Modern Slavery Bill

Michael Connarty Excerpts

Tuesday 4th November 2014 Commons Chamber

Will the Minister clarify what provisions will be made in Northern Ireland? Other amendments that we will discuss later thankfully include measures to improve the scope and smooth interface of the legislation vis-à-vis Northern Ireland, which I was at pains to address in Committee. I notice, however, that reference to Northern Ireland is missing from new clause 11, although the reference to Scotland is clear.

[Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to stand up on Report and commend the Government for the progress we have made, but let us be clear that we are a little way along the journey. It is not as if the exploiters of women and children—whether for cheap labour, slave labour or sexual exploitation—are going to quake at the knees because we are passing this Bill, so let us be honest about that. As we try to close the loopholes, increase vigilance, and impose discipline on the trade that the exploiters are involved in, they will change the way they run that trade.

I spent time with the Serious Organised Crime Agency as part of the Government’s great police service parliamentary scheme. It showed us a model that it has drawn up of much of the trafficking that goes on throughout Europe and that it is trying to combat. It looked like a five-dimensional or 10-dimensional spaceship, and had been drawn up by the London School of Economics to show exactly how such organisations work. They are multinational and beyond any discipline; they have no morals and think only about the money at the end of the chain.

In reality, for many people at the “murky” end of the supply chain—that is how it was described by some of the witnesses from whom the Joint Committee took evidence—that is where the abuse takes place. To reach into that is very difficult as we get further and further from the first payment of money from a customer to a company, and the first payment from a company to its supplier, who supplies in a nice neat box with a nice label—it might be a nice T-shirt, for example, that costs £45 but is made by people who get paid 62p an hour and are locked in the factory and not allowed out in case, as the owner said, “They might come back hung-over and not able to work well the next day”. That is what we are dealing with.

We have made some strides, and many people were mentioned in the Joint Committee and the Bill Committee. Some, however, will not be mentioned—the right hon. Member for Meriden (Mrs Spelman) has unfortunately left her place, but she took an interest in this matter and went to see the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills to talk about the need to include this measure on the supply chain, at a time when we were getting the resistance referred to by my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field). People of good will saw that a Bill that did not refer to supply chains was not in the spirit of the efforts that have been made over the past 10 years by people such as Anthony Steen and the Human Trafficking Foundation, and the EU Parliamentarians against Human Trafficking, who were involved in trying to deal with an international, pan-European and pan-world trade.

When I saw new clause 11, which followed a generous promise by the Minister in the final Committee sitting to introduce a measure on supply chains, I was impressed. It is fairly thorough. There is a lot of bureaucratic writing that I would not necessarily have put into my Bill, not knowing how the mechanisms of the Government’s legislation works in all its depth, but part after part reflects the matters I referred to in my private Member’s Bill in 2012. I thank the Minister and all those who supported that measure for what has been done. We are on a journey and we have a long way to go, even if we pass the Bill and it is effective. We know that there are reservations. They will come up again in the other place to deal with the things that are not dealt with in the amendments and new clauses tabled here.

[Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point that some people will seek to avoid the provisions, but does he accept that that is the case with all forms of criminality, and that the Bill gives us a platform, for the first time, to tackle some of the worst cases of modern-day slavery?

[Michael Connarty]

I have absolutely no reservation in supporting that as a principle. We are doing the right thing. We have set together a number of pieces of legislation in the Bill that will deal with those who will wish to avoid its provisions, and I will mention some of the measures in new clause 11 that I think are effective and welcome.

I am glad that Government amendment 62 says there will be an affirmative resolution for regulations, because it is right that we will go into a Statutory Instrument Committee with them, and that we are given the chance to debate them with the Minister. I will mention some of the things I hope we will discuss when we get there.

New clause 5, which was tabled by my hon. Friends on the use of the Companies Act 2006, is something we should look at, because it is right. The hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes) made the point that we need as many tools as possible as well as the court of public and business displeasure when people do not act as we want. Therefore, we should look at how we can put some firmer things in the Bill, but I think that the big change in the Government’s thinking is to be welcomed, because they are using the principle of the California Act, which is much wider than the Companies Act.

By the way, I notice that the British Retail Consortium wants to include smaller companies. When I introduced my Bill, I used the figure of £100 million. In California, the figure was $100 million, and my amendment used £60 million, which is the equivalent. Clearly, quoted companies under the Companies Act are likely to be well outwith that in size. We want to respond to that and use the same reporting structures as the Act would use.

I tabled amendment (a) to new clause 11 because we should look at international standards. I have respect for the Secretary of State and the civil servants who advise her, but international organisations have looked at the issues again and again. In my Bill, I had a reference to the 1999 International Labour Organisation convention No. 182, which is about the definition of the worst form of child labour, because there can be difficulties with that in other countries.

I will tell a quick tale. When I was 10, I went out and found a job as a milk boy. I wanted to go out and become useful to my family. My brother had a job delivering rolls. I got 10 shillings—50p now—and about 1 shilling and sixpence in tips a week. I walked from the centre of town home and gave my mother 11 shillings and sixpence for the family budget. There were five of us and basically one labourer’s wage. It was not easy to survive. Was that child labour? I did not feel exploited. I loved it—I loved every bit of it. I am sure it is why I am so healthy now in my older age. I ran and ran, and perhaps built up the infrastructure for a long life. It was great and I loved it.

In other situations, people say, “If a woman takes a child with her when she is making bricks in India, at what age does that become a breach of child labour? When is that child able to contribute to a very low family budget and when do they want to do so?” The ILO has looked at those questions but we have not looked at them in great detail in the House. Hopefully, the ILO’s considerations will be used in the recommendations made under new clause 11(8), which is about giving guidance on the information that should be reported.

There is a bit missing from this Bill that was in my Bill: my clause 3 said that there should be some way of ensuring that the company that is found to use such labour provides assistance and protection for the victims of slavery. The guidance should continue that. It should say what a company should do as a benchmark. We should not just say, “We’ll not use that company any more,” but do something about it.

Mention was made of consumers. When I went around talking to people in supermarket networks—Mumdex is in many supermarkets in my area—they had a concern about slavery and the things that bothered their conscience, but they said, “If you’ve got four or five kids coming up to the summer, you buy the cheapest stuff you can get that is going to last the summer, because most of it’s going to be thrown in the bin by the end of the summer anyway. It is the company’s job to make sure I am not buying something that is contaminated by slave labour.” That is totally right. Perhaps some people who go up the high street and buy very highly priced goods ask themselves about that, but most people in my constituents’ environment will not.

I therefore welcome new clause 11(9). It is fantastic to see. If hon. Members read what is on the net about the Bill, they will see that people in Scotland think it has nothing to do with them. They think it is an English Bill. People should look at the new clauses to realise that it is a trans-border, transnational Bill. Subsection (9) states that people in Scotland can take an organisation to the Court of Session to enforce the fact that it is not carrying out the duty in the Bill. That will be very welcome.

I do not know whether the new clause covers Northern Ireland—I had that question in mind because it does not mention Northern Ireland. Do people there go to the Court of Session? Where do they go? Do people in Northern Ireland go to the High Court in England if they feel that a company in Northern Ireland is not doing something they should be doing? I am grateful to the Minister for including Scotland. That is an important measure.

We are making progress and I welcome the proposals. I hope the Government are listening when the Bill goes to the other place because they could add other things to it.

[Jim McGovern (Dundee West) (Lab)]

I, too, was a milk boy, and a butcher’s boy and a paper boy, in my younger days. My hon. Friend has raised the subject of tips many times over the years. My wife and I booked a cruise two years ago through a British travel agent company. The cruise sailed from Southampton. When we spoke to the staff on the cruise, they said they did not receive any wages, and that they only got tips. If that is not modern slavery, I do not know what is. I was not fortunate enough to be on the Joint Committee. Does the Bill cover that?

[Michael Connarty]

I could not quote the legal detail, but I would think that if a company based in the UK did things like that, it could be taken to the Court of Session in Scotland or the High Court in England and found not to be complying with the law.

As a Scot and as an economist, I read Adam Smith’s “Wealth of Nations”. It talks about comparative advantage, but before that, he wrote a document about the morals of competition. The good thing about the Bill is that it says, “We believe in competition.” We are not talking about pricing people out of the market entirely. We are saying that it must be morally justifiable as well as economically justifiable.

I want to finish with a response to one of my constituents, who, when it was reported that we were discussing the Bill, wrote in an e-mail blog: “What’s that got to do with creating employment in Scotland and your constituency?” The reality is that, if we can stop people using cheap labour, and particularly slave labour at the worst end, we give British companies the chance to compete better. That is why the BRC is behind the Bill. If there is a voluntary code, the bad companies just will not comply, whereas if there is a mandatory code and if we can take people to law to enforce it, everyone must do the right thing or be held to account.

[Karen Bradley]

I will not detain the House for long as we have other matters to come on to, but I want to make a few closing remarks.

This has been a very good debate and I am very grateful to all right hon. and hon. Members who have contributed to it. I think we can safely say that all those who have made contributions are great campaigners on this issue. They all deserve credit for getting us to this point, and they have changed the views of so many.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim Sheridan (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (Lab)]

I will take your advice on brevity, Mr Speaker. I rise to support my party’s new clause 1 on gangmasters.

Before I do so, I want to thank many people. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson) said, I had the privilege of introducing the private Member’s Bill that became the Gangmasters (Licensing) Act 2004. I was greatly supported in that by a number of individuals and organisations, none more so that my own union, Unite, which was absolutely terrific in giving me the support and research that I needed to try to get the Bill through. The National Farmers Union was also extremely helpful in getting it through and in championing the ethical trading initiatives that were around at the time.

One individual who was particularly helpful during that period was the then Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale, Geraldine Smith, who was extremely supportive in helping me as regards what happened to the cockle pickers. Another individual who was greatly supportive was the then national secretary of the Transport and General Workers Union, now my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey), who offered his experience in trying to get the Bill through. Also very helpful and supportive were the legal gangmasters—the guys who operated on a legal basis—because they had operated in a legal field while the other people were undermining them by trying to get labour at cheap prices.

Some organisations, I have to say, were dragged to the negotiations by their fingernails—namely, the major retailers, who really did not want to get involved in this and wanted to exploit the farmers who were engaged in the industry. The farmers were getting a very bad deal from the major retailers, so we made sure that the retailers played ball.

To correct a fact about the gangmasters legislation, the myth is that it was drawn up in response to the tragedy of the Morecambe bay cockle pickers, but in fact it was introduced before that unfortunate incident because Unite had already experienced the inequities that were happening in the construction industry, the care industry, and so on. That is why the Bill was launched some months before the dreadful situation surrounding the Chinese cockle pickers.

Nevertheless, what happened to the cockle pickers was the catalyst in getting support for the Bill. Just imagine, if you will, that you are on a cold, sandy beach surrounded by water that is coming to drown you, you cannot speak English, and there is no one there to take any responsibility for you. All that was left for these people was to use their mobile phones to phone home to China to tell their relatives that they were in the process of dying. The gangmasters who took them on did nothing to help them. That is why the gangmasters Bill was a good and effective piece of legislation, and even now, as we speak, it has the potential to be even better and more effective.

[Michael Connarty]

Everything that my hon. Friend said about the struggle that he had to convince a number of organisations at the time is true. Does he know that on 21 August the Ethical Trading Initiative and the British Retail Consortium wrote to the Prime Minister in support of proposed amendments to the Bill, and, as part of that submission, called for the Gangmasters Licensing Authority to be strengthened and extended to cover hospitality, construction, and many other industries? My hon. Friend has converted a lot of people by showing that his legislation made a difference to people involved with gangmasters.

[Jim Sheridan]

There is no doubt in my mind whatsoever that the legislation must be extended.

We introduced the gangmasters legislation under a Labour Government, and I have to say that it was extremely difficult to try to convince Ministers that it was the right way to go. We decided to go with it as it stood in terms of the shellfish and agriculture industries, arguing that it should subsequently be extended to other sectors, and the Government said that we could extend it if it worked. In my view, it did work, and we set up the Gangmasters Licensing Authority. Prior to that, the gangmasters never paid any tax or national insurance, and neither did the exploited workers. The GLA cleaned its face: it got people to pay income tax and the workers to pay national insurance. In effect, it was a self-funding process. If that rationale were extended to take in construction and the service and hospitality sectors, I think the GLA would be a more effective organisation. The Modern Slavery Bill could have sought to prevent exploitation of forced labour by expanding the remit of the GLA.

--- Later in debate ---

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

We are really short of time in this debate, so I apologise for taking more, Madam Deputy Speaker. If there are any talent spotters on the Government Front Bench, I think the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Sir John Randall) has an excellent role in the other place.

I chair the Public and Commercial Services Union parliamentary group—we are writing to the Gangmasters Licensing Authority about the new clauses in this group—but let me say that we have now gone beyond the stage at which we can continue to will the objectives without willing the means. Adequate staff and resources are needed to ensure that the GLA is effective.

To turn briefly to the new clauses and the amendment tabled in relation to prostitution, I apologise to all Members of the House for inundating them with briefings over the past 48 hours. I am very sorry, but this debate came up in a hurry, and it was important to give people the chance to express their views. I have always respected my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart), who is very well intentioned. I support new clause 7 because developing a strategy is critical, and amendment 1, which is the decriminalisation amendment, but I am fundamentally opposed to new clause 6, because it is worrying, counter-productive and dangerous. New clause 22 would give us the opportunity and enough time to undertake a proper review.

I know that sex work is abhorrent for some Members. I must say that in the years since I convened some of the first meetings of the Ipswich Safety First campaign in this House, after five women were killed there, I have met a number of men and women who were not coerced into sex work and do not want their livelihoods to be curtailed by the proposed criminalisation of their clients. It is true that I have met many others who entered prostitution to overcome economic disadvantage—they suffered in poverty to enable them to pay the rent and put food on the table for their children—but that has been made worse by welfare benefit cuts, escalating housing costs and energy bills. The answer is not to criminalise any of their activities, but to tackle the underlying cause by not cutting welfare benefits and ensuring people have an affordable roof over their heads and giving them access to decent, paid employment.

The whole issue has focused on the idea that by stopping the supply of clients, prostitution will somehow disappear, as will all the exploitation, trafficking and violent abuse. The Swedish model has been suggested as an example, but there was absolutely overwhelming opposition to it in the briefings that I have circulated. Those briefings have come from charities such as Scot-Pep—the Scottish Prostitutes Education Project—which is funded by the state; the Royal College of Nursing, the nurses themselves; and the Global Network of Sex Work Projects, which is another Government-funded organisation to get women and others off the game, that nevertheless says that the Swedish model would be counter-productive.

The Home Office has commissioned academic research, and I have circulated a letter from 30 academics from universities around the country that basically says that the proposed legislation is dangerous. We must listen to sex workers: the English Collective of Prostitutes, the Sex Worker Open University, the Harlots collective, the International Committee on the Rights of Sex Workers in Europe—flamboyant names, but they represent sex workers, and all are opposed to the criminalisation of clients.

[Michael Connarty]

Could my hon. Friend quote some sources from Sweden? I understand that in Sweden they do not take that view.

[John McDonnell]

I will come straight to that point, but let me go through the other organisations we have listened to: lawyers, human rights bodies such as Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and UN Aid, and even the women’s institute down in Hampshire—I warn hon. Members never to cross the women’s institute anywhere—as well as members of the Ipswich Safety First coalition who dealt with the deaths those years ago.

What is the consensus? It is that there is no evidence that criminalising clients as in the Swedish legislation reduces the number of either clients or sex workers. I could quote at length—time we have not got—from the Swedish Government’s report that demonstrates that there is no correlation between the legislation they introduced and a reduction in numbers of clients or sex workers.