Modern Slavery Bill

Lord McColl of Dulwich Excerpts

Monday 17th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord McColl of Dulwich (Con)]

My Lords, I will concentrate on three areas: the first is support for adult victims of trafficking. Victims of trafficking are entitled to know exactly the support to which they are entitled. That support should be spelt out in statute to avoid ambiguity. The Bill contains a clause requiring the Home Secretary to issue guidance about the support provided to adult victims, but I am not convinced that guidance provides an adequate guarantee to a victim of the assistance to which he is entitled under the EU directive and European convention. If the Bill is truly to serve the needs of victims as well as the justice system, it needs to contain a clear statement of the minimum assistance available to a victim of trafficking in accordance with our international obligations.

I also believe that, as the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, has just said, we need to reconsider the length of time that such support is available. The current 45-day reflection and recovery period is far too little to enable a person to make a proper recovery from their ordeal. Many charities recommend a period of 90 days. Indeed, the United Nations commentary on the EU directive states:

“When transposing the Directive into national legislation, Member States are encouraged to include in their national legislation a period of reflection and recovery of a minimum of 90 days for all victims of trafficking”.

Even 90 days will not be sufficient for some people to take significant steps towards recovery when they experience post-traumatic stress disorder, but we need to ensure that we are protecting and supporting victims to begin that longer-term recovery. One of the recommendations from the recent review of the national referral mechanism is that consideration should be given to the support available to individuals following conclusive identification as victims. I look forward to seeing the Government’s response to this recommendation in due course.

In the context of this Bill, I also want to raise the fact that I have heard from charities that provide assistance to victims of trafficking that many of their clients who are EU nationals are having extreme difficulties accessing welfare benefits due to the application of a more stringent habitual residence test and changes to housing benefit eligibility introduced earlier this year. Understandably, many victims of trafficking are unable to demonstrate when they entered the country, and their labour exploitation does not seem to be valid work for the purposes of these tests. I cannot believe that victims of the heinous crime of trafficking were our intended target in the restriction of welfare benefits. Indeed, if victims are unable to receive this support, I very much doubt that they will be able to remain in this country to assist with police investigations and prosecutions, which is one of the key aims of the Bill before us today. Can the Minister indicate what steps are being taken to ensure that victims of trafficking are not being detrimentally affected by the application of residence tests for welfare benefits and whether he would consider amending the regulations to ensure that victims of trafficking are exempt from these tests?

The second area where I would like to see improvements in the Bill is the protection of children. In September 2013, the report Still at Risk, produced by the Children’s Society and the Refugee Council, stated that a system of protection needs to be developed,

“that includes an independent trusted adult appointed to a separated child as soon as they come to an authority’s attention. This person’s role would be to ensure that all potential victims of trafficking are able to understand their rights, ensure that their voice is heard in decisions that affect them and are supported effectively through the different legal processes that they are engaged in”.

However, still the Government have not been willing to support this proposal in all its fullness. They have accepted the need to introduce trials of specialist independent advocates for trafficked children, which were to be introduced from 1 July across 23 local authorities. We were reassured on 7 April that they,

“will be experts in trafficking, and completely independent of the local authority and social services department. Their role will be to steer the child through the complexity of the multiple government agencies—not just local-authority care, immigration and criminal justice but all government departments. This is to ensure that the child's voice is heard ... these advocates will have the capacity and the expertise to address the additional needs of the child. They will attend meetings, speak for them and act as advocates for them”.

The Minister, my noble friend Lord Taylor, said:

“By getting alongside children and supporting them in this way, the advocates will have a role in ensuring that the risk of children going missing and disappearing will be reduced”.—[Official Report, 7/4/14; col. 1156.]

He said that the timing,

“will enable us to consider the impact of the specialist independent child trafficking advocates, as well as how the scheme worked, during the passage of the modern slavery Bill, which should be before one or other of our two Houses of Parliament. The modern slavery Bill is a much better place to make these changes”.

I specifically asked the Minister why he was not proposing that advocates had a legal status. He said:

“That is a question that the modern slavery Bill will indeed be able to consider”.—[Official Report, 7/4/14; col. 1158.]

We welcome that.

The third area of the Bill where I have particular concerns is the role of the Anti-slavery Commissioner. As presently drafted, the commissioner’s remit is too restrictive to enable him or her to protect victims effectively. Furthermore, the Bill’s provisions need revision to ensure the independence of the commissioner—I refer to the report published recently by the Joint Committee on Human Rights. One other matter that I must put on the record is my deep unease with the fact that the Home Office has proceeded in recruiting and appointing a person as the Anti-slavery Commissioner before the role has been sanctioned by Parliament.

When it comes to statutory support services for victims and statutory child trafficking guardians, the truth is that the political context in which we find ourselves has changed quite dramatically in the last month. Northern Ireland embarked on the road to its modern slavery Bill, called the Human Trafficking and Exploitation (Further Provisions and Support for Victims) Bill, rather earlier than England and Wales. That Bill proposed both statutory support services for victims and statutory child trafficking guardians and on 20 and 21 October the Northern Ireland Assembly voted for those provisions. Of course, central to devolution is the idea that different parts of the United Kingdom can do things differently. However, I want very gently to ask the question: do we want rescued trafficked children to be afforded fewer rights in England and Wales than in Northern Ireland? I think not, and I hope that by the time this Bill leaves your Lordships’ House it will at least be as robust as the Northern Ireland legislation. Incidentally, I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Morrow, who has taken this legislation through the Northern Ireland Assembly, and to the Justice Minister, David Ford, the leader of the Alliance Party, who has worked so closely with the noble Lord on this Bill. It is very encouraging to see all the main parties in Northern Ireland coming together to generate some excellent legislation, and I look forward to their taking the lead and generating ground-breaking legislation in other areas, too.

I welcome the Bill; it is a good Bill and has developed since the draft Bill was published in December. However, I do not believe that it is yet the world-leading legislation that we would like it to be. I am confident that, through the careful examination of noble Lords, this House will achieve some of the key improvements that are needed.