Nationality and Borders Bill

Lord Wolfson of Tredegar Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 8th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)]

My Lords, I will make a few comments to amplify the remarks of my noble friend Lady Meacher. I have just been reading a most remarkable book by a doctor, who as an eight or nine year-old child escaped from Afghanistan to try to realise his vision of becoming a doctor and thus being able to support his family back in Afghanistan. In trying to secure a voyage here, the bureaucracy of our immigration system, which I am afraid is outrageously being demonstrated in Calais, meant that this child fell into the hands of traffickers. He arrived here with a forged passport, so was sent to Feltham young offender institution. My point is that unless we improve our ability to admit refugees—particularly at a time like this, as we have heard today—we will play into the hands of these people. Like that child, so many of these refugees are just desperate for a better life; he wanted to support his family.

That child had experienced post-traumatic stress disorder of the most awful sort, having seen friends and relatives bombed and shelled and having walked among mutilated bodies. He had nightmares and flashbacks, but he did not know that he had post-traumatic stress disorder and could not understand why he was finding it so difficult to explain to the authorities that he had come from this troubled background. It was only years later, as the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, mentioned, that he realised that it must be because of post-traumatic stress disorder.

This extraordinary person started the most wonderful foundation, Arian Teleheal, saluted by the Government, which does telemed work with children and victims all over the world. He is a wonderful example of everything which is great in this country and everything that we need to make better. He knew that if he could get here and get training as a doctor, he could change the circumstances of those he had left behind in Afghanistan —and my goodness, he did. However, we must make it easier for people such as him to come here and benefit from our education, and then do wonderful work, such as what he wanted to do, as a doctor.

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My Lords, the debate has shown that the House is unanimous on two points. The first is that my noble friend Lady Williams of Trafford should be congratulated, and the second is that the House did not much like the Government’s Bill. I associate myself wholly with the former, and I will seek to set out the Government’s position on the latter. Let me go through the amendments in turn.

Amendments 65 and 66 seek to remove Clauses 57 and 58 from the Bill entirely. The effect would be to remove modern slavery from the one-stop process and would mean that modern slavery claims would be dealt with separately from the one-stop process that addresses human rights and protection claims. That does not make much sense, for either the victims or the national referral mechanism, for at least two reasons. First, treating the two types of claims as distinct means that a victim might have to describe the same traumatic events repeatedly, which nobody wants to see. Secondly, decisions would be made about their future and their right to protection and support in isolation from, and perhaps in ignorance of, the full facts, which might mean that people who would otherwise get protection are denied it.

Those amendments, and Amendment 70ZA, do not make sense from the point of view of making the NRM an efficient, transparent and fair process. They display a lack of understanding about how the NRM works, where, in line with the low threshold for referral—I will come back to the thresholds later—we simply require relevant information at an early stage, even of a limited nature, to enable key issues to be identified from the outset. That allows early access to support and gives decision-makers a clearer picture of the individual’s experience, which in turn means a more comprehensive decision, to be taken in the round, including, crucially, the victim’s age when the relevant exploitation took place.

Perhaps more than any other group, children will benefit from early identification and protection, and from having decisions made in respect of their status and their support with as full an awareness of relevant facts and context as possible. In response to the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, echoed by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham, we see no benefit to child victims in them raising modern slavery issues after any asylum or protection decisions have been made. That would only delay their ability to access the support and protection that they need.

I have read widely the briefings which I and other noble Lords have received, and seen that critics have argued, as has been said, that the clause will stop victims from coming forward. We do not see how a clause that encourages early disclosure of information and early identification, where any negative credibility implications are non-determinative and apply only when there are no good reasons for delay, would discourage victims from coming forward. As to evidence, I say again that the measure will allow for early identification, and we do not want victims to have to describe the same events repeatedly.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

I am sorry to interrupt but will the Minister deal with why children are going through the NRM? The Home Office, through the Minister, told me that the NRM was not suitable for children, who should be dealt with under the Children Act.

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

I do not think I am saying anything inconsistent. I am saying that, for the reasons I have set out—I was just starting on the point and hope I will be able to develop it—we do not want to create a two-tier system. Of course, we recognise the vulnerabilities of children. The modern slavery statutory guidance, which I think the noble and learned Baroness referred to, provides for the specific vulnerabilities of children. This clause does not change that. It is also right that our domestic legislation should align with our international obligations, and that includes ECAT. Children get protection from the NRM because they are recognised as victims of modern slavery; that is why they get protection.

On Amendments 67 and 68, I want to reassure noble Lords that we are currently working with stakeholders and operational partners to develop the guidance in a way that is clear for decision-makers and victims. The reasonable grounds threshold is, and will remain, low, as intended by ECAT, to identify potential victims. The House will forgive me, but we need to be clear about this: ECAT sets out that signatories have certain duties when there are reasonable grounds to believe that a person has been a victim or “is a victim” of modern slavery or human trafficking. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans raised concerns that Clause 59 was raising the threshold. Respectfully, it is not. Clause 59 aligns the Modern Slavery Act 2015 with ECAT, but it is already the language used in the modern slavery statutory guidance for England and Wales, under Section 49 of that Act.

Indeed—I have it on my iPad—paragraph 14.50 of the guidance sets out the test of

“whether the statement …‘I suspect but cannot prove’ the person is a victim of modern slavery … is true ... or whether a reasonable person having regard to the information in the mind of the decision maker would think there are Reasonable Grounds to believe the individual is a victim of modern slavery”.

So, in the guidance, the two tests are each used; we are not raising the test at all but aligning it. Nothing will change in practice; we are aligning our domestic legislation to our international obligations. The guidance also uses the phrase “suspect but cannot prove” as part of the test. Both phrases that I have read out are used in the guidance as being indicative of when the threshold is met. We are not raising the threshold and have no intention of doing so, but it is right that we keep setting that out in guidance and not in primary legislation.

Turning to Amendment 70, I thank my noble friend Lord McColl of Dulwich for his continued engagement. We are of course committed to providing support to victims of modern slavery but we believe that this should be provided on a needs basis. We are committed to maintaining our international obligations under ECAT, and this Bill confirms that, where necessary, support and protections are provided from a positive reasonable grounds decision up to the conclusive grounds decision. Indeed, there is a five-year contract, currently valued at over £300 million, which demonstrates that commitment. Importantly, however, support for victims, including safehouse accommodation, financial support and access to a support worker are already available based on need. There is no time limit for that support.

Each individual victim will have different needs. The amendment, however, removes any needs-based assessment and treats all 12,727 victims who entered the NRM in 2021 as being one of a kind, assuming that they will all need the same level of support. We committed in the other place to providing, where necessary, appropriate and tailored support for a minimum of 12 months to all those who receive a “positive conclusive grounds decision”, and I have just repeated that here.

Finally, Amendment 70 would also reduce clarity, because it refers to assisting the individual in their personal situation. There is no definition of “personal situation” within ECAT, and Clause 64 addresses this issue by setting out circumstances where leave will be granted to confirmed victims. However, Amendment 70 requires no link to the relevant exploitation, which means that a victim could be granted leave to pursue an entirely unrelated compensation claim or assist with an unrelated investigation, and that is not what ECAT was all about.

Before I sit down, I should respond to the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham, as well as the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, who all mentioned guidance in one form or another. I can confirm that officials would be very pleased to engage on the development of the guidance, to which I have referred on a number of occasions. It will be published over the coming months, but we welcome that engagement. I also assure them and the rest of the House that we will bring forward modern slavery legislation as soon as parliamentary time allows.

I apologise for the length of my response, but there were a number of amendments in this group. For the reasons I have set out, I invite noble Lords not to press their amendments.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall just respond to the Minister briefly. I thank him for his reply and all noble Lords who have contributed to the debate.

The one fundamental point that I wish to make to the Minister is that, in all his responses, he failed to talk about the statistic referring to the dramatic increase of 47% in the number of victims, in the duty to notify process, who refused to consent to their names being put forward to the national referral mechanism. That is 3,190 reports of adult potential victims via that process who did not consent to their names being put forward. The Minister did not refer to that—and at its heart that is because people already, before the implementation of the Bill, are frightened to come forward and interact with the Government. That is the reality of the situation. For all the Minister’s protestations and reassurances, and all the statements that it will be done on a case-by-case basis, it does not alter the fact that already people are frightened of coming forward and being identified.

All the amendments before us seek to do is to address some of that problem. For example, Amendment 66, on which I will wish to test the opinion of the House, addresses the legislation where it says that if the people who do interact are late in providing information, they will be penalised and it must be taken into account and their claim refused. We are told that it does not matter because, on a case-by-case basis, they can be reassured—yet we are going to pass primary legislation to say that that provision must be included.