Modern Slavery Bill

Lord Rosser Excerpts

Monday 17th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rosser (Lab)]

My Lords, I extend my congratulations to my noble friend Lord Cashman and the noble Baronesses, Lady Chisholm of Owlpen and Lady Mobarik, on their very different but equally powerful and thoughtful maiden speeches. I, too, hope they will continue to give us the benefit of their knowledge and expertise in other debates in the future. I will not be able to match the expertise and power of so many of the contributions we have been privileged to hear today but I hope that that will not be taken as indicating a lack of understanding or appreciation on my part of either the importance or the awfulness of the issue we have been considering for the past few hours.

I know that the Government are endeavouring to raise awareness of modern slavery in the United Kingdom and to promote a new modern slavery helpline and website, and have allocated a budget of £2.3 million. What has surprised me, though, is that according to a recent Parliamentary Written Answer, the Government have paid £154,000 for sponsored online and print articles in the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday and have placed sponsored articles in the Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph at a cost of £125,000. This raises a number of questions but it would be inappropriate to pursue them today.

We have had a constructive, informed and, at times, passionate debate on a Bill that has support from all sides of the House. The concerns and differences of view that have been expressed relate not to the principles or objectives of the Bill but to whether it will achieve what it sets out to do and whether it should and could go further than it does in a number of areas, in addressing and combating the increasing scourge that is modern slavery, whether by human trafficking, slavery, forced labour or domestic servitude, and the horrors involved for its vulnerable victims.

Freedom from slavery is a fundamental human right; yet contrary to the popular view that we abolished slavery some two centuries ago, and contrary to the European Convention on Human Rights, it continues to exist as a global issue, not just in other parts of the world—which, as the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, reminded us, is bad enough—but also here on our very own doorstep. We have had spelt out to us during this debate specific and detailed examples of abuse, exploitation and denial of fundamental human rights. It is difficult to comprehend that these can occur to a sustained and far-from-isolated extent in a highly developed and democratic society such as ours that values individual freedoms and rights and the rule of law.

It is not so much the fact that abhorrent episodes of this kind can occur at all that is difficult to comprehend, since there have always been individuals for whom the prospect of abusing, exploiting and exercising unchecked power over others—particularly when allied to the ability to make considerable sums of money in the process—means that every concept of humanity and decency can be ignored and thrown out of the window. Rather, the aspect that shakes one to the core is the fact that the episodes we have heard about today, which are but examples, have gone on for so long, and involved so many victims, without either being known about or detected; or, if there were warning signs or claims that something was seriously amiss, these were not taken seriously or properly investigated by those in a position—or, indeed, whose job it was—to do just that. It has been a case too often of closing eyes or crossing over and walking by on the other side of the road.

The Bill is not the first legislation on this issue, as my noble friend Lord Tunnicliffe reminded us. Criminalising trafficking was included in the Sexual Offences Act 2003 and the Asylum and Immigration Act 2004. The Coroners and Justice Act 2009 then saw the introduction of offences of forced labour, slavery and servitude, recognising that slavery is not just about international forced travel. That same year also saw the introduction of the national referral mechanism as the means to identify victims of human trafficking in the United Kingdom, act as a gateway to victim support services and be a source of data on the extent of trafficking.

The intention of the Bill, among other things, is to make it easier to prosecute those involved in the crime that is modern-day slavery through consolidating and strengthening the law. Let us hope that when the Bill finally leaves this House and becomes law, its terms will enable that objective to be achieved, because the number of prosecutions to date for trafficking offences has not exactly been overwhelming, running now at way below 50 each year, with the number of successful prosecutions each year being even lower and not always even into double figures. In 2012, however, the UK Human Trafficking Centre—part of the National Crime Agency—identified 2,255 human trafficking victims, many of them children. Even the Home Office internal process, which is the national referral system—about which there is little transparency and from which there is no appeal against decisions taken by competent authorities on whether a person is a victim—identified more than 1,000 victims. The contrast between even the national referral system figure for human trafficking victims, and the number of prosecutions—let alone successful prosecutions—should be a cause for concern before we even start to consider the very large discrepancy between the UK Human Trafficking Centre figure and that from the national referral mechanism.

We need to look at what we do to support victims, and make sure that an actual or perceived lack of support, and an actual or perceived inability by the authorities and organisations concerned to work together to understand and identify abuse and exploitation do not lead victims to feel that they have little alternative but to keep quiet and accept their lot. That is an issue about the people involved and the training they receive, and also about the way the different authorities and organisations involved with victims do or do not operate and work together to focus on them as victims. I appreciate that there is a review, but we need to look at the status, standing and role of the national referral mechanism, particularly in relation to victims, and the case for putting it on a statutory footing to enhance its authority.

A number of references have been made during this debate to the proposed Anti-slavery Commissioner and the role and powers of the position. The role of the commissioner under the Bill is to encourage good practice in the identification of victims and enforcement, which is fine, but not to also have an emphasis on providing support for victims either directly or indirectly, which is not so fine. There is also the question of the independence, or lack of it, of the commissioner.

Some 25% of the victims of human trafficking identified in 2012 were children. Too often, as with adults, they seem to be regarded as immigration cases rather than trafficking victims. Of those who are rescued by the authorities and put into care, two- thirds go missing again from a system that was intended to protect them; no doubt they end up back with the only people they probably know, namely those involved in trafficking and exploiting them in the first place. We welcome the first moves towards the introduction of a system of child advocates, but will want to ensure that such an arrangement will be as strong as it needs to be. Trafficked children are not just abused; they can be led to believe that the trafficker, who may be the only adult with whom they are acquainted and who speaks their language, is their friend or relation, and end up saying and doing what the trafficker wants. We need to ensure that child advocates have the necessary authority and can act independently of local authorities in addition to acting in the best interests of the child. We also need separate offences of child exploitation and child trafficking.

Some of the worst cases of slavery that have occurred during the past two or three decades have had as their victims people who have come to the United Kingdom as a domestic employee of an international employer. We introduced the domestic workers visa, which gave an opportunity to people to get out of slavery and go to work for another employer. The Government effectively abolished those visas. Research undertaken by a charity closely involved in this area indicates that, since those visas were significantly changed, 60% of those on the new domestic workers visa, which does not allow such domestic workers to escape to another employer, were paid no salary compared with 14% on the original visa. The same research also showed that 92% of those on the Government’s new visa were unable to leave the house unaccompanied, which sounds suspiciously like slavery. Those who escape under the new visa system, which ties them to their employer, have the choice of either going back to their employer or being deported. Under the previous visa arrangements, they could have been helped to find other work.

This is not the only area that needs to be addressed in the world of work. The Gangmasters Licensing Authority has made a significant difference in preventing the exploitation of workers but only in the limited areas in which it could exert its influence and use its powers. We should look at building on the work of Gangmasters Licensing Authority by considering how that work might be extended to cover exploitation in hospitality, care and construction, as well as looking at how the law on exploitation in the workplace can be strengthened.

We recently had a short debate in this House on the importance of tackling modern slavery and the supply chains of the goods we buy that are imported from other countries from around the world. It was a debate initiated by my noble friend Lady Kennedy of Cradley. There was no reference to this issue in the Bill when it was first published, and the debate that we had in this House drew attention to that unfortunate fact. The Government subsequently put down an amendment in the last stages of the Bill’s progression through the other place. We will want to discuss that amendment during its passage through this House, since there appear to be doubts—doubts that have been expressed today—as to whether the amendment will necessarily deliver what it says on the tin.

My noble friend Lord Tunnicliffe set out the issues that we will wish to pursue and consider in more detail in Committee, and I have referred to many of them again. The Government produced a draft Bill and we have also had the benefit of pre-legislative scrutiny of the Bill by a Joint Committee which included Members of your Lordships’ House. I add my thanks to those already expressed to the members of that committee.

The Government accepted some of the changes proposed in the light of the pre-legislative scrutiny but not as many as one might have hoped. It is now a case not of opposing a Bill whose aims and objectives have been widely welcomed but, rather, trying to improve it further. It is right that our legislation should be strengthened to recognise the different forms of human trafficking and slavery and make it possible to prosecute those who enslave, abuse and exploit. It is right that penalties should be increased with the Bill, enabling trafficking offences to be given the maximum of a life sentence as well as making provisions in relation to asset seizures and reparation orders. It is right also to establish an Anti-slavery Commissioner to provide a statutory defence for victims, to lay down a duty to notify the National Crime Agency and to have undertaken work on prevention and risk orders.

However, the Bill needs to be carefully considered and improved to ensure that its terms and provisions deliver its stated objective. We need to be clear about the specific factors and considerations that allow modern slavery in its various forms to exist and expand in our country, and about whether the specific provisions in the Bill will effectively confront and eliminate or minimise those factors and considerations, as well as the difficulties over securing successful prosecutions for trafficking. It is clear from the concerns that have been expressed today, not least over support and assistance for victims, that there are real doubts that the Bill, despite its admirable intentions, will actually deliver those important objectives. This, rather than ministerial assertions about world-class legislation, will surely be the test by which the effectiveness or otherwise of the Bill will be judged, including by the victims of modern slavery themselves.

I hope that the Government will accept during further consideration of the Bill, that we should all strive to ensure that the obscenity of slavery—which in its most open and obvious forms was addressed some 200 years ago—is now decisively addressed in the Bill in the more hidden and less obvious but equally obscene forms in which it still exists in our country and in our supply chains today.