Modern Slavery Bill

Lord Hylton Excerpts

Wednesday 25th February 2015 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Hylton]

90: After Clause 51, insert the following new Clause—
“Protection from slavery for overseas domestic workers
All overseas domestic workers in the United Kingdom, including those working for staff of diplomatic missions, shall be entitled to—(a) change their employer (but not work sector) while in the United Kingdom;(b) renew their domestic worker or diplomatic domestic worker visa, each such renewal being for a period not exceeding twelve months, as long as they remain in employment and are able to support themselves without recourse to public funds;(c) a three month temporary visa permitting them to live in the United Kingdom for the purposes of seeking alternative employment as an overseas domestic worker where there is evidence that the worker has been a victim of modern slavery.”

[Lord Hylton (CB)]

My Lords, I apologise for the absence from this debate of my noble friend Lady Cox. She is overseas on one of her many expeditions. I thank those noble Lords who have put their names to the amendment, perhaps in particular the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, with her expert knowledge of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, where, sadly, so much abuse of domestic workers has taken place. In moving the amendment, I thank the Minister—the noble Lord, Lord Bates—for his constant efforts to be constructive. He has seen me and other noble Lords twice since Committee, and has sent me two letters, totalling 12 pages. I am also grateful for another letter, from Karen Bradley MP, a Minister in the Home Office.

The issue of domestic slavery may be new to Ministers but I have been working with it and on it with, I am sorry to say, only very partial success, since the early 1990s. The sad fact is that many people, mostly women, have suffered greatly during these long years. The Minister wrote that there would be an independent review, which is to report by the end of July. There may be a new Government by then, and we have no idea of their future plans for legislation or their willingness to change the Immigration Rules. Either course would take time and thus prolong workers’ suffering. We currently have a legislative opportunity, so let us grasp it.

The noble Lord also wrote about the new visa-linked contract and the cards to be given to both employer and worker. These may help slightly, perhaps most of all with the majority of decent employers. However, the caseworkers at the point of departure overseas have to be satisfied that the national minimum wage will be paid. How, in practice, can they do that when the employer is bound to say yes to their questions? The letter from the Minister also said that,

“an extensive package of support is available to trafficked Overseas Domestic Workers”.

This has not, I am sorry to say, proved very effective so far for other categories of people, such as those forced into prostitution. How will it protect domestics who are here legally but may be prisoners in their employers’ houses? Have any of them, I wonder, benefited from discretionary leave to remain?

There is a hoary old theory in the Home Office that allowing domestics to change employers would create a pull factor, enticing extra people to come here. I reply that they cannot come at all unless their employer brings them here. The Home Office may be thinking of domestics from the European Union, but they can come here anyway and register for work with all the employment agencies in London. Furthermore, our amendment specifies an extension of 12 months—it could perhaps be 15—so that the worker cannot stay indefinitely. Nothing in the amendment encourages extra immigration.

The amendment should be seen in the context of forced labour and gross abuses of tied workers worldwide, but perhaps especially in the Middle East. I am glad to know that the Government are ratifying the ILO protocol to the Forced Labour Convention. That makes it all the more disgraceful that they should tolerate a loophole which has allowed exploitation and abuse to take place here. Ministers have called for changes to the kafala system, which ties huge numbers of workers to their employers in the Gulf and Saudi Arabia. There migrants may require employers’ consent for an exit visa, even for a holiday. Human Rights Watch has documented widespread abuses in the Emirates, and conditions are similar in other parts of that region. The mentality that sees nothing wrong in exploiting workers and domestics then comes to England, in particular to London. Compensation cases, both here and in Ireland, have shown the scale of the wrongs, crying out for redress.

There can be no doubt that domestic workers tied to one employer and living on his premises are extremely vulnerable. They are almost all sending remittances to support children and families in their home countries, where, it is most important to know and understand, there is no welfare state. This therefore makes them reluctant to complain of hardships or to leave their employer, whether that is in the Middle East or here in Britain.

The key protection that is needed is access to our civil courts and to employment tribunals. This was available between 1998 and 2012. During that time, some 50 cases were brought, securing between £1 million and £2 million in compensation. That is roughly £30,000 per case. My noble friend Lady Cox showed on 10 December how conditions have got worse since 2012. The victims often cannot run away; or if they do, they become illegal immigrants. I conclude with a quotation from an unnamed Filipino domestic in London. She said:

“It’s worse than Saudi Arabia. They treat me like a prisoner. They never even give me a single pound. I’m starting work around 4.30 in the morning, until 1 o’clock in the morning”—

the following day—

“I’m sleeping only in the kitchen. I’m crying the whole time that I’m sleeping on the floor”.

The Government rejected the advice of two Joint Select Committees on this subject. They only defeated the relevant amendment in the other place by the casting vote of the committee chairman. They have since had time to think again and to digest not only the parliamentary problem in both Houses but also an ITV documentary and Radio 4 and other press coverage. I urge them to accept this amendment or to improve it for Third Reading. If they do not like that course, they have the option to change the Immigration Rules, as was done in 1988 and again in 2012. If they prefer the second option, we must have a cast-iron guarantee today that this will be done. This is a modest amendment, because it does not revoke the original concession, it just helps to prevent its worst consequences. In particular, it will prevent domestic workers who escape from going underground in complete illegality. I commend the amendment to your Lordships and beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bates]

My Lords, I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, for moving his amendment. I appreciate wholeheartedly his commitment to the cause over many years. I thank him for his courtesy in the way he has raised this matter with me. He has been very persistent on the issue—and rightly so because it is an area where we need to be absolutely convinced that we are on the right side of the argument.

However, given that this has been a wide-ranging debate, I think there is possibly a slight conflation of issues here: the overseas domestic worker visa and the treatment of people in domestic servitude who have been trafficked here from overseas. They are two distinct issues.

The overseas domestic worker visa was introduced by the previous Government in 1998 essentially to facilitate particular groups of people who travelled to the UK frequently, brought their own household staff and did not wish to hire people in the UK for short visits. The average length envisaged then was a matter of a couple of weeks and today 15 days is the average time for which someone comes in. It may assist the House to know that about 80% of the people who come under the overseas domestic worker visa scheme come from a very small number of countries in the Middle East: 4,894 from the United Arab Emirates; 3,996 from Saudi Arabia; 2,581 from Qatar; 1,005 from Kuwait; and 257 from Oman. A particular group uses the overseas domestic worker visa. It was never intended that the overseas domestic worker visa should somehow translate itself into a visa to work for someone else. It is tailored for a visitor.

The amendment before us would open the opportunity for the visa potentially to be used as another way in which workers can enter the UK, repeat their application indefinitely and after a period of five years have the right to remain. The overseas domestic worker visa is a particular issue which we are seeking to address. In 2012, we felt there was some evidence that the visa was being abused and that people were coming here with one employer and were being moved on to other employers and other areas. Therefore, we said that if you come in on that visa to work for that employer, you ought to stay with that employer.

I have set out what the overseas domestic worker visa is and how the discussion and debate is very different from the broader issues of trafficking which this legislation addresses. We are dealing with about 15,000 applications per year. When Kalayaan, which I, like others, respect, undertook its review over a period of two years, there were some 32,000 overseas domestic worker visa applications. Kalayaan took a sample of 120 which had been drawn to its attention. By most estimations, and, I think, by its own admission, that is a small sample.

So what is the appropriate action to take? Is it simply to revert to the previous visa regime or is it to take some interim steps? The notion that the Government are not doing anything in the light of the evidence is simply not the case. We have introduced a new template contract. The contract must stipulate the sleeping arrangements, the minimum wage, the holiday pay and that the employer cannot withhold an individual’s passport. The clearance officer must be satisfied under a test of credibility that the employer will pay the national minimum wage. The person will now be interviewed by an officer directly and individually so that, should it be the case that when they were previously granted an overseas domestic worker visa to come to the UK they were not treated in accordance with their contract, then that could be made known and of course the visa would not be granted. We have that safeguard in. We also have the information card which is going to be made available to people who come to the UK advising them where to go for help.

This is where we get to the crucial element, which is this. If someone is on an overseas domestic worker visa and they feel their treatment by their employer is something amounting to servitude or abuse, they are able to come themselves to an organisation like Kalayaan or the police or the national referral mechanism. The national referral mechanism will take that issue very seriously. It will offer them protection and advice as to what to do. They will be granted, if there are reasonable grounds when they enter the referral mechanism, a 45-day period of reflection. If it is proved, or there is a reasonable belief, that they have been abused by their employer, then they could be allowed to remain in the UK for a period of one year and one day to assist with the inquiries being undertaken by the police.

So where someone is in an abusive relationship, I would hate your Lordships to go away with the impression that such people should somehow sit there and suffer because they have no option but to do so. If they are on an overseas domestic worker visa or any other visa—or even here illegally within the UK—and they are being mistreated, that is not tolerated. That is the whole point of the Modern Slavery Bill and that is what the national referral mechanism is for—to offer them that help. Overseas domestic workers generally have the protection of UK employment law. Anyone who believes they are mistreated by their employers has access to a number of organisations who can help, including the police, ACAS, the pay and work rights helpline as well as the employment tribunals where the tribunal or the court has jurisdiction in their circumstances.

Although the overseas domestic worker visa is a scheme that is quite distinct from the general issues to which we are referring, we considered what would be the best way forward, given the concerns which had been raised by the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, and others. We decided that the best route forward was not simply to say that we did not think that the evidence was sufficient—we are talking about the Kalayaan report which referred to a relatively small number of cases as a proportion of the total. We said that we needed to have better information, not just about the treatment of overseas domestic workers but about the visa scheme itself. In other words, is the visa scheme which was introduced in 1998 still fit for purpose? Is it something which should be retained? Should it actually be scrapped altogether if it is being abused in that way?

To do that, we need to have evidence. I have to say that this is another example of where the Government have tried to meet the genuine concerns which have been raised by the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, and many others, including my noble friend Lady Hanham. We have tried to address their concerns by saying that James Ewins—the highly respected legal adviser to the pre-legislative scrutiny committee who is from the Centre for Social Justice, which in many ways was the architect of the present Bill—should be given the time to undertake a review. He does not necessarily, as the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, mentioned, need to undertake all the research again for himself. He can draw upon the considerable amount of data and information which is held by UK Visas and Immigration in the Home Office and we will co-operate fully with him. He can speak to the NGOs, he can look at the case studies being provided by different organisations and then, after a period of review and with his recommendations, that can be something which can then be acted upon.

The idea that somehow if we do not take action or include this amendment in the Bill today there is no option again for primary legislation to be brought forward is simply not true. The Immigration Rules can be changed at any time. In fact we are changing them tomorrow to reflect the changes to the overseas domestic worker arrangement which we have put in place—the new contracts, the requirement for an interview to take place and the testing and piloting of video links. Change can be done at any time. It does not need to wait for further primary legislation. It can be done, if that is what James Ewins decides needs to be done.

All the way through this process there has been some advantage—for example when discussing the provisions on the national referral mechanism—to be discussing the issues in the context of an exceptional review carried out by Jeremy Oppenheim. He was able to take a wide look at the issues and produce a considered report with a series of recommendations, which have been absolutely invaluable to us in making decisions on what amendments needed to be made. The Government have accepted all those recommendations which were made in that review. All we are saying in our response is to let us allow the same due process to continue. Let us allow James Ewins to get on and do his work—to undertake a thorough review, to consider all the arguments that have been presented and then to come forward with his recommendations.

That is really the argument between us. I know that there are many individual questions which were raised in the course of the debate, but essentially that is what it comes down to. It is a question of whether we seek to pre-empt with an amendment which does not deliver what many people have been arguing they actually want to see. It is whether we proceed with that amendment or whether we actually proceed in a more orderly way, recognising that we need to review the operation of this domestic workers visa arrangement and allow someone who is completely independent of government to undertake that review. It would come back by July—so it is not going to be in the long grass for ever—and then action can be taken in the next Parliament at any stage based on the recommendations which are made. I think, along with a number of other noble Lords, that that would be the more appropriate road to take. I ask the noble Lord to consider removing his amendment at this stage.

[Lord Hylton]

My Lords, I would like to thank most warmly all those who have taken part in this debate, which has been quite long and complex. As to the Government, I am sorry to say that we have heard really nothing new that was not already known in earlier stages of this Bill or in meetings that followed on from Committee.

The amendment is really a test of the Government’s intentions. Why should they take a massive effort to deal with trafficking—through prevention and risk orders and an anti-slavery commissioner—and supply chains and yet leave this loophole for abuse which has existed for so many years? What do the Government consider that the impact on the reputation of this country will be, following the comments on ITV and Radio 4 and in the press? Surely the knowledge that those abuses and exploitations continue to go on here cannot help our reputation in any way.

The Minister mentioned the Immigration Rules and some tiny changes which are about to be made. Why cannot the Government go the whole hog and, as I suggested earlier, put into the rules the equivalent of this amendment? However, he does not appear to be willing to do that. Further, the national referral mechanism was not designed to deal with this particular problem. Maybe it can be adapted, but that is not its main purpose. Therefore, in view of all those points, I wish to test the opinion of the House.