes abuse and exploitation of workers or modern slavery or trafficking may be taking place.
(4) An order under subsection (3) may not be made unless a draft of the statutory instrument containing it has been laid before each House of Parliament and been approved by a resolution in each House.”

[The Lord Bishop of Derby]

My Lords, I thank my colleagues, the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, for their support for this amendment. I also place on record my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Bates. With others, we have been extremely grateful for the patient and kind way he has listened to us, engaged with us and put on special meetings on various subjects. The point of this amendment is to highlight the fact that both the Government and many of us involved in this issue are learning a great deal as we go along. Therefore, there is a proper space for consultation, review and further learning to be done.

The point of this amendment is to seek authorisation for further consultation around two particular things. One is resources for some of the key agencies which will be in the forefront of putting this legislation into practice. There will be an enormous challenge and the resourcing issue, with tight budgets, will be enormous. We have discussed in previous debates the potential for using confiscated assets and the proceeds of crime to help resource the work of some of the agencies that will be putting this legislation into practice and can deliver what the Bill requires. This was discussed by the Select Committee and I hope the Minister will endorse further consultation about the potential for using confiscated assets and the proceeds of crime to help resource the implementation of the Bill.

The second area that the amendment explores is to help us ensure that the agencies which are in place at the moment can develop appropriately and be fit for purpose. I refer in particular to the Gangmasters Licensing Authority, which needs to have a realistic remit. It has enormous expertise, but it will need resourcing, as I have said, for further engagement in the new context, including how it links with bodies such as the Employment Agency Standards Inspectorate. We need to see how those bodies are going to work together: that needs exploring further if the Bill is going to be implemented effectively. The Employment Agency Standards Inspectorate will, of course, have a key role in helping us reach out to those areas where slavery operates through small-scale operations, not just the large businesses we are looking at in those parts of the Bill covering the formal supply chain.

So the amendment covers those two simple things. It explores how best we can use confiscated assets and the proceeds of crime to give resources to key agencies such as the GLA and the Employment Agency Standards Inspectorate, and it looks at how those agencies might co-operate so that we can do educational, proactive work so that the requirements of the Bill get disseminated through those agencies into their constituencies, and so that they co-operate most fully between themselves and cover as many bases as possible. This very simple amendment will build on the work of the Joint Committee and ensure that the principles of the Bill are delivered most effectively. It is about resourcing the agencies and about how they can best work together. It asks for authorisation for that consultation to happen so that we can pursue those two objectives. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bates]

My Lords, I am grateful to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby for having moved the amendment. He has been an integral part of the cross-party team that has been working so constructively on the Bill and taken us to where we are now. I particularly note, and offer my respect for, the work that he has done in the diocese of Derby in tackling the issues of modern-day slavery. It is an example of what could be done elsewhere as well.

Let me put on record the two difficulties that we have with the amendment. I do not think that, on the general principle, we are a million miles apart. What we had was a Gangmasters Licensing Authority, after the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, introduced legislation in this House in the wake of the awful tragedy that we saw—and it was working rather well. It was targeted at a particular group, where there was a real problem in the food processing industries and that sector of agriculture and fisheries. About 1,200 businesses a year are regulated, and there is a cost to that. They have to get their licence and pay between £1,000 and £2,000 a year, and when they are regularly inspected they also have to pay a fee for the inspection.

There is a discussion about this. I am sure that when the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, was introducing the Gangmasters Licensing Authority legislation, he was thinking that we did not want to impose this on everyone unless it were strongly proven that it was absolutely necessary to cover everyone, because there are some serious burdens placed on small and micro-businesses. I take the point that the noble Lord, Lord Judd, made about resources. Resources are scarce at present: there is a big debate, which I am sure my predecessors had when they were trying to secure the necessary resources for the changes being made in the national referral mechanism. That would account for a significant amount, and resources also have to follow the child trafficking advocates, the extension of legal aid and the office of the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner-designate. I accept that.

Let me explain the difficulties to the right reverend Prelate. There are two difficulties with an enabling power on the GLA remit. First, such a power assumes that the main issue is with the GLA’s remit, and may not consider the broader landscape in terms of how we tackle abuse of workers. Secondly, even if we concluded that the answer to the problem was an extension of the remit, the enabling power would almost certainly not achieve its aim of avoiding the need for further primary legislation.

As has been mentioned, it has also been enormously helpful that we have been able to have discussions outside the Chamber, and build our mutual understanding of these issues. It is important that we look at the GLA’s role in the context of our overall approach to tackling abuse in the labour market.

The House will note that sectors not covered by the GLA are already regulated. Last year more than 53,000 callers were helped by the pay and work rights helpline, and more than 23,000 workers were helped to recover wage arrears by the national minimum wage enforcement team. In addition, employment agencies not covered by the GLA are regulated by the Employment Agency Standards Inspectorate, which between 31 March and 1 April 2014 brought seven prosecutions in the magistrates’ courts and in five cases secured convictions. The Employment Agency Standards Inspectorate also has a unique power to apply to ban those who have shown themselves to be unfit to run any employment agency, and there are currently 16 people on the list of people banned from running an employment agency. We need to make sure, through consultation, that we come to a coherent position and that these bodies work in a co-ordinated way to prevent and stop abuse.

I understand why an enabling power might appear attractive as a way of potentially avoiding the need for future primary legislation after a consultation, but such a power simply would not achieve the objective of avoiding the need for primary legislation. Any significant change to the GLA would be likely to require both reform of the Gangmasters (Licensing) Act 2004 and substantive changes to wider primary legislation related to how the labour market is regulated, such as the Employment Agencies Act 1973.

The enabling power would be limited to changes in the remit. I accept that it would be hard to justify a delegated power wide enough to allow for the types of enforcement powers the GLA might need in future. But a truly open and evidence-based consultation might well highlight the need for changes in the powers of the GLA that do not relate to the remit.

The amendment also focuses on the use by the GLA and others of the Proceeds of Crime Act. I should point out that the GLA already uses that legislation to identify proceeds of crime—a subject raised by the noble Lord, Lord Alton. Indeed, since 2010 the GLA has identified over £1.5 million in criminal assets through that route. I am sure that, like me, noble Lords will all applaud the GLA for its achievements in this regard. The GLA already receives a share of the assets recovered under the asset recovery incentivisation scheme: it has received £118,000 since 2010.

I acknowledge the points that have been made. When we prepare the consultation document we will reflect on today’s debate and see whether there are ways in which we can make greater use of the Proceeds of Crime Act, alongside increasing and making better use of our existing resources devoted to worker protection.

I shall now deal with one or two of the points raised in the debate. I have highlighted the problems we have with the amendment, which are technical rather than substantive in terms of the issue that the right reverend Prelate has raised. If he felt able to withdraw his amendment now, I would certainly give an undertaking to reflect further on it and consider whether we should look at this subject again before Third Reading. There are some drafting issues. What the amendment proposes is a review of one area under one Act, whereas we would like to see a wider consultation covering many areas and many Acts. To do that we need an approach different from that taken in the amendment. If the right reverend Prelate will take that into account, we shall be happy to come back to the subject.

[The Lord Bishop of Derby]

I thank the Minister for what I take to be an encouraging response. I do not know a lot of the details about delegated powers and primary legislation, and, as he said, there are possible technical issues with our proposals. However, I take heart from the fact that we are in the same direction of travel. We want to increase the resource potential for this work and to look carefully at how agencies such as the Gangmasters Licensing Authority can best perform. On that basis, and in the hope of further thought being given to this matter before the next stage, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 92 withdrawn.

Modern Slavery Bill

Lord Bishop of Derby Excerpts

Wednesday 25th February 2015 Lords Chamber

I appreciate that the first regulations are now to be subject to the affirmative procedure, but they will be unamendable, as all regulations are, so it seems appropriate for me to air this point now. A commercial organisation, for this purpose, is defined as a body corporate or a partnership. As I understand it, a body corporate does not include its subsidiaries. They are bodies corporate in their own right. So my question—a simple one, I hope—is: is the reference to the determination sufficient to prescribe what is in effect deemed turnover? In other words, is it sufficient to ensure that a body corporate is treated as if it were the group of companies of which it is the parent? Finally, is it planned that the guidance on this subject will cover how companies within a group should each deal with a statement?

[The Lord Bishop of Derby]

My Lords, I support this group of amendments. I, too, welcome government Amendment 97, because we need a framework that people can inhabit flexibly and that sets out the framework very clearly but gives room for manoeuvre.

As for Amendment 98A, the modern tool for transparency is the website. A website is accessible to everybody in a very equal way. The Bill needs to balance two kinds of transparency. We are looking for transparency where there is bad practice—we want to shine a light on the oppression and abuse of people. We are also looking for transparency where there is good practice, especially good business practice in terms of employment and working conditions. We have to get both sides of the transparency issue up and running.

There is a serious point about resourcing the website. If it is located in the office of the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner, that will give a clear message about what it is for. With a website, we can imagine that if people do not find what they want, or do not think that something has happened after it has gone up, they will send in their requests or their complaints, and that will be a big resourcing task to monitor, to respond to and to manage. Therefore, if it is to be run by the anti-slavery commissioner—I can see the value of that—it will, as others have said, need proper targeted resourcing, having measured the task. There may be other models for providing such a website. Whether one can have some equivalent of the Salvation Army and find someone to designate and manage it, there must be a public space that is accessible to everyone, which looks at what is going on and being achieved, shares good practice and exposes those who are falling short.

Finally, I again endorse use of the Companies Act 2006 because that gets into the DNA of how we expect companies to operate good practice.

[Baroness Mobarik (Con)]

My Lords, I rise in support of Amendment 98A of the noble Lord, Lord Alton. If the requirement for those companies in the category whereby they are obliged to prepare and submit a slavery and human trafficking statement for each financial year of the organisation is to be meaningful and effective, a central repository for statements makes infinite sense. The office of the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner—the commissioner-designate, Kevin Hyland—is fully supportive of this proposal. A central repository for companies to be able to upload a human trafficking and slavery statement would be an effective way in which to assist with monitoring compliance and public accountability, and it is to be welcomed.

In order for leadership in companies to take this seriously, this amendment is important. It would require companies to include a fair summary of the statement and the web address of the full statement to be included within the directors’ report. This would not be unduly onerous for companies. The upside for companies is that such a duty would prove their due diligence and that it is a matter of real ethical concern to them. That makes for a more attractive proposition to investors and encourages a healthy competition to eradicate the blight of modern-day slavery, which can only be a good thing.

I hope that the Minister, my noble friend Lord Bates, who we all know has been working tirelessly on the Bill for many weeks, will be able to accept this amendment. It enjoys cross-party support as well as support from wider civil society and the commissioner-designate.

Modern Slavery Bill

Lord Bishop of Derby Excerpts

Wednesday 10th December 2014 Lords Chamber

Like others, I want to see the NRM as a multidisciplinary framework—I very much like that about the review’s approach—and not as a straitjacket. I hesitate to use this analogy, but if it is not a straitjacket—and it should not be—at the moment, frankly, it feels rather more like a loose-fitting cardigan with a little bit of unravelling here and there. I say to my noble friend, if the Government cannot agree the basis now, please do not close the door. Please leave the opportunity to get on with the work. Obviously this door would never be closed completely, but to put enabling provisions into the Bill would enable us to build as fast as possible on the recommendations of the review and move towards a statutory basis, perhaps having done a little more work by way of consultation as the noble and learned Baroness suggested.

[The Lord Bishop of Derby]

My Lords, I will contribute briefly to the debate. I hope the Government will take the time to take seriously the NRM review. Jeremy Oppenheim has made some crucial insights, particularly about the 45 days being used as a period for deciding about judicial processes, not a period for nourishment and proper support. Therefore, we need to think very carefully about how we pitch the 45 days or whatever period it is, alongside a commitment to support victims on a longer timescale. He also made an important point about the concept of safeguarding, just referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Warner. I have spoken about this before in the House. It would be very helpful for everybody if we could connect what we are doing about slavery with the culture of safeguarding awareness. I very much support the suggestion from the noble Lord, Lord Warner, about what we call this mechanism.

Finally, from my experience as someone who works with the agencies and victims themselves, the value of a statutory approach is that it would provide consistency for all victims in the way that they are treated, and a proper, firm framework, which is what we need. Currently, some victims struggle because they are dealt with on the edges. If we are serious about the Bill, we need to have a firm and clear set of expectations and processes.

[Lord James of Blackheath (Con)]

The Minister is aware that I have some continuing concerns since I withdrew my Amendment 29. Having listened to the debate on this amendment today, there is a word in the amendment that causes me great concern in the context of the story I recounted to the House. The word is “referral”. In the case of my story, referral would have come far too late: the children were in the middle of the Atlantic before anybody could have referred them. Those children could not have referred themselves. They were deposited at the quayside. We did not know who they were or where they came from. They were put on to a boat and they sailed away within three hours. As they could not have referred themselves, they were therefore wholly dependent on the authenticity and legality of some certificate to the effect that they were properly selected and briefed to become migrants. They are lost people, as far as I am concerned—a lost generation. There were 1,760 of them; I have been able to check up since.

Where this clause is wrong goes back to the point that I have been asking the Minister about since I withdrew my amendment. How have we got in here an absolutely legal authority for every child who is put into a migration situation? We have done this regularly about every 20 years for the last 250 years and we need to stop it. We need to outlaw ourselves from doing it any more. That was my concern when I recounted my story and I am not satisfied that the Bill in its present form locks that door once and for all so that we cannot prise it open again and do it.

In the circumstances I described, the travel arrangements could be made under the entire authority of the Australian Government and the Australian civil service in London. The children were coming from local councils that wanted to get rid of them and from orphanages that could not cope with the numbers they had. They put them in a truck and dumped them on the quayside at Tilbury. We put them on a boat and they sailed. Where is a referral going to come in to save those children from that fate? We have not made illegal the act of forced transportation. We have been doing it for 250 years and I am not satisfied yet that this Bill blocks it.

Modern Slavery Bill

Lord Bishop of Derby Excerpts

Monday 1st December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, this is an amendment which I have only just seen since I was out of the country until the early hours of this morning. I think that it is very interesting. This is an iconic Bill which has generated the most enormous amount of interest right across the country and internationally. Everybody, including myself, is being asked to speak on this Bill and it has got to be one of which the Government can be proud. I think that the Government should be proud of having the Bill as it is, but it could be better.

The criticism from NGOs, which may or may not be justified, is that this is a Bill for prosecution and conviction and not one for the welfare of those who are the victims of trafficking and slavery. If the Government accepted this amendment, they would have in the front of the Bill a clause that would put to rest what the NGOs are complaining about.

What worries me about the Bill is the prospect of the press supporting the NGOs when this Bill becomes law and saying that this is not the iconic Bill it is intended to be but is in fact rather a small Bill that deals with rather limited issues. The fact that that is not true does not stop that perception—and, as we all know, we live in a world of perception rather than reality.

This is a very clever amendment, if I may respectfully say so to the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, and the Government should look at it with enormous care and consider having it, or something like it, at the beginning of the Bill, while taking into account all the points that the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, made about it. I think that she is being somewhat overworried. Speaking as a former judge, nobody in the Family Division, the county court which tries the family cases, or the magistrates in the family proceedings court have the slightest difficulty in understanding what is meant by “best interests”. I would be astonished if those judges referred to in subsection (1) of the proposed new clause would have any difficulty in understanding that. Inevitably these would be seen as vulnerable adults, and “best interests” applies as much to vulnerable adults as it does to children.

The only point I will make, to take up what the noble Lord just said about the contrasts between subsections (1) of Amendment 1A and Amendment 1, where you have “and” in one and “or” in another, is that that is untidy. However, I am also concerned, as I said at Second Reading, about the word “exploitation”. If we are to have that word, it needs to be adjusted to a reference to whichever of the subsequent clauses deals with the definition of exploitation.

On the subject of those rather technical matters, this is a very interesting idea, and I urge the Government to look at it with great care. If they put something like this in, it would lay to rest the criticisms that the NGOs and then the press will make, which will have a devastating effect on what is a very good Bill. It would be very clever to put it in.

[The Lord Bishop of Derby]

My Lords, I echo what the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, said, and I welcome and endorse the Minister’s commitment to making this a victim-centred Bill. The key thing for me in this proposed amendment is the phrase “personal circumstances”. One of the facts that have come home to me very clearly in my work with victims and those who work with them is that this is not just about the terrible circumstances that somebody finds themselves in because they have been trafficked or enslaved. A very high proportion of those people start off, before they are ever enslaved, as vulnerable people—they have mental health problems, or are homeless, or have low self-esteem—who very easily get drawn into being dominated, trafficked and exploited. What is challenging, and what we should take seriously in the proposed new clause, is for the Bill to draw attention to the personal circumstances of each victim or survivor. In almost any case these people will be vulnerable and will need to be treated as we treat others, with our development of a safeguarding framework and proper procedures to care for those who need safeguarding.

[Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon (Lab)]

My Lords, I add my voice in support of Amendment 1A, which proposes a new Clause 1. All of us in your Lordships’ House and in the other place speak with one voice when we say that the intent of the Bill is good. We are as one in our agreement that the overarching ideal is to eradicate the festering sore of modern slavery from our society.

The reason we are gathered together on this is the outrage that burns within each of us that children can be spirited across borders against their will; that girls, boys, women and men are forced into sexual servitude; that some in our country have to work back-breaking hours for little or no pay, with the promise of only a beating if they try to escape; and that in this day and age, when so much progress has been secured, so many still live lives under the violent control of others, exploited for their labour and robbed of any free will or hope. However, it is not for our outrage that the Bill should exist. The current Bill suggests that our primary objective is to punish the perpetrators. While I understand that our first outraged impulse may be to punish the perpetrators in anger for their inhumanity, we must remember that we are acting for the humanity of the victims—for the thousands in this country and millions around the world who are locked away, isolated and invisible.

At Second Reading, I explained my view that all the people we represent in this country—whether they are born here or not—are our children. This perspective should set our standard for how victims should be treated: with compassion for their suffering and the will to give them a chance of a better future. It means, first, ensuring that victims are recognised and treated by public organisations, including the police, as victims, not criminals. This should be done not only out of compassion but from necessity, because without victims’ co-operation we will never secure the convictions we need to end modern slavery. It means putting their interests first in the process of tackling the perpetrators. As I mentioned earlier, Anthony Steen, the Government’s former special envoy on human trafficking, has made it clear that only a Bill with victims’ interests at its heart will be effective in enforcement. It means the Government considering the potential impact of their broader legislation, rather than instigating measures such as the 2012 visa changes for overseas domestic workers, which dramatically increased the risk of domestic slavery. It means the Government doing more, through the proposed anti-slavery commissioner and in partnership with other organisations, to help victims recover and build new lives of dignity and opportunity.

Saying this is not to suggest that we should not punish perpetrators: of course we must. It is to say that the overriding purpose of the Bill is to free those of our children who are enslaved and to work to ensure that there will be no more. The Bill is about them. That is why I support this amendment to create a new Clause 1. To repeat my words of two weeks ago, we must send a clear message to the boys, girls, men and women who are currently enslaved, living lives where hope becomes more distant and the future more bleak. We will not let you live lives without dignity, without rights, without a future worth living. You are our children, too. This amendment is one part of that message and it should have the support of this House.

--- Later in debate ---

It is outrageous that we should pass a Bill that does not have authority over all institutions, be they orphanages, local councils or government itself. We must stop trafficking our own children, and that is not in the Bill as it stands. That is the purpose of my amendment. The Bill criminalises other people but not us because we are too good to do it. No, we are not; we have been doing it for 233 years and we should stop.

[The Lord Bishop of Derby]

My Lords, I stand as an Anglican priest alongside the noble Lord, Lord James. We need to be reminded of that harrowing sequence of stories because they illustrate how easily children are exploited, even within the establishment and among the powers that be. I put my name to Amendment 9 and, at this stage, I want to endorse the points made by my colleagues on the Select Committee, the noble Baronesses, Lady Doocey and Lady Kennedy, based on the evidence we heard. I, too, found it very persuasive.

I am delighted that the Government have moved considerably in putting children more strongly in the wording of the Bill. As the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, said, there is precedent for specifying children, in the Sexual Offences Act. In response to the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, I would say that, clearly, we need improved training and practice. My point is that making children specific in this way will draw attention to the kind of training and practice that needs to be developed.

I endorse the importance of making children specifically visible in this legislation. There is a great temptation in our culture to treat children as young adults. From a very early age, they are economic agents and they dress as though they are 20 years older than they are. It is very easy for children to get lost in the whirl of society. We have heard the references to the terrible cases in Rochdale and other places. To protect children, it may be important to make them visible in legislation in a way that draws attention to their childlikeness. That would encourage the law, its practice and its training to take seriously the gravity of this offence.

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland]

My Lords, I would ask for some clarification. I am becoming very confused about the difference between the idea of slavery and trafficking and that of child neglect and exploitation, which we have been dealing with for many years through general children’s legislation. Listening to the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, describe her cases, as an ex-director of social services and a social worker, I am appalled that action was not taken. However, I know that it is difficult to work between the criminal and the civil law. Under civil law, social services will act to remove a child and protect it, while at the same time trying to act through the criminal law against the perpetrators. There may be a gap there. Others have worked for years trying to ensure that those things hold together, but that is different from having a new piece of law about exploitation that then overrides the existing provisions in children’s legislation. Is the Minister prepared to look at this, maybe with lawyers, to see whether there is a gap in children’s legislation which this could plug and whether we are not being firm enough about practice and training?

We have seen what happened in Rotherham. In talking to the police this morning at a round-table meeting following the work that the all-party parliamentary group did on children and the police, it was quite clear that they have learnt a great deal and are moving in their practices and procedures. We will see change there. I would like to ensure that similar change happens in local authorities because, although there is good practice, as a former local authority worker I am sometimes appalled and ashamed at what we do about poor practice. I have two questions for the Minister. First, is there a gap? Secondly, what are the Government doing to ensure that everyone is encouraged to practise within the existing law to the highest possible standards?

Modern Slavery Bill

Lord Bishop of Derby Excerpts

Monday 1st December 2014 Lords Chamber

The approach to prostitution proposed in the noble Lord’s amendment is becoming the informed choice of western industrialised countries. It will shortly become law in one part of the United Kingdom and I believe that it deserves serious consideration in the other nations. I therefore support Amendments 31 and 31A.

[The Lord Bishop of Derby]

My Lords, I, too, would like to support my colleague from the Joint Committee, the noble Lord, Lord McColl, and I associate myself with the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Browne of Belmont. In the context of the Bill, this is to do with supply and demand, as we have heard. I will not repeat it, but it is well known that serious research into the Nordic model shows the effectiveness of this kind of legislation. A strong argument was aired briefly in the other place about the market and people’s freedom to work in ways they choose, but I want to draw briefly on my own experience to explore the myth that prostitution can be simply a marketable form of employment.

I have been involved in work with people engaged in prostitution, as well as those who work with them. It is evident that almost everybody who I have come across or who colleagues work with are pathetic, abused and often drug-centred young women. Earlier this year I came across a Thai woman who was being raped 10 times a day in a brothel in Kensington, not far from here. That is what being able to purchase sex is doing to people. A few weeks ago, I met a woman who said, movingly, that before she managed to escape from prostitution, she used to ask for drugs because the pain of servicing all those people was so intense. She requested drugs, and was supplied with them. Something that has not been said but which ought to be noted in this debate is that a lot of research shows that a high proportion of those who purchase sex from prostitutes are married men. What does that say about our understanding of family and relationships? There is a strong case for taking seriously the proposal of the noble Lord, Lord McColl.

I recognise that there might be some real politics in terms of where the amendment would fit in the Bill and how this kind of legislation might arrive at being effective, but I endorse the amendment because it asks the Government to do some form of review. It would be good to do some research to see whether this kind of legislation would reduce significantly the numbers of those in sexual slavery. Would it reduce the demand that is out there on the streets? Would it reduce the numbers who are trafficked into this country like the poor Thai woman I have just spoken about? She was brought here with the promise of a good job, and then she ended up in the appalling situation of being simply a commodity for people to buy at will. Such a review would gather information from the many people who work with those in the sex trade and could receive comments from the public. We could ask for the views of organisations like the Association of Chief Police Officers, which has been mentioned. There are many people in this area who have experience and who could help us to build up a picture that would show us the outcomes if we proceed in this direction.

The passion that unites noble Lords across the Committee on this Bill is to free victims from being abused and treated like commodities—and, in a sense, such cheap commodities. It would be wonderful if we could at least try to review the effect that this kind of legislation would have. Evidence from other parts of the world shows that when a Government are bold enough to adopt it, it has enormously positive social consequences as well as a massive impact on the evil of sexual trafficking.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, I will refer to what happened in Ipswich on the terrible occasion when the murders of a series of young women hit the headlines. All of them were described in the press as prostitutes. In fact, they would be better described as drug addicts who had fallen into prostitution.

I am not sure that this is the right Bill to make these changes, or that they can be made in these circumstances, but I am sure that we ought to be clear about a different approach to prostitution from that which we have had before. In Victorian days, prostitution was thought to be appalling and the women were blamed. The men were rarely considered to be in any way guilty. The Victorian approach was that men were like that. I hope that we have reached a stage where we understand how wrong that was as an attitude. However, instead, I fear we are moving to the kind of approach that my noble friend Lord McColl pointed to, where other people are treated as things for the gratification of some and for the earning of money by others. That is the real issue and where the problem really lies. I liked the way in which my noble friend presented his amendment because it seems to me that he emphasised, very characteristically, the nature of the human being, the duty that we owe to human beings and the respect which we should have for all, whoever they may be and however unworthy others may think them.

The terrible events of Ipswich concentrated the minds of people locally in a way which has never happened before. It was very interesting to see how people who would historically have dismissed this as one of those things that was nothing to do with them thought much more seriously about the nature of this offence and the way in which it made a statement about our society and how we think of other people. I know that I would not carry the Committee with me if I were to go too far with these comparators, but I must say that I think we live in a society which treats human life in a most disgraceful way. We point at others outside this country and forget what happens here to babies and what we sometimes ask to happen to older people. We are not good at recognising the value of human life nor are we good at recognising that the greatest gift given to any human being is the part that we can play in creation. It is the gift. Therefore we ought to be particularly careful in any circumstances where human beings are not just trafficked but are degraded by those who treat them as if they were not human. That is the issue that we are concerned with tonight.

I do not think that it would be proper to make so sweeping a change in the context of a Bill which has a whole range of other things that it needs to do, but it would be unfortunate if the Government were to complete the debates on this Bill without giving a real undertaking that this issue will be properly investigated and brought back to Parliament so that we can make a proper decision on it. It is a big issue. We are, on this occasion, very much helped by the work that has been done in Scandinavia. We are not in the same position as we have been before. We have seen what happens when steps like this are taken. We should not delay in treating this seriously, but should do it in a proper format. I do not think that this Bill is the proper format, but I do not want the Government to go away saying it is not the proper format, full stop. I want them to say that it is not the proper format but that they will speedily bring legislation in front of this House, after proper consideration, in order that the House and the other place might consider how best to protect people from being treated as things.

Modern Slavery Bill

Lord Bishop of Derby Excerpts

Monday 17th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Derby]

My Lords, I was privileged to be on the Joint Select Committee and I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Bates, on his very positive introduction. I also express my appreciation to the Government for listening and being willing to negotiate and explore options as this legislation unfolds.

I remind your Lordships that this is not just a huge and wicked crime. It is, as the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, says, increasing as we talk, massively. It treats human beings as commodities to be traded. The challenge of this legislation is to stop this practice. I am delighted that the Government are committed to producing a slavery strategy to complement the Bill and I hope that many of our concerns can be refined through that strategy. I would like to raise three of four things that might benefit from further scrutiny and wider debate in our process.

The issue of supply chains, about which the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, has spoken, sparked a debate a few weeks ago. It is good that the Government have listened and have a genuine commitment to trying to tackle supply chains, which are key to this appalling crime. At the moment, the connection is not clear enough between the kind of information required, by asking companies to be more transparent about supply chains, and the accountability of directors for listening to that information and doing something about it. Many companies already put things about supply chains on their websites, but, as I have said, the crime is increasing. We must be more focused, sharper and tougher.

It may be important to think about the Companies Act being amended, although I know that this is not popular and is continually sidelined. This is not least because the Government have admitted that they recognise that human rights reporting includes supply chain integrity. However, an amendment to connect our aspirations in this Bill with an amendment to the Companies Act would require shareholders and directors to be accountable for what the company was doing with supply chains, and it would be a model that other countries that have companies Acts but not legislation about slavery could easily follow and get up to speed on, and therefore it would be a world leader. It would create a level playing field for all companies, so I flag up the Companies Act as a way of strengthening what we are trying to do.

Also with regard to supply chains, I want to mention the issue of scale. The Government are committed to finding a level at which companies will be required to do some kind of reporting, but the way our economy is developing, with the devolution of much activity into very small-scale, local subcontracting enterprises, that is where much slavery happens, and it is well out of the purview of major operators, which have a vast scale of operation. My right reverend friend the Bishop of Norwich, who is in his place, has been talking to me about evidence from Norfolk that points to a strong connection between something as basic as a car wash and a traded group of people who are doing that labour. It is very difficult to catch that kind of gangmaster activity, where people gather a group of people, force them to do the job, pay them peanuts, often confiscate their passports and entrap them where they do not know the language and do not have connections.

That is why I welcome the suggestion that the Gangmasters Licensing Authority has it remit extended, because part of the problem is we have a very low level of inspection. If the GLA had a wider remit and a stronger base to do inspections, that could be helpful. Another case I referred to briefly in our debate a couple of weeks ago was that in Derbyshire the local police, with the GLA, are targeting companies that might be susceptible to trafficking in their systems and going out to do preventive work, to help them recognise the signs, take appropriate measures and improve their performance. If the GLA had more resources and a wider remit, it could do proactive preventive work as well as inspections and helping with challenging the crime more directly.

I also flag up an amendment in the Commons, which was unsuccessful, introduced by a member of the Select Committee, Fiona Mactaggart, about demand in terms of the sex trade. Although I do not think it would be suitable to have legislation in this Bill about prostitution and criminalising payment for sex, many countries, especially the Nordic countries, have done a lot of work to show that sexual exploitation flourishes through prostitution and that where there has been legislation to criminalise the purchase of sex—which is the commodification of other human beings—that has had a dramatic effect on the level of sexual exploitation and slavery.

I will briefly say something about the national referral mechanism. I congratulate Jeremy Oppenheim on his report and will just pick out a phrase that I think is very helpful for what we are trying to do. He says that we should not talk about first responders—who sound like some kind of St John Ambulance coming in from the touchline—but should call the people on the front line “slavery safeguarding leads”. Slavery is a safeguarding issue. It is about vulnerable adults being taken advantage of, and if we can use the word “safeguarding”, that makes sense to people in our culture and our society. I also endorse the very important point he makes, which we may want to pursue further, when he says that the 45 days, which we all know is inadequate for many purposes, is not a period for rehabilitation. We may need to separate out what space we need to make decisions about legal process and what space we need to try to support people, rehabilitate them and put them back on their feet.

Finally, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, mentioned the need to have a victim-centred Bill. We have to find a way of privileging victims because they are so abused and so sinned against. At the moment victims fall at many fences. Legal aid changes are beginning to put them in a disadvantaged place in trying to secure any legal support. With benefits systems, residency, housing, jobseeker’s allowance and all those kinds of things, the norms that we have for those bits of welfare activity are making it very hard for people who have been enslaved and have no documents or a settled address to access the welfare system. I wonder whether there is some way of privileging people once they have been recognised as having been exploited or enslaved, to give them a different way of accessing benefits and support because they have been enslaved and treated as commodities. That would make an enormous difference.

Finally, I welcome the nomination of Kevin Hyland as the first Anti-slavery Commissioner. I, too, have had the privilege of working with him and he is one of the great experts in our country. He has been at the forefront of putting victims at the front of this legislation and the work of the Metropolitan Police. He could be an exciting ally in this kind of work. I welcome the Bill and look forward to debating some of the big issues, but I plead that we think seriously about recognising how commodified people are in slavery and about whether they need a special prioritisation through the welfare system.

Slavery

Lord Bishop of Derby Excerpts

Thursday 30th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Derby]

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, for securing this debate and for her excellent introduction that laid out the ground clearly. I want to make some remarks from my experience of working with victims, the police and other agencies within our national context. We have just heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, about the sheer horror of the way in which human beings are being treated in our own country.

I begin by welcoming Karen Bradley’s recent announcement that there will be amendments to secure proper reporting and disclosure. The key will be the level of reporting and the size of the company. I also welcome the strong support from many leaders in our industries. On the Select Committee, the people who represented Primark and Tesco, for instance, were supportive of a framework to require proper reporting and accountability, which would help their business case and standing in the community.

I want to make a number of points and then ask some questions of the Minister. Quite rightly, we see modern slavery as a moral issue and the horrific treatment of human beings by other human beings. However, it is, in terms of the proposed legislation, an economic issue. In our economy, businesses are under enormous pressure and there is a proper mantra to reduce the pressure of red tape. What that means in practice, of course, is that this country has one of the lowest levels of inspection in the labour market of any western country. Although I do not want to advocate upping red tape, having such an informal labour market that is desperate, for understandable reasons, to have maximum flexibility and efficiency means that, in all that flexibility and informality, slavery can easily be hidden because one does not have such regular and public ways of employing people. The continuing flourishing of gangmasters is an illustration of how people gathered, were taken on or not on the day, not cared for by the system of work, and just used as hands.

There is an economic issue about how we do our business in this country and how we balance the proper economic and efficient performance of companies with the treatment of human beings who provide the labour and create the wealth. That urgent debate is the background to what we are talking about.

As we have heard, modern slavery is built on the exploitation of vulnerable people. It is interesting how the people who are recruited in our country into the slavery industry are targeted because they are homeless, have mental health issues and are struggling in life. In Derby, we have recently had a case where two Slovakian traffickers have been imprisoned. They were bringing in Slovakian men, cramming them in a terraced house, confiscating their passports, sending them out to work—all the usual things. All these people being trafficked were extremely vulnerable; easily abused and oppressed by that kind of brutal regime. We have had recent cases with Latvian women and Indian women in Derby; in every case they were vulnerable people.

As well as the economic context, the broader point is the fact of vulnerable people. We live in a culture that is rightly concerned about safeguarding. We are concerned rightly about the safeguarding of children at the moment. We have to get up to speed with the safeguarding of vulnerable adults, many of whom are in exploited forced labour.

There has been some discussion—it came to the Select Committee—about the Companies Act, which requires companies to report in terms of human rights issues and their compliance with safeguarding the human rights of those whom they employ. However, there is some debate about how modern slavery is covered by this. Although the Government’s amendments might place in the Bill a good way of trying to get transparency, it may be worth their considering a clarification of the Companies Act, simply because many countries have companies legislation. Although they may be well behind us in terms of having a Modern Slavery Bill, it could be a model of how company law can be tweaked to make slavery a key part of what has to be reported on and accounted for in the operation of companies. If we want to be a world leader, we should not lose the potential of using the Companies Act ourselves as a model.

On the issue of scale, I entirely take the point of the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, that big companies can set an example that smaller companies can follow. In the national context, a high proportion of those enslaved are operating in an informal, murky economy. They are employed through agencies and other mediators. We have to try very hard when we propose legislation, besides requiring big companies to use their resources to set an example and show models for others, to tackle the difficult area of an informal economy that is hard to pin down. That may generate some protest from small and medium-sized enterprises. We have to debate with them robustly and graciously; not wanting to load red tape, but to balance economic efficiency and profitability with honouring God’s image in human beings who are being treated as mere hands in this terrible way.

Finally, perhaps I may raise a number of questions for the Minister. There is an opportunity for the public sector to take a lead. We have supply chains for things such as hospitals and prisons, and I think that the Government could set a high bar in terms of how we expect our own supply chains for hospitals and prisons to perform and be accountable. First, will the Minister comment on the possibility of due diligence in our supply chains in the public sector? Secondly, due diligence is well established in VAT procedures, showing how to gather information on figures for the performance of companies. Could those procedures be developed to pick up more information about business practices in terms of employment, wage bills, and the people who are subject to them? Thirdly, business crime forums use police resources to combat fraud in supply chains. Could we learn from them how to expand the notion of fraud in supply chains from the merely financial to the exploitation of human beings? All of these are models for trying to help businesses perform well by monitoring them and encouraging transparency, so could we build on some of them to help with regard to the human element in supply chains?

I want to say how important it is to encourage businesses to develop better practices and a generous attitude. It may interest noble Lords to know that in Derbyshire a partnership has developed recently between the Gangmasters Licensing Authority and Derbyshire Constabulary to look at companies which might be susceptible to harbouring slavery in their supply chains because they use a lot of agency workers or whatever it may be, and to approach those companies proactively. They can explain how these practices operate and talk about how to combat them. Businesses have welcomed this initiative. If, as the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, has said, the GLA had its resourcing and remit expanded, I think it could have an important role to play not just in prevention by controlling criminals, but in proactively educating businesses so that they are able to read the signs within their operations and learn how best to respond positively.

I shall finish by reminding your Lordships that our country is rightly very concerned about safeguarding at the moment. This is part of the debate about safeguarding vulnerable adults and we need to step up to it urgently to ensure the highest standards.

Serious Crime Bill [HL]

Lord Bishop of Derby Excerpts

Monday 16th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Derby]

My Lords, I very much welcome this Bill and think it is timely and appropriate. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, and his colleagues at the Home Office on pointing us in this direction. Noble Lords will have seen in the briefing that it is based on a strategy described as the four Ps: Pursue, Prevent, Protect and Prepare. For somebody like me, such laboured alliteration might indicate an overambitious sermon and I want to check the level of the ambition and what might be appropriate.

This Bill, timely and appropriate as it is, is really about Pursue—the pursuit of justice and criminals, and I fully support the proposals. I am especially pleased to see proposals that were endorsed by the Joint Committee on the draft Modern Slavery Bill—on which I had the privilege to serve—about longer sentences for those who default on confiscation orders and lowering the standard of proof for restraint orders freezing defendants’ assets. These measures will not just attack criminals but help victims, which is a crucial part of this legislation. Of course, I support the tougher pursuit of those who inflict FGM and child cruelty, targeting of manuals for grooming and abusing children, and measures against cybercrime and gangs. However, the question is how we are going to deliver that kind of agenda in a realistic way, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, said.

This Bill is a first step but we have to remember that organised crime is a huge and expanding industry and flourishes by targeting the most vulnerable people. We are dealing not just with highly sophisticated corrupt systems, but with the brutal abuse of vulnerable people. I have experienced that in my work with modern slavery and drug addicts. As we pursue the crime and the criminal we have to ask how we are going to have an effective response when this criminality is an expanding industry. What does that say about the world we live in and the world we are trying to legislate for? It is very topical at the moment to talk about values and the buzzwords, I understand, are freedom, tolerance and democracy. In 1861, the Bishop of Oxford, who sat on these Benches, gave a famous speech in Salisbury where he recognised the welcome advance of values such as freedom, tolerance and democracy but said there would be a danger that such freedom and spaciousness would give more room for what he called “sin and selfishness” and what the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, called “evil”.

This modern crime is not just about technical ingenuity; it is about people choosing the freedom to abuse others and society. We are already aware of cynicism about politics but I think what we are looking at here is an energetic alternative set of values being pursued vigorously in our midst with alternative ways of valuing people and society and doing economics. The alternatives are all based on putting the self first and abusing vulnerable people. That is a very dangerous state of affairs for a nation. The Government have a key role, not just to pursue criminals but to challenge this abusive, expanding lifestyle that reaps such rewards for so many people across all sectors of society. St Paul called it living according to the flesh—that is, according to the most immediate desires and not having a wider hinterland about other people and their needs and especially the vulnerable. This industry is expanding at a time when many of us are preparing to commemorate the First World War. As we collect stories and witness to that war I am struck by the heroic self-sacrifice for others that was involved—something people recognise and value and want to appreciate today.

We have these two streams in our society. The Government have a role not just in pursuing the crime but in looking at the culture and, therefore, at how we can manage pursuing the crime and supporting the victims. I therefore invite the Minister to say something not just about the pursuit but about Prevent, Protect and Prepare; we may come up with different alliteration by the end of the debate. The Home Secretary makes a strong and proper appeal for what she calls “strong partnerships” to deal with this complex culture and this deep challenge. Can the Minister say something about the partnerships that he sees needing to be developed, by working not just through the Home Office but with the Department for Education, the Department for Communities and Local Government and the faith and voluntary sector? Unless we work at that part of the agenda too, we can make all the laws we like but the detection, pursuit and support of victims will still depend on so many other factors. We need to take those into account to make our lawmaking as effective as possible.