Modern Slavery Bill

Lord Deben Excerpts

Wednesday 25th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, like the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, I would like to make a number of points about Motion A1, which my noble friend has laid before your Lordships’ House. In doing so, let me say first to my noble and learned friend Lady Butler-Sloss that she has been involved in the drafting of this legislation, as she said, even before it was presented as a Bill. However, on Report I passed an article to my noble friend Lord Hylton that he had written in 1996, and which I had kept, about the importance of safeguarding domestic migrant workers. No one has done more in your Lordships’ House than my noble friend Lord Hylton to champion their cause. That is why the noble Lord, Lord Bates, was right to pay tribute to him.

Although this risks becoming like a mutual admiration society, I join with the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, in congratulating the Minister on the exemplary way that he has handled the Bill. It has, throughout, been a bipartisan Bill—the Opposition have played a huge part in it, as have people from all Benches in your Lordships’ House—and a bicameral Bill, with a lot of interaction between both Houses. The right honourable Member for Birkenhead, Frank Field—we all wish him well as he recovers from his recent heart attack—chaired that important committee on the draft Bill. He is right to emphasise the totality of this Bill.

There is no one in your Lordships’ House, including my noble friend, who will put this Bill at risk in any way whatever, but making a good Bill even better is surely what Parliament is all about. We have made this provision better. I will come back to that in a moment, but it is worth pointing out that supply chain transparency, which my noble and learned friend referred to, was not even in the Bill after the pre-legislative scrutiny stage in another place; it was incorporated on the Floor of the House. Similarly, there was no provision in the Bill on domestic migrant labour when it began to go through its stages. We have been improving it as we have proceeded. The Minister will correct me, but I think in Committee and on Report—I was able to take part in all stages of the Bill—around 100 amendments, many of them emanating from the Government after the discussions we had in the meetings that the noble Lord organised for us, were incorporated into the Bill. That is why it is already so much better than when it began.

I take issue a little with my noble and learned friend. It is the job of parliamentarians to be here until Parliament is dissolved. We have not got to the last gasp; this is not Custer’s last stand, as she put it. I certainly do not regard people laying amendments before your Lordships’ House and giving them proper consideration, as we are doing, as blackmail. I think it unreasonable to suggest that. I ask the Government this in that context: why is it that an amendment that was incorporated on domestic migrant labour about a week ago in another place has taken so long to come back to your Lordships’ House? Why is it here on the penultimate day? Why could it not have been here on Monday, for instance, allowing for more consideration if time is really the issue?

As the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, rightly said, there is plenty of time for this to go to another place tonight. I have served in one or other of these Houses for the last 36 years. As the noble Baroness said, I remember the so-called wash-ups where we were here all night long dealing with things going between the two Houses until we got it right. Often, we got it much better as a consequence. I think back to the LASPO legislation. I moved an amendment concerning the legal aid provisions for people who had contracted mesothelioma. Your Lordships, across the House, were good enough to support it and it ping-ponged back and forth between both Houses. On the third time of asking, the Government relented and modified the legislation. That is our duty as parliamentarians: to seek as much as we can get and to recognise the moment when no more can be gained. I am sure that my noble friend, who has been in your Lordships’ House for a lot longer than I have been, will be able to remind your Lordships of plenty of such precedents. If we are here tomorrow again debating an amendment and the Commons decide that they do not wish to modify Motion A but wish to persist with it, then we will no doubt hear from the noble Lord what he wishes to do.

I turn briefly to the substance of the amendment. Until we incorporated this new clause, the Bill contained nothing whatever to address the tying of migrant domestic workers to their employers. On two occasions in the last three weeks I have met domestic migrant workers on Cromwell Green, and I know that other Members of your Lordships’ House have done so too. They were brought here by the Kalayaan charity, which the noble Baroness referred to. They told me that when news of the vote in your Lordships’ House on my noble friend’s amendment was announced, a young woman called Marissa Begonia, herself a domestic worker and co-ordinator of the self-help group Justice 4 Domestic Workers, described how she received texts from workers asking her, “Am I free now?”. Unfortunately, of course, the answer is “Not yet”. However, I recognise that the Minister has gone some way today, particularly in what he said about the review, but that review can now take place anyway, regardless of what we decide regarding this amendment. These things are not mutually exclusive.

In a nutshell, the government amendment does not provide additional protections against exploitation. Once someone is trafficked, it forces them to go to the police without any guarantee of protection before they do so. One employment agency told me that it would not place someone on a six-month visa with no hope of renewal. As the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, said, there is a real risk that it could drive people underground—again, with no access to things such as legal aid.

My noble friend’s amendment merely asks for the most basic of protections, and they are threefold: first, to change employer but remain restricted to domestic work in one household; secondly, if in full-time work as a migrant domestic worker in a private household, the option to apply to renew the visa; and, thirdly, in instances of slavery, a three-month visa to allow the workers to look for decent work. Without these kinds of provisions, we leave in place a system found repeatedly during almost three years to facilitate exploitation, including trafficking of migrant domestic workers.

Many workers coming to Kalayaan describe how they have “sacrificed” themselves for the well-being of their wider family. They do not self-protect in the way that someone with more choices would expect. Many explain that they are prepared to put up with practically any amount of mistreatment if they can provide for their children and ensure that the same will not happen to them.

In 2009, the Home Affairs Select Committee, in its inquiry into trafficking, said that the visa issue was,

“the single most important issue in preventing the forced labour and trafficking of such workers”.

No one is so naive—I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Bates—to suggest or imagine that the exploitation of domestic workers would be abolished by such minimal protections, but they would certainly be an improvement on the current situation. The Minister referred to the anti-slavery commissioner designate, Kevin Hyland, and said that he did not feel that this went far enough. Well, he is right about that, so let us at least go as far as these amendments and as far as we can by regulation in due course, but let us do as much as we can for the moment.

When the Minister comes to reply, can he say whether the measures might include provisions—maybe as a result of the review—for annual inspections, for checks with the Inland Revenue to ensure that employers have registered and are making reasonable levels of contributions, and for annual meetings between the worker and a trusted authority? All those will be crucial. I believe that my noble friend is right to have laid this amendment before your Lordships’ House and I do not think that it is a question of this being Custer’s last stand. I hope that, from my noble friend’s point of view and because of all the things that he has done in raising this issue in the past, we will continue to give him our support if he chooses to press the matter to a Division.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, all my instincts lead me—I think Members of this House will recognise this—to being enormously sympathetic towards the amendment before us. However, I remind the noble Lord, Lord Alton, that it is not just a question of some people saying that they do not want an amendment because it will hold things up and might mean that we lose the Bill. The argument is that there are serious faults in this amendment which need to be considered.

Counterterrorism Policy: Syria and Iraq

Lord Deben Excerpts

Monday 2nd March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

The right reverend Prelate raises a very serious and sensitive point. I would say very carefully that whatever your perspective on the crisis in Syria, our recommendation is that you do not travel. There are other international agencies which are doing incredible work in trying to bring peace and protect individuals and particular groups in that area. We should give them our full support without adding further to the difficulties by introducing independent people into that very complex and dangerous theatre of terrorism.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

Does my noble friend accept that there are many people who are caused great pain by some of the comments made in the newspapers, particularly those who have been responsible for the education of some of these young people? Perhaps he heard the headmistress of the school which one famous character attended. Will the Minister do all he can to stop people pointing the finger at those who have done a job, tried to do it as well as possible and are now left in this awful position of being blamed for something that has nothing to do with them and that they could not have prevented?

[Lord Bates]

My noble friend is absolutely right. I am sure that whenever we see a horrific crime committed by an individual, every head teacher wonders if they could have done more. That is in the nature of the educational professionals that we have.

I am afraid that there are some people who have that sadistic, vile, criminal bent within them. That reinforces the fact that what we are talking about here is not any ideological or religious struggle. It is pure and simple criminality—and in the case of that particular individual, murderous criminality. It is a tragedy for the family and people who know them, but we should not blame ourselves for what an individual had responsibility for and should have controlled himself.

Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill

Lord Deben Excerpts

Wednesday 4th February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Deech]

It is the amendments which I do not think will make any difference. Whether the noble Lord’s dire predictions will be the case remains to be seen but I am very worried about the situation that already exists with interference. I have a list—again I will not trouble your Lordships with it. There are lists of convicted terrorists who sadly went through our universities—the underpants bomber on the plane, the man who drove his car into Glasgow airport, and so on. I only wish it were as some noble Lords remember in their youth, but it is not. Because of the umpteen laws that we already have about circumscribing freedom of speech, whether or not we pass these amendments will not, in my view, make any difference, sadly.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, we ought to realise that we are talking not just about the problems of terrorism but about something which has been much wider than that. I am very concerned about the situation in which we now find ourselves.

It is 55 years since my right honourable friend Kenneth Clarke and I debated with Sir Oswald Mosley in front of 2,000 students at Cambridge University. There were many who wanted him banned, but we said that if there was to be a new generation of students who understood the threat of fascism, they had to hear the arguments and we had to respond to them. We had the response because the Jewish Society went to huge trouble to give us all the evidence from Sir Oswald Mosley’s activities before the war. Noble Lords may remember that that would have been a time when we were a generation who knew nothing of this, but I venture to say that a whole group of people went away from university knowing how to argue the case and understanding what this very emollient, brilliant speaker was really like. It was from that moment that I became an even more enthusiastic supporter of the concept of the freedom of speech as a mechanism against extremism.

I want to say to my noble friend that we are at this moment in a very dangerous position. A close friend of mine, an Anglican priest—a man whom I would vouch for in any circumstances—has just been sacked as the episcopal chaplain to Yale because he dared to write a letter in response to others in the New York Times. It was a very moderate and reasonable letter in which he talked about the activities in Gaza of Prime Minister Netanyahu. No one in this House would have thought that an unsuitable letter to write, but he was sacked.

In the past few years, there have been many occasions in universities when people who hold unpopular views have been unplatformed in one way or another—for example, people who want to argue the case against abortion. I think that is an argument that it is proper to have on whatever side you stand. However, there are universities where it is almost impossible to have that debate.

One of the problems that we are faced with is that my noble friend has a real difficulty. We have a terrorist threat which is greater than we have had certainly in our lifetimes. It is a threat which is particularly difficult because it is associated not only in the popular mind but, because of certain facts, with a section of the community. Therefore, those of us who seek racial integration have to be extremely careful in the way in which we handle this threat, but we also have to recognise that it is a threat. It is not acceptable just to say, “Well, you know, we will just have to put up with it”. That is not where we are today.

I understand my noble friend’s problem, but I remind him that down the ages the threat of terrorism has been used to restrict the freedoms which the terrorists wish to remove. That is the fundamental problem. I worry immediately when we ask universities to inform upon and to investigate, and to assess what is a proper debate and what is not a proper debate, because I happen to believe that there are no improper debates in universities. There are improper actions as a result of debates; there are improper actions during debates; but to put a case and to argue the case is an essential part of university education.

I thank my noble friend for his amendment. If he had not tabled this amendment, I think I would have found myself very hard put to support any of this part of the Bill. However, I hope that he will have listened carefully to what others have said. I do not want universities to be able to use this as an excuse for interfering not only in these subjects but in others. That is my worry. It is not the worry as put forward in the excellent speech of the introducer of the lead amendment. My worry is that, by analogy, people will say, “Just as we have to think about terrorism in this way, so we have to think about this or that unpopular view”, whether it is an issue of left or right, an issue of morality or an issue of politics. I hope that my noble friend will give me an assurance that, if he feels that he cannot say that his amendment covers that, he will go away and think again to ensure that the narrowness which he hoped to apply to this matter is sufficiently safeguarded. I do not want to have a world in which today’s version of those students cannot have that debate with today’s Sir Oswald Mosley—with today’s fascists, communists, or extremists of any kind. If that were true, we would have sold out on a central British value.

[Baroness Sharp of Guildford]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Deben may remember that the subsection in the 1986 Act was embedded in that Act precisely to combat the no-platform developments that had taken place in the 1980s. Like others, I hope that the Minister will have listened to this debate and may be able to give us greater clarification than there is in the amendment he has brought forward. We had a debate in the first group about the hierarchy of regard—due regard and particular regard—which perhaps has relevance to this. It would be good if one could feel that that was embedded.

Amendment 14C is in my name and those of my noble friends Lady Hamwee, Lady Brinton and Lady Williams of Crosby. So far in this debate, as we did very largely in the debate in Committee, we have talked about universities, and I was very pleased to see that the Minister’s amendment makes express reference to further education colleges. Many noble Lords may not realise that there are some 850,000 young people, aged 16 to 18 studying in further education colleges compared to 441,000 in schools. A very large number of young people in further education colleges—something like 100,000—are studying for higher education qualifications. So further education colleges are a very important part of the hierarchy.

I have a specific question for the Minister: where do sixth form colleges fall? There is explicit mention of further education colleges but there is no mention of sixth form colleges, which were in fact, under recent legislation, made into a separate category of college. Perhaps I can leave that thought with the Minister, and he and his Bill team can ponder on it and see whether it is perhaps necessary to make some minor further amendment.

Amendment 14C, which I want to speak to, is a very different amendment from the ones to date. It is a fairly straightforward amendment, which asks that the guidance, when issued,

“shall recognise the respective duties of specified authorities in the education sector … to secure freedom of speech … to promote tolerance and encourage respect for democracy and … participation in it … to offer a broad and balanced curriculum promoting spiritual, moral and cultural development”.

As I say, it is less specific, but in some ways a lot broader, than the other amendments that are being considered in this group.

Schools are already subject to a fair number of statutory duties which embody these issues. The Education and Skills Act 2008 requires schools to promote British values and respect for the civil and criminal law, to further tolerance and harmony between different cultural traditions, and to encourage respect for democracy and support for participation in it. The Education Act 2002, which is referred to in the Academies Act 2010, requires schools to offer,

“a balanced and broadly based curriculum which … promotes the spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development of … the school and of society, and … prepares pupils at the school for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of later life”.

The Education Act 1996 includes duties not to express,

“partisan political views in the teaching of any subject”,

or to allow pupils to pursue “partisan political activities”.

We have rather deliberately widened the framework in the amendment we have put forward. It is important to recognise that very many young people of the ages of 15, 16 and 17 who are in schools or colleges are very susceptible to the propaganda of extremism. They are active users of Facebook and other social media and, as adolescents, are keen to challenge authority. Throughout their lives, they have often lived, through television, with violence and horror. Our education institutions, as a whole, have a very important role to balance these influences and, as we say in this amendment,

“to promote tolerance and … respect for democracy”.

We talk about British values, but surely at the heart of British values is freedom of speech.

Modern Slavery Bill

Lord Deben Excerpts

Monday 8th December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote (CB)]

My Lords, I support the principle contained in Amendments 66, 67ZA and 67ZAA, but also most, if not all, of the amendments that have been spoken to, all of which are immensely important to the debate. I also congratulate my noble friend Lady Cox on what she had to say, because that dimension clearly is important and needs to be taken fully into consideration.

It is essential that the commissioner’s role engages with the experience of victims, and in particular that he should have the authority to take a leading role in promoting best practice and the highest possible standards in the care that victims are given. There are two very clear reasons for this. First, I believe that we have a duty to protect and support victims of these terrible crimes. I will speak more about how I think we need to strengthen the Bill in that regard when we reach Part 5. To see that that duty is effectively carried out, there needs to be some form of oversight—someone to champion the cause, not of individual victims, but of all victims. Good practice in how to provide support and care to victims needs to be shared with other organisations that fulfil the same role. We need someone who can independently identify that good practice and help to disseminate those models or skills to the wider network of organisations involved in this support work. The recent review of the NRM was a welcome development, but ongoing monitoring of support that is able to pick up examples of especially good care provision and identify where things need to be improved should be much more effective. I understand that there are probably some assessment processes built into the contract for providing the victim support programme, but in reading the NRM review and the report of the Joint Committee on the draft Bill I feel that there is a vital co-ordinating and monitoring role that the commissioner could and should play in this regard.

The second reason why I support these amendments is that it is well known that victims who are well supported make better witnesses in police investigations and court proceedings. It therefore seems to me that, since Clause 41 requires the commissioner to promote good practice relating to investigations and prosecutions, he may well need to encourage practice that promotes the needs of the victim as a witness. Yet, by not giving him authority to promote good practice in the support and protection of victims, he will only be able to look at improving the way that law enforcement agencies treat victims in the course of investigations or court cases, not the wider structure of support. This seems to be very short-sighted and could possibly limit the commissioner’s effectiveness.

In conclusion, I find that it is rather disappointing to discover that the role is purely focused on operational improvements in law enforcement. The title “anti-slavery commissioner” conjures up images of a much more holistic and comprehensive approach to addressing modern-day slavery in our nation. I urge the Government to accept the principle of Amendments 66, 67ZA and 67ZAA and many, if not all, of the others that have been mentioned today, and expand the role of the commissioner to include oversight of support and protection of victims.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as chairman of a company which, in working with companies on their corporate responsibility, has to look at ways to eradicate modern slavery in their supply chains. One therefore has some direct understanding of the problems that the commissioner will face. I associate myself with the generality of the arguments put forward, particularly those of the noble Lord, Lord Patel, and the noble Baroness who spoke so movingly earlier on. It is obviously difficult to get the balance right and none of us should ignore the fact that, if you are not careful, you have a commissioner who is commissioner for everything. The Government are trying to ensure that the commissioner has a series of priorities and deals with things sufficiently narrowly so that he is not pushed all over the place. I understand the Minister’s problems, but I suggest that there are some elements in what has been said which may not have been adequately presented in the wording of the amendments but which the Government might like to look at to see whether they can bring forward amendments themselves to cover some of the central issues.

The first of these was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Warner, who pointed to the fact that the international implications of what we are doing here must not be ignored. Modern slavery is not a national activity: of its nature, it has international ramifications. We may well not want to put in the Bill that the commissioner may work with high commissioners, ambassadors and the like all over the world, but we must have something which would make it impossible for people to object if the commissioner, in his work, were to reach out beyond the shores of the United Kingdom. Otherwise, I do not believe that he can achieve what the Bill intends.

They may not be the ways of doing it, but the kinds of implication which the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, put forward have got to be thought of seriously by the Government. In practical terms, you may be working with a British company but, in order to give advice on its corporate responsibility, you have to deal with some possible slavery situation far away. If you were restricted in not being able to be in touch with, deal with and discuss with people in those countries, you would not be able to do your job properly. That is an important parallel with the commissioner.

Secondly, independence is a vital part of this. I am very excited about the Bill: it is another of those occasions when Britain has taken a significant step ahead of very many other countries. As chairman of the Climate Change Committee, I see a sort of parallel to this. We are doing something of real value to the world as a whole. Drawing from my experiences with that committee, it is of considerable importance to your independence that you are seen not as a departmental subject but as open to advising the Government as a whole. I therefore hope that the Government will look again at exactly how the terms of the relationships between the Home Office and the commissioner are drawn. This is not because I think that either this Home Secretary or this commissioner will find it difficult to work together. It is that we are not legislating for this Home Secretary or this commissioner; we are legislating so that the office of commissioner shall develop in the way that offices develop in the context of different personalities in the Home Office and as commissioners.

Therefore, I hope that the Minister will think seriously about whether there are ways to make sure that the independence of the commissioner can be seen to be clear even in those countries where the idea of independence is quite difficult—which brings me to the core of this argument. We are of course legislating for Britain but we know that we may well be legislating in a way that will be copied by others. Indeed, Ministers have been very clear in saying that they hope that this will be copied by others. It is true that we will not deal with modern slavery unless it is copied by others.

The Government need to be very careful about assuming that, if you have the relationship which at the moment is adumbrated in the Bill, people will understand that the commissioner is as independent as he actually is. The wording about redaction and the like can easily be adapted by those countries where what that would mean would be that the commissioner would not be independent at all but would be the subject of whatever is their equivalent of the Home Secretary. One thing that we need to be careful about here is not to feel that other people carry with them the cultural understanding that we have when we talk about independence and know that that independence will in our system be properly respected. When my noble friend replies, I hope that he will not say, “Well, we all know that it will all be independent and perfectly all right”. Even if we knew that, the Bill will not be seen by others in the context of that knowledge. Therefore, getting the wording right and making sure that the independence is clear is crucial.

As chairman of the Climate Change Committee, I have to say that it is extremely helpful to be able to point to the Act and say, “I am doing this because the Act tells me not only that I have a right to do it but that I have a duty to do it”. That is important because the choice of what you do does not of itself imply a political or other bias. I am now about to start on the report which will assess the success of the Government in mitigation and adaptation, which will come out in the middle of next year. No one can say that it will come out in June because I have chosen the moment in order to inform some possible new Government; it comes out in June because the Act says that it has to come out in June. That gives enormous independence, because it makes sure that the choice cannot be cast into dispute.

My worry about the way in which this commissioner’s job is placed is that, at the same time, it appears to restrict him and not to give him sufficiently strong direction for him to be able to say, “I have done this because the Act requires me to behave in this way”. So I suppose that I am asking the Government particularly to listen to today’s debate and to say to themselves, “Are we sure we’ve got this balance quite right? Can we take from what has been said today a sufficiency of advice and information to rewrite this part of the Act in order to make the amendments perhaps not as extensive or as detailed as has been suggested but to make such amendments as will ensure that what the commissioner says he wants to do will be absolutely congruent with what the Act says he ought to do?”.

Otherwise, if from the beginning he does what the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, reports that he intends to do, there is ground for arguing that that is in some sense outwith the scope of the Act. I have a very simple worry, and I ask my noble friend to accept it entirely in this spirit: it is that this great démarche—this Act of such importance—might find itself in this kind of argument, which is the last thing we want, very early on in its implementation.

Modern Slavery Bill

Lord Deben Excerpts

Monday 1st December 2014 Lords Chamber

Taking account of the amendments of the noble Baroness, Lady Goudie, which were not moved, my only issue on this is that we ought to include in Clause 2(1) the extended wording of recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt. I appreciate that, if we do that, the Bill team may say that we are covering part of Clause 1. That may be a problem. However, I do not think that the fact that it is repeating something in different words is the end of the world—because, if you are to use the word “trafficking”, you may have to explain to a jury that you do not have to move somebody from A to B in order to traffic them. If you put in the offences of Clause 1 as the alternative offences, I expect you would be covered anyway. However, I am unhappy that we are limiting the word “trafficking”, given its important European meaning, and that we are one step behind the Europeans in a Bill which we hope will be taken up, particularly by eastern European countries.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, I want to underline what the noble and learned Baroness has just said for a particular reason. The Government have been keen on saying that, in accepting the European arrest warrant, they want to make clear that they will not allow it to be used for offences committed in other countries which are not offences here. In those circumstances it is most important that we get the offences here right in parallel with what is an offence in another country. It is that point which I think the noble and learned Baroness has put her finger on and it is that which we have to get right.

I question the Government’s view on the restriction of the European arrest warrant. However, if they want to do that, they have to make sure that we do not find ourselves in a position where we have ill defined a particular offence so that it does not operate in the way we would like it to do in any complementary legislation in other countries. I hope that my noble friend will consider this suggestion very carefully, probably not at this moment, but between now and the next stage of the Bill, as it is worth trying to get this matter right.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, I will comment on a slightly wider point and back up my noble friend on the definitions of trafficking and exploitation. She spoke about the benefits of having stronger definitions of trafficking and exploitation and referred to the comment of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, that stronger definitions could lead to the prevention of trafficking and exploitation. I will add that a benefit of having clear and strong definitions is in the identification of trafficking. Here I am talking specifically about identification when one is in court.

As noble Lords may know, I sit as a magistrate in both adult and youth courts. I have sat in youth courts on quite a few occasions where a young person has been brought in for either pickpocketing or shoplifting and a man is sat at the back of the court who we are told is the young person’s uncle. We have received training on what to do when our suspicions are raised with regard to the status of the person sitting at the back of the court, who is there supposedly in the interests of the youth appearing before it.

I know that the YOTs, the probation service and the police have also received training on this matter. It is important that we have clear identification and that the courts can act quickly when they think this issue is being raised, because when one is actually going through the court process, one does not have very long to identify potential victims of either trafficking or exploitation. Therefore, it is important that this definition is as clear as possible and is well known by the various agencies that deal with young people—and not so young people—who may have been trafficked.

Modern Slavery Bill

Lord Deben Excerpts

Monday 1st December 2014 Lords Chamber

[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.

EU: Migration

Lord Deben Excerpts

Wednesday 19th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

First, my initial Answer was yes not no. It was that we have been engaging with Europe. The European Commission has endorsed this approach. The noble Lord referred to Germany. The German Government are passing legislation through the Bundestag to restrict the benefits of those who come to Germany when they are not genuinely seeking work. It was tested in the European Court of Justice. These are exactly the types of reforms and reviews which we have been pushing, from our side, and which are getting greater support across the other member states of the European Union.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

Does my noble friend agree that tone is very important in these issues? We should show quite clearly how much we benefit from the large number of people from the rest of the European Union working here, and how much the rest of the European Union benefits from people from the United Kingdom going there. If we talked a bit more cheerfully about this—the greatest peacetime achievement that has happened in Europe—perhaps people would be more willing to listen to our comments.

[Lord Bates]

I totally agree with my noble friend about tone. The British people have a reputation for hospitality and tolerance and have welcomed people who are making a positive contribution to our society. However, that of course has its limits and we need to be mindful that there is great concern about unrestricted, uncontrolled immigration into this country and the impact it has upon social cohesion and our public services.

European Arrest Warrant

Lord Deben Excerpts

Wednesday 29th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

My Lords, the noble Lord is right to point to the importance of this; 5,000 foreign criminals have been deported since it came into effect in 2009. Of course the desire is to opt back in by 1 December, but this needs to be negotiated and there need to be agreements. Those negotiations are continuing. Her Majesty’s Government’s position is that we want to be there by 1 December. In terms of when the House will have the opportunity to discuss this, discussions are ongoing between the business managers to make time for that to happen before 20 November.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, does my noble friend accept that the only people who gain from our non-membership of the European arrest warrant arrangements are fraudsters, child molesters and gangs? Should we not say that this is another example of the excellent reasons why we should be full and really committed members of the European Union?

[Lord Bates]

My noble friend is absolutely right in respect of these measures. To keep a balance, though, let us remember that being part of the European Union is not just about signing up to everything that comes down the track. With regard to justice and home affairs, there were 135 measures in the package, 100 of which we did not feel passed the test regarding our national interest. However, 35 did and those are what we want to rejoin.

Child Abuse

Lord Deben Excerpts

Monday 7th July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

The inquiry will be entirely independent and able to make whatever recommendations it makes without fear or favour. I would not be supportive, and I do not think this House would be, of anything that smacked of a cover up. This is about finding the truth and making the truth evident. If people have done wrong in the past, that will be revealed by the inquiry. The review is designed to check that all aspects of the review conducted by Mark Sedwill, in the first instance, and the review into the Paedophile Information Exchange were properly conducted and whether there were any failures in the Home Office. I should say that the inquiry that Mark Sedwill set up found no evidence of wrongdoing by prominent figures. However, that is not to say that it will not be discovered; that is a matter for the inquiry to find out when it comes to it.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

Does my noble friend accept that he has had huge support from every side of the House for what is a really important decision by the Home Secretary? Does he also accept that the whole House would want to thank Mr Wanless for taking on what will be an extremely unpleasant job? That is true of anyone who is going to take part in the inquiry and we ought to appreciate that. I hope he will also accept that anyone with information of any kind is duty bound to give that information in whichever of these arrangements is appropriate. Does he further accept that those without information are also duty bound not to talk to the public in ways which suggest that they seem to have, or pretend to have, or sometimes claim to have information which they do not have? The issue here is too serious for it to be a matter of innuendo. This is a matter of finding the truth. Those who have information should give it; those who do not should shut up.

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

I agree with that, but I think we are right to have embarked on this difficult exercise. I think nothing less would satisfy public opinion. We need to get to the bottom of what is going on. We need to be satisfied in ourselves that we have done all we can do to make sure that child abuse does not flourish in any institutions with which we are associated. I agree totally with what my noble friend has just said, but I think the Home Secretary has provided us with the opportunity to get to the bottom of it all.

Serious Crime Bill [HL]

Lord Deben Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd July 2014 Lords Chamber

There is a string of issues here. It is extremely important that the incentivisation scheme is put on a statutory basis. I am sure that the Minister agrees about the importance of the scheme. Given the very good use that local authorities are able to put this money to, it would make great sense for the proportion to be potentially higher. I hope that the Minister will be able to tell us exactly how the review is taking place, what its objectives are and when we might hear the outcome. I beg to move.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, I will insert a single sentence here, although it may be rather a long one. I am afraid that my noble friend may have great difficulty in doing what the noble Lord suggests because he will come into conflict with a deep and entirely erroneous Treasury view about hypothecation. For all my political life, I have fought the battle for hypothecation, which is the only way we will get people to accept a whole range of things in future.

It was extremely successfully done on the landfill tax, but the money was then stolen by the incoming Government, who did not understand. The Treasury had hated it in the first place; it had been forced through by the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, my right honourable friend Kenneth Clarke. Immediately after he went, the Treasury mandarins got the money back again because they do not like someone else deciding how the money shall be spent. I beg my noble friend to stand firm against that wholly unacceptable attitude.

The Pope was right, in the 1920s, when he talked about subsidiarity being the basis of democracy. He was, of course, attacking fascism and communism. I am afraid that bureaucratism is just as damaging in always trying to concentrate decisions about how money shall be spent in the hands of the Treasury. I think that the more people who make decisions about how it shall be spent, the more we will be able to make democracy work. Obviously, there have to be restrictions and some overall view, but I hope that my noble friend will take this opportunity to fight like a tiger for an essential part of any sensible democracy: hypothecation. Hypothecation should be a tick rather than a cross when something such as this is put forward.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, I wonder whether Hansard will be able to resist its usual refusal to let us put lots of “ands” and “buts” in very long sentences.

I have been trying to think of something to say in Latin to the noble Lord, but my A-level Latin is too long ago for me to be able to do it. However, he is probably asking your Lordships the sort of question to which we should answer yes. I remember that from the very early days of my Latin education.

I am certainly on the yes part of the spectrum of answers to this, in principle. I think a large part of the problem is what I unkindly call “turf wars” between the MoJ and the Home Office about who should have the money when the proceeds are recovered. I realise it is more complicated than that.

On the wording of the amendment, I wonder whether it is possible to identify the communities and neighbourhoods affected in an effective and straightforward manner, if at all. For instance, on the proceeds of crime of someone high up in an organised crime organisation dealing with drugs, can you pin down the communities and neighbourhoods affected in the way suggested? I am very attracted to money going towards crime prevention and assisting those who are affected by crime, but I am just not quite sure about this provision. However, the questions the noble Lord asked the Minister about ARIS and the wider questions about how the proceeds of crime when recovered are applied are very important.