Modern Slavery Bill

Lord McColl of Dulwich Excerpts

Monday 1st December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord McColl of Dulwich (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome government Amendment 7, which provides clarity about the role of consent in the understanding of whether a person has been trafficked or not. I had the privilege to sit on the Joint Committee for the pre-legislative scrutiny process. During our hearings we received a good deal of evidence that the issue of consent in relation to the offences of slavery, forced labour and servitude in Clause 1 is rather problematic. The barrister Riel Karmy-Jones, who has extensive experience of prosecuting such cases for the CPS, told our committee:

“I think consent is an issue for clause 1 as well, because you do have people occasionally who are brought up in a position of servitude and know nothing else, and so effectively could be seen to be consenting to their condition”.

Another barrister, Peter Carter QC, who acted as special adviser to our committee, also raised concerns that consent was what he termed a “live issue” in Clause 1 by virtue of subsections (2) and (3), and especially in relation to children.

The reason that the issue of consent is problematic is because where a victim of slavery, forced labour or servitude appears to consent to their situation, perhaps by not running away, or where they are not physically restrained, police officers may incorrectly presume that such cases are not truly cases of forced labour, slavery or servitude. Some charities that work with victims have told me that misunderstandings and presumptions about what constitutes forced labour can mean that cases do not receive the serious treatment that they should. The charity Hope for Justice has told me that it commonly comes across a misunderstanding among police officers that,

“victims have to be locked up in order to be considered as being in forced labour”.

The issue of consent is not only a problem in relation to police investigations but can be used also by defence counsel to raise doubts in the minds of juries. Amendment 7 will make it clear for police officers, courts, lawyers and jurors that slavery, servitude and forced labour are complex situations, and that numerous factors can lead a person to consent to exploitation without necessarily meaning that the exploitation is not taking place. Those psychological barriers can be much stronger than any physical restraints, such as a locked door.

Threats to the individual victim or a family member can deter people from trying to escape, even if they have the opportunity. Fear of the authorities, of prison or of deportation—encouraged by those who exploit them—can prevent a victim seeking help. Debt bondage can cause a person to continue in a situation of forced labour or servitude without any restrictions on their freedom. Even where that debt is created by deception or fraud, a victim can be so desperate to pay back the money that they have been told they owe that they will consent to servitude or slavery. For other victims, their dependency on their exploiters, perhaps for shelter or food, however inadequate those might be, leaves them at risk and certainly in fear of facing greater destitution if they try to escape.

I welcome this amendment from the Minister, which will make it clear in the Bill that such consent need not necessarily preclude a finding on the basis of other evidence that a person has been held in slavery or servitude or required to perform forced labour. Doing so will make understanding the offence simpler for police officers and jurors and, as a result, aid successful prosecutions, which we all hope the Bill will help to promote.

I note, however, that Amendment 7 refers to the person’s consent to,

“any of the acts alleged to constitute holding the person in slavery or servitude, or requiring the person to perform forced or compulsory labour”.

Might the Minister consider a similar amendment to the Clause 2 offence, which presently addresses consent only in relation to a person’s travel and not the exploitation that they are put through?

[Baroness Butler-Sloss]

My Lords, I support Amendments 4, 7 and 101, which are government amendments. I am very happy to see Amendment 7 at the bottom of Clause 1, as it seems to make entirely clear the situation of consent in relation to children as well as to adults. I am also very pleased that under Amendments 4 and 101 it is made clear what a child is; that is, someone under the age of 18. That is a very useful bit of interpretation, so I strongly support the amendments. I think that I prefer Amendment 7 to Amendment 8, because Amendment 7 sets it out in rather more detail and therefore is preferable.