Modern Slavery Bill

Lord Patel Excerpts

Monday 8th December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Patel (CB)]

My Lords, I shall speak to the group of amendments that stand in my name, starting with Amendment 66A. As the noble Lord, Lord Warner, has already said, many of the amendments in this group and in subsequent groups are of a piece. There will therefore no doubt be some duplication in the comments that we make. We have already discussed issues related to the independence of the anti-slavery commissioner on previous amendments in Committee. None the less, I ask the leave of the House to repeat some of the points.

Two themes have been much repeated by the Government in connection with this Bill and their wider intentions in the fight against modern slavery: first, that the victims must be at the heart of the Bill in everything we do; secondly, that the Bill would make the United Kingdom a world leader in tackling modern slavery. Sadly, as it stands, the Bill does not live up to these aspirations. One way in which it falls short is in the provisions for the anti-slavery commissioner. Despite the addition of the word “independent” in the title, the commissioner currently has neither the independence nor the remit to be world leading. Moreover, Clause 41, which sets out the commissioner’s remit, has nothing to say about the protection and support of victims, as the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, who was in her place just now, reminded us at Second Reading. Many noble Lords made these points at Second Reading. Leaving aside the Front Benchers, of the 29 speakers, 19 drew attention to the commissioner and among these, there was near unanimity that the Bill provided neither the requisite independence nor remit. Calls to address that came from across the House.

In opening the Second Reading debate, the Minister said:

“The commissioner’s role is set out in a similar way to other commissioners”.—[Official Report, 17/11/14; col. 239.]

I wonder: which other commissioners? Certainly, the role is not set out in a similar way to that of the Children’s Commissioner for England or that of her counterparts in Northern Ireland, Scotland or Wales. These commissioners are not controlled by their respective government departments in the way that is done in the Bill, particularly in Clauses 41 and 42. Those clauses give power to the Home Secretary to edit the anti-slavery commissioner’s report and to approve, and by implication disapprove, his strategic plans. They also give similar powers to the Department of Justice in Northern Ireland and to the Scottish Ministers.

The amendments to Clause 42 in my name give us an opportunity to consider these unusual restrictions on the commissioner. Amendments 72ZA, 72B, 72C, 73A, 74A, 74B, 74C and 74D would remove from the Home Secretary the role of approving the commissioner’s strategic plan. Surely, setting his own strategic plan, without interference or the need to have approval from the Home Secretary, is the least we should expect of an independent commissioner. Why does the Bill empower the Home Secretary to give or withhold approval for the commissioner’s strategic plan? How is such a power compatible with a truly independent commissioner? My Amendment 74E would remove the power given to the Home Secretary and her counterparts in Northern Ireland and Scotland to remove material from the commissioner’s annual report. The amendment removes the final four subsections of Clause 42. These subsections allow material to be removed from the commissioner’s annual report on the grounds of the interests of national security, jeopardising the safety of any person and the risk of prejudice to the investigation or prosecution of an offence.

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Moved by

[Lord Patel]

85A: Clause 47, page 35, line 27, after “advocates” insert “and separated children advocates”

[Lord Patel]

I add my congratulations on the previous amendment, which was brought by the Government. There are some questions to be asked, and the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, addressed one of them, but there will be others that we will come to later. Meanwhile, I will address my Amendment 85A, along with Amendments 86A, 86B, 86C, 86D, 86E, 86F and 86G. My name is also on Amendment 86, under that of the noble Lord, Lord McColl. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Lister of Burtersett, and the noble Lord, Lord Judd, for putting their names to my amendment.

I will be brief because I see this as an exploratory or probing amendment, depending on the answers that I get from the Minister. I, of course, welcome Clause 47, which introduces an enabling provision for child trafficking advocates. In the light of the government amendment that we just agreed, we will see whether the legal assistance also applies to advocates. This is a significant and welcome step forward to protect child victims of trafficking. My amendment seeks to raise the issue of another extremely vulnerable group of children who, under current legislation, would miss out on the valuable support of an independent advocate to act in their best interests.

Amendments 85A and 86A to 86G would widen the scope of child trafficking advocates to provide advocates for all separated children. It is the separated children who are my concern. This is important for two reasons. Awarding an advocate to all separated children is, in my view, the only way to ensure that all trafficked children are awarded an advocate who can deal with the problems around identifying the victims of trafficking. Separated children are extremely vulnerable and need someone in this country to defend their interests. I can illustrate this with one real example. Let us call the child T for the sake of anonymity. The case study was provided at my request by the Children’s Society.

T is a 14 year-old boy who was referred to the Children’s Society by a walk-in health centre. At the time of referral, T was living with an older couple and some other young people, none of whom were related to him. He had come to the UK two years previously but had never regularised his immigration status, registered with a GP or attended a school. He was made to do all the cleaning and cooking in the house in exchange for his accommodation. The Children’s Society immediately realised that he had been trafficked, so the charity contacted the local authority as a matter of urgency.

Despite all efforts, the local authority and the local police were not sufficiently aware of the London Safeguarding Children Board’s guidance on working with trafficked children, and delayed prioritising the case with the degree of care it needed. The young person escaped from the family and ended up going missing, but due to the trusting relationship that he had built up with his project worker, he made contact again. The project worker went to pick him up and requested social services to arrange an emergency foster placement, which they agreed to do on the same day.

T is now in foster care and has started school. Timely access to education was something that the society had to advocate for strongly since none of the professionals involved seemed to know that an undocumented child is in fact required by law to attend school. T was referred to an immigration solicitor, who is helping him with his asylum claim and court order referral to the national referral mechanism for victims of trafficking. T was granted a “reasonable grounds” decision and is now taking part in social activities in a regular boys’ group. The key message of this case is that the help of a trusted, independent adult to ensure that children such as T can access vital services is needed for the welfare of these children and to ensure that they are recognised as the victims of trafficking.

I will focus in more detail on the problems of identifying victims of trafficking. Trafficked children are frequently not identified as such when they first enter the country. They may not acknowledge or disclose that they have been trafficked for some time. This is because of the level of exploitation they may have suffered at the hands of atrocious criminals, and they may even have been trafficked by a family member. Having an independent legal advocate will help to ensure that more children are identified as trafficked and then receive the support and services they are entitled to.

Separated children are extremely vulnerable. We all know the importance of having someone who is looking out for their best interests. However, many of these children have fled war, persecution and torture; they may have become separated from or even abandoned by their parents and carers once outside their country of origin. They are often physically and emotionally scarred when they enter the country. An independent legal advocate would support them while they overcome the language and cultural barriers, and help them to exercise their rights by holding local agencies to account. Without advocates, these children often end up living outside the system, destitute and homeless, and denied the safety and support they need and are entitled to as children.

Finally, there are financial benefits from providing advocates for all separated children. Research by the Children’s Society and UNICEF has found that for every £1 spent on service provision for three years, as much as £1.25 can be saved. This increases to £2.40 once the financial benefits for separated children who reach adulthood at the age of 18 are factored in. I will welcome the Government’s response to this amendment and their view on whether the evaluation of the ongoing pilot of child trafficking advocates will address the problems of identifying the victims of trafficking and review whether advocates should be provided for all separated children. I beg to move.

[Lord McColl of Dulwich (Con)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 86H, 103 and 104. Along with colleagues from all parties, I have been proposing the introduction of child trafficking advocates under a variety of different names since I first introduced my Private Member’s Bill on human trafficking in 2011. Since then your Lordships have consistently supported this measure as I, with others, have tabled proposals on several occasions over the past three years. Indeed, the clause in the Bill before us today is a direct result of the support shown by this House for the child trafficking guardian amendment to the then Immigration Bill, which was won by a majority of 98. I also recognise the degree to which the Government have moved their position from initial opposition to where we are today, and I am grateful to successive Ministers for taking the time to listen to these debates and engage constructively with the issue and with your Lordships’ concerns.

I warmly welcome the amendments made in the other place to give a stronger commitment to the introduction of child trafficking advocates and in setting out clearly that advocates must always act in the best interests of the child. These demonstrate the Government’s continued openness to listening to the concerns regarding this clause. and I very much hope that the Minister will continue in that vein as he responds to my amendments today.

I know that the Minister will say, as he did at Second Reading, that because there are pilots of child advocates going on around the country in 23 local authorities, we cannot take any further action on advocates during the passage of the Modern Slavery Bill. I support the trials to look into the practicalities of delivery, but I would respectfully disagree with the Minister on the point of substance. I believe that the trials should not hinder us from doing our job to provide the best framework for victims and that we should set out in statute a definition of the powers and functions of an advocate.

Before I explain my amendment, I would like to draw the attention of noble Lords to a significant change in the landscape both practically and politically that has come about since we last debated this matter in April. On 20 October, the Northern Ireland Assembly voted to create a system of guardians for trafficked children in the Human Trafficking and Exploitation (Further Provisions and Support for Victims) Bill, introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Morrow. The relevant clause in that Bill contains on the face of the legislation a full statement of the functions of the role, which are similar to those set out in Amendment 86H. I want to clarify for your Lordships that this provision, which was mentioned by various speakers at Second Reading, has been introduced without any sort of pilot scheme being run in Northern Ireland. In his closing speech at Second Reading the Minister said that the Home Office,

“will learn from that”—

the pilots—

“and on that basis set out in regulations what those responsibilities should be. That is exactly the same as what has happened in Northern Ireland”.—[Official Report, 17/11/14; col. 323.]

I am sure that the noble Lord was aware that there have been no pilots or trials in Northern Ireland; I am not implying that there were and I wanted to clarify the point.

I turn now to Amendment 86H. I am very grateful for the support of the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and the noble Baroness, Lady Royall. I have tabled this amendment with their support because I believe that Clause 47 needs to be strengthened to ensure that the advocates are equipped and empowered to be effective in this vital role, to make sure that the clause meets international best practice and that it fulfils the intentions of this House, which were made clear in the Immigration Bill vote in April. It is my opinion that, without Amendment 86H, Clause 47 falls short of these objectives.

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[Lord Bates]

I think that what I am getting at there is self-evident. If you extend the service of child trafficking advocates, clearly there is a cost implication. I was not suggesting at any stage that that was in any way an argument for or against. I was simply saying that it ought to be taken into account before we embark on an extension of the scheme. I am happy to write and come back on that, with further information about the basis of our assessment.

On the points made by my noble friend Lord McColl, it is intended that the functions and role of advocates in any national scheme will be set out in regulations. This will give the advocates the desired legislative basis without forcing us to make decisions about their role prior to the outcome and evaluation of the ongoing trial. The Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee accepted our approach—a point I have already made. We accept that a different approach has been taken in Northern Ireland, where an advocates scheme has not been trialled prior to setting out details of it in the Bill. It is our position, however, that the detail of advocates’ roles covered in the Northern Ireland Bill can be covered in our regulations, should this be supported by the findings of the ongoing trial. This takes in the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, when she said that there was a description effectively set out in the Northern Ireland legislation; that could be taken into account. We know that the pre-legislative scrutiny committee acknowledges that there is no one-size-fits-all in terms of advocacy schemes.

This is worth underscoring briefly. We accept that this is not a homogeneous group. This is not a group of people who have had similar experiences or who have similar needs. They are a very heterogeneous group and have different needs that must be addressed. That ought to be taken into account. The report highlighted that the Scottish system, which works very well without any legislative basis, would not necessarily translate well into England and Wales because of the different circumstances regarding trafficked children in different areas.

While we are concerned about child victims of modern slavery, the current trial and the provision in the Bill are focused on a particularly vulnerable group—namely, trafficked children. We know that trafficked children need to receive consistent support and protection to avoid them going missing and being retrafficked. We agree with my noble friend that the Bill is not the appropriate place for measures to extend the provision of advocates to all unaccompanied children, given its specialist focus on modern slavery.

I have dealt with the points raised in particular by my noble friend Lord McColl. I am aware that other points were raised. As I said when we discussed previous amendments, we will reflect on those points very carefully. I am sure that my noble friend Lord McColl, who accurately anticipated my response to his amendment, will probably tell us that he wants to revisit this issue later in our proceedings—which of course is his right. Perhaps in the interim we could have more discussions about how we can ensure that these child trafficking advocates work in the best way possible. We might also be able to share some interim findings from the trial that started in September, which would help inform the debate. With those assurances, I ask the noble Lord to consider withdrawing his amendment.

[Lord Patel]

My Lords, I pay tribute to my friend, the noble Lord, Lord McColl, and to the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss. I paid tribute to them at Second Reading but do so again. We all know how hard both of them, particularly the noble Lord, Lord McColl, have worked for years for this Bill.

I thank those who supported my amendment—namely, the noble Baronesses, Lady Lister of Burtersett and Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, and the noble Earl, Lord Listowel. I understand the difficulties of including all separated and unaccompanied children in the Bill. However, I was trying to emphasise that we have enough evidence to suggest that separated children are very much at risk and often end up being trafficked or becoming involved in modern slavery: for example, the example I gave of child T. It would be a great shame if a Bill on modern slavery ended up excluding this group of very vulnerable children, for whom we have to find a solution in due course. However, I recognise the complexity of involving all unaccompanied children.

As the Minister rightly said, the central amendment in this group is Amendment 86H under the lead name of the noble Lord, Lord McColl. My name was added to that amendment, but the vagaries of communication over the weekend and of the printing of the Marshalled List meant that it was not included.

In summing up, the Minister said it was likely that the noble Lord, Lord McColl, would wish to revisit the issue. I noted that the noble Lord nodded enthusiastically, so the Minister was left in no doubt that he and those who support the amendment, including me, will return to it at a later stage.

The vagaries of the House procedures do not allow the noble Lord, Lord McColl, to thank all those who supported him, but I do so on his behalf. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 85A withdrawn.