Counter-terrorism
Paul Blomfield Excerpts(9 years, 1 month ago)
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Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
I am tempted to respond to some of the points made by the hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash), but, in the interests of time, I will not.
In his opening remarks, the Minister underlined the widespread recognition, on both sides of the House, of the need to combat the threat of terrorism. That recognition, I am sure, exists well beyond the House, among people of all faiths and none, and nowhere more so than in my constituency where I have a strong Muslim community. It is a tragedy for communities, for families and for the young people themselves who get sucked into the tyranny of the so-called Islamic State. Certainly those in my local Muslim community are quick to point out that that is an abuse of words, because Islamic State is neither Islamic nor a state.
We need to be clear and to take care in our response to the threat of terrorism that we do not exacerbate the problem by reacting in a way that further alienates some sections of our communities. The risk of that has been made clear to me during my recent visits to mosques in my constituency by the very people who feel passionately that we need to resist the threat of terrorism. We also need to be careful not to respond in a way that puts undeliverable responsibilities on our institutions, and it is to that point that I will speak briefly, raising concerns about the guidance regarding higher education that apply equally to the section on further education.
Universities, like all public organisations, have clear responsibilities under the Human Rights Act to ensure freedom of expression, but universities have unique additional responsibilities. I am pleased that the Minister acknowledged that in his opening speech, when he spoke about the need to balance the struggle against terrorism and the implementation of the guidance with the responsibility to maintain academic freedom and the opportunity for debate in our institutions of higher education. I am pleased also that, in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson), he made it clear that the guidance would not take effect until the guidance on speakers is approved, not simply published as he said in his opening remarks—clearly, it was a slip of the tongue. It is reassuring that approval of the further guidance is needed before the rest takes effect.
The Minister will know, because I have mentioned it before, that 29 years ago, in my previous career in the universities sector, I drafted a code of practice on freedom of speech for the university of Sheffield. That was required in every university across the country under the Education (No. 2) Act 1986, introduced by the then Conservative Government, with the aim of ensuring that universities maintained that commitment to freedom of speech. The hon. Gentleman will know that the Act imposes on universities a duty to ensure that use of their premises
“is not denied to any individual or body of persons on any ground connected with…the beliefs or views of that individual”.
We considered that when we debated the Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill, now the 2015 Act, but I think it remains unclear—I hope the consultation will produce some clarity—how the requirements of the 1986 Act sit alongside the responsibilities in paragraph 105 of the guidance.
Sir William Cash
Is the hon. Gentleman asserting that there is an absolute right to freedom of speech in all circumstances? Does he place any limitation on it?
Paul Blomfield
No, I am not asserting that. The right of freedom of speech is conditional in a number of ways. We have put in place legislation against incitement to racial hatred, for example. It is a question of how to get the balance right.
My point is that we need to avoid conflicting legislation, and there is a potential conflict between the guidance and the 1986 Act. For example, what position would a university be in if an action were brought by a third party to challenge a decision made under the provisions of this guidance on the basis of the university’s responsibility under the 1986 Act? Unless there is absolute clarity when the final guidance is published, universities may find themselves in a time-wasting and expensive legal quagmire, which apart from anything else sits uncomfortably with the Government’s views on unnecessary red tape.
My second concern relates to the general duty placed on universities to act against what is described as non-violent extremism, and it echoes a point made by my hon. Friend the shadow Minister. Non-violent extremism is defined in the guidance as:
“opposition to fundamental British values, including democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance”.
It is absolutely right to describe those values as fundamental to our society, but they are meaningful only if they allow space for those who do not share them. Clearly, as I said a moment ago in response to an intervention from the hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash), society does impose limits—for example, on incitement to racial hatred—but such limits have created crimes defined by this Parliament. The difficulty here is that we are giving our universities a responsibility to ban activities which are not themselves illegal, where the act of banning them may be seen by some to be in conflict with the very values that we are trying to protect.
We treasure our universities as the institutions that need to be able to debate our fundamental values. It was for that reason that the then Conservative Government included provisions on freedom of speech in the 1986 Act. We need to take great care when we legislate on these issues, and I fear that the guidance as it stands leaves too many unanswered questions.
Oral Answers to Questions
Paul Blomfield Excerpts(9 years, 1 month ago)
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Mrs May
We could have an interesting debate about my hon. Friend’s last comment, and I am grateful to him for not suggesting that the princes in the tower is an historic case that the police should take up today. The point he made about those in Leicester coming together yesterday from all parts of the community and celebrating British values is an important one. It is exactly what I was speaking about this morning, when I said that we need a partnership of individuals, communities, families and Government, going across Government and including other agencies, to promote our British values and what it is to live here in the United Kingdom and to be part of our British society.
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
The Home Secretary will know that one of her former Cabinet colleagues and a former chief inspector of prisons were among those of us from all parties and both Houses on the recent inquiry into immigration detention which recommended that the Government learn from best practice abroad where alternatives to detention not only allow individuals to live in the community, but are more effective in securing compliance, and at a much lower cost to the public purse. Will she respond positively to our recommendations?
James Brokenshire
I have already indicated that we are examining the points made in the recent all-party parliamentary group report, but I have to say to the hon. Gentleman that there is a need for detention in managing immigration and ensuring that we can remove people safely and appropriately. It is also worth underlining that we cannot detain people indefinitely. This is about the perspective of ensuring that there is the ability to remove, and that is the way in which the Government operate the rules.
Modern Slavery Bill
Paul Blomfield Excerpts(9 years, 1 month ago)
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Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
I commend the Minister for the passion with which she spoke earlier about the vulnerability of victims. I do not doubt her integrity or motives, and I am grateful for the time that she found to talk to me and the policy director of Focus on Labour Exploitation—that is one NGO in the long list cited by the shadow Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson), that shares the concerns about the way the Government are approaching this issue.
A number of Government Members have spoken with equal passion about the importance of getting the Bill into statute, and the Opposition share that. The simplest way would have been for the Government not to have challenged Lords amendment 72, because it helps to ensure that our efforts to combat modern slavery are not undermined by an immigration system that ties workers into slavery.
We are now agreed across the House that the tied domestic worker visa effectively gives all power to employers and none to their vulnerable employees. It forces domestic workers who are exploited by their employers to make the unenviable choice between breaching their visa conditions or staying with an abusive employer. As was mentioned earlier, there have been three reviews on this issue: the first was by the Centre of Social Justice, which so often has the ear of the Government; the second was by my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field); and the third was by the joint legislative Committee on this Bill. All reviews came to the same conclusion: the tied domestic worker visa strengthens the hand of the slave master against the victim of slavery. The Government should not ignore those reviews and should recognise that Lords amendment 72 seeks to address the concerns raised. The amendment is not a silver bullet; it simply wrestles a small amount of power back to the domestic worker from her or his employer—that is all. If accepted, however, the amendment will help to prevent many cases of abuse.
As was mentioned earlier, those with an interest in these issues struggle to understand why the Government are so unwilling to accept the amendment. The Home Secretary has suggested that the Bill seeks to be “world leading”, but that was our pre-2012 position on this issue. My right hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) cited the kafala system that has led to countless cases of abuse in Lebanon, and NGOs used the pre-2012 UK overseas domestic worker visa as an example of best practice. We were commended for immigration rules that recognised
“the particular vulnerability of migrant domestic workers to exploitation and incorporate fundamental protections as a result.”
Later that year, we lost those protections, and the amendment seeks to restore them. If the Bill is to be taken seriously as a genuine effort to tackle modern-day slavery, Lords amendment 72 should stand unchanged.
Many of us are concerned that the Government are proposing not only to reject the amendment but to insert their own amendment that would provide domestic workers with the right to remain in the UK, but—this is an enormous but—only if they are determined to be a victim of trafficking by the authorities. I understand the Government’s reasoning, which the Minister has outlined, in seeking to secure prosecutions, but the protection of victims and securing prosecutions are not mutually exclusive aims.
Karen Bradley
The hon. Gentleman is making a powerful speech, and I thank him for mentioning Focus on Labour Exploitation, which is now part of our stakeholder group working on modern slavery. I want victims to go into the national referral mechanism to give them the support they need and to ensure that those vulnerable people who have been subjected to the most horrendous abuse get the right level of expert support. I want them to go into the NRM, so that we ensure that we give them back control of their lives. We have gone through a review and I fully accept that the NRM needs changes, but the new reviewed NRM is designed to give people the support they need.
Paul Blomfield
I understand what the Minister is saying, but let me explain why I think the Government’s approach is problematic. The Government’s amendments would mean that a domestic worker will have to take the risk of presenting to the authorities to gain the determination of being a victim of trafficking. The domestic worker would have to do so without legal advice, as legal aid would be granted only once referral is made. Secondly, they provide for no immigration enforcement action to be taken against domestic workers, should they breach immigration conditions, again only if they are found to be a victim of trafficking or slavery. That will do nothing to allay the genuine fears of domestic workers that, if they put their heads above the parapet to seek assistance, they could face deportation.
My hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) has made it very clear how the criminal justice system might treat victims in that situation. Indeed, they would face deportation if they decide they do not wish to go through the NRM, which should be their right. Therefore, far from achieving the desired result the Minister seeks to outline, the amendment risks achieving the absolute opposite: stopping victims coming forward and reducing the chances of prosecutions.
Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
If my hon. Friend were to consider, for example, normal industrial relations, it takes a lot for somebody—an individual who is an ordinary citizen of this country—to come forward and make a complaint about an employer. It must be 10 times worse for somebody whose immigration conditions are tied to an employer to come forward. The Minister may understand that point, but she is not addressing it adequately.
Paul Blomfield
My hon. Friend makes the point very powerfully: there is enormous pressure on victims not to come forward. The Government’s position is indicative of their whole approach. It puts the responsibility on victims to come forward to secure prosecutions to end trafficking. Unlike Lords amendment 72, which places the emphasis on how best to protect victims, the Government are instead trying, with their amendments, to refocus on the need for victims to do the authorities’ work for them. It almost suggests the victims are guilty of something if they do not want to take this enormous risk. The Minister is shaking her head, but the Government’s approach does not take account of why victims are scared to come forward, nor does it recognise that trafficked people are frequently trapped in a trafficking situation because of a fear—real or perceived—of authorities. Traffickers prey on that fear to hold victims in exploitative situations.
Fiona Mactaggart
Another problem with the Government’s proposed amendments relates to people who are exploited but not enslaved. For example, a woman domestic worker is more vulnerable to sexual exploitation, because she works in the private family home and so on, but she would not benefit from these protections because she could not enter the NRM. She is not enslaved, but she might have been a victim of sexual exploitation or rape. There is no mechanism to protect her.
Paul Blomfield
My right hon. Friend makes a very powerful additional point on why the Government’s approach is flawed.
My overriding concern is that, despite the Government’s stated commitment to tackling modern slavery, the Bill is still far too dependent on the victims rather than the state to identify the perpetrators of trafficking and slavery. That is not only morally wrong; unfortunately for the Government, it is also illegally flawed. The European Court of Human Rights has held that the state has a positive obligation to protect victims of trafficking and to investigate potential trafficking situations. Lords amendment 72 brings us much closer to meeting that positive obligation. It provides victims with a clear safety net: the ability to leave an exploitative situation without hesitation.
We all need to play our part to combat the horrific crime of modern slavery, but the agencies of government are legally obliged to take a proactive role in identifying potential cases. It seems that in the absence of an effective prevention strategy to meet that aim, the Government are depending on victims to pick up the slack when they really need proactive labour inspection and enforcement. That is a point I will make further, if I have the opportunity, in relation to Government amendment 77.
Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (UKIP)
I am grateful for your indulgence, Madam Deputy Speaker. I entered the Chamber during the speech by the right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson), who made some compelling points. I intended only to listen to the debate before making up my mind between the Government’s and the Opposition’s approach, and I am pleased that the differences seem to have narrowed. There appears, at least in the Home Secretary’s amendment, to be something of a spirit of compromise. I am surprised by the temperature of the debate on both sides of the House, because Parliament is acting in one of its better ways.
This debate has risen up the agenda very strongly in recent years. I do not think the Government should be criticised for putting a Bill through Parliament only just before Dissolution and I do not think the Opposition should be criticised for not having acted during 13 years in government. Politicians and society as a whole have turned their minds to this issue only recently. As far as I am concerned, I do not think I turned my mind to it before 2011. I apologise if I have got this wrong but it may have been a report from MigrationWatch UK that drew my attention to the sharply rising numbers of people—I think they were referred to at that time as being in the domestic servants category—coming into the country. The report asked whether that was right and appropriate.
The Government’s changes to the visa in 2012 were, overall, positive and they reduced the time that somebody could be an overseas domestic servant. It strikes me as understandable, if not necessarily right, that a family from overseas visiting this country for a relatively short period and who have a long relationship with the people who have been working in their household might wish to bring those people with them. They may be very well-off and used to having a level of service from particular individuals. What struck me as much less reasonable was for that relationship to persist for a very long time: very wealthy families coming to this country and permanently continuing to have staff who had previously worked for them, or bringing in new staff from their country of residence and using only those staff rather than employing people domestically.
In terms of immigration control, I fear there is something about the overseas domestic servant category that is liable to exploitation. I wonder whether there are shades of grey or whether there is a lack of clarity on where precisely the line is drawn when one moves from service to servitude and then to slavery. To try to change the law to mitigate, reduce and minimise—it would be wonderful if we could eliminate it—that exploitation is the right thing for this House to do. Moving from people being employed in that way for very long periods to a maximum of six months strikes me as definitely the right thing to do.
What the Government have done is really positive. Whether it is right to see this more from the criminal justice perspective, or whether we should simply allow people to switch to different employers in a more liberal way, as the House of Lords wants, is a difficult question. However, I believe there is a sincerity of approach on both sides of the House and that we have moved on hugely.
I assume the Lords amendment will be defeated in a Division and that the Government’s alternative amendment will pass. I hope that if the Lords come back again, it may be to find perhaps even further compromise, or to take some of the positives of the Lords approach and to consider some of the criticisms that the Opposition have made of the Home Secretary’s amendment. However, I agree that what is absolutely key is to pass the Bill.
We still need to focus on the diplomatic domestic service category, where people can work still for up to five years although I think it used to be six. I think that the prospect of prison is likely to have a persuasive effect on an abusive employer who employs someone in a private household for six months, although it will be a challenge to communicate to both overseas domestic workers and the families employing them that that consequence is a real one. In the diplomatic sector, however, given diplomatic immunity, I fear that that incentive might not be so great because the period that people are in service is much longer. I worry that, given the Government’s understandable concern for our relationships with foreign countries, we might not come close to eradicating servitude, if not modern slavery, in those categories. We must continue to focus on that area not just in legislation but through our foreign relations.
Paul Blomfield
I want to speak briefly to Lords amendment 77. I support it, but I have some concerns about how the consultation relating to the Gangmasters Licensing Authority was described by Ministers in the other place, first in relation to the consideration of changes to enforcement and licensing activity and, secondly, in relation to intelligence sharing and interaction with other agencies. On the first, it is important to emphasise that the interest shown in the role of the GLA throughout the passage of the Bill has been due to its status as a model of best practice internationally. Its strength lies in fulfilling the very letter of the new International Labour Organisation protocol and the recommendation to the forced labour convention—which this Government voted for just last year and intend to ratify shortly—calling for improved labour inspections and enforcement of labour laws as key prevention measures.
Will the Minister assure the House that consultation on changes to enforcement and licensing activity will give due consideration to the success of the GLA’s licensing and enforcement activity in its current form? I emphasise the words “in its current form”. General law enforcement is not a GLA responsibility and, should the GLA’s meagre resources be diverted into criminal investigations and crime control, as was suggested in the other place, its critical licensing and intelligence-gathering role would be compromised.
Much of the GLA’s strength lies in its ability to build relationships of trust with workers during its detailed intelligence-gathering work. Critically, that intelligence is often anonymous and relies on workers trusting that the GLA is independent of the Government. Vulnerable workers have expressed considerable mistrust for the GLA where it is considered to be too close to border security or the police. So will the Minister assure the House that the consideration of a role for the GLA in intelligence sharing will not pose challenges to its intelligence-gathering function?
At the recent GLA national conference in Derby, the Minister said that the review would ensure that the GLA would
“target the ‘right’ businesses, the ones who break the law, the ones who exploit their workers and the ones who subject them to servitude and slavery.”
I think everyone would agree that it is important to target the right businesses, but we want to ensure that the Home Office does not allow its emphasis on prosecution to obscure the complexity of the fight against modern slavery. We do not need another National Crime Agency or a new UK Border Agency; we need the Gangmasters Licensing Authority’s good practice in issuing and monitoring licences and in gathering intelligence extended to other sectors.
Throughout the debate on the Bill, businesses have made the point that many of them want to do the right thing, but that they cannot trade ethically and effectively police their supply chains here in the UK without adequate labour inspection and an enforcement framework. Recruitment agencies try to operate within the law but find their margins impossible and so undermine labour rights to save money. Gangmasters, whose business model depends on paying less than the national minimum wage, are overworking people and taking cuts for substandard accommodation. So we need a labour licensing, inspection and enforcement regime that offers assurances to good business, reduces the temptation to shave away at the corners of workers’ rights and absolutely outlaws the descent into forced labour.
Fiona Mactaggart
The Minister will not be surprised to find that I want to ask for more—I feel like Oliver sometimes—but let me start by saying thank you to all the members of the pre-legislative scrutiny Committee, to the members of the Public Bill Committee and to the Minister, because we have made real progress—I say that to Members from all parties. The Minister has often said that this is the first UK Bill to deal with modern slavery, but it will not be the last. So one thing I should like her to commit to—she has time in this debate to do so—is a review of the effect of this legislation within three years of its commencement. We are passing so much here that we need to test whether some of our anxiety about whether it will work, and some of her confidence that it will work, is well founded. Such a review would be a good foundation for looking to the future.
The second thing I want to ask for relates to Lords amendment 61, where the power to make regulations about victim care is explicit, but it is only a power to make regulations. There is a risk that for many months after this Bill victims of modern slavery in England will be less well cared for than victims of modern slavery in the other parts of the UK, which have passed legislation including powerful mechanisms for victim care. So will the Minister commit now—I believe that she is willing to do so, but it would be helpful if the commitment was made on the Floor of the House—to take the earliest opportunity to introduce regulations to ensure high standards of victims’ care following the review of the NRM.
My final point is about the Connarty-Mactaggart-Bradley issue, which is about supply chains. I really welcome the fact that supply chains are provided for in the Bill. The Minister will have noticed the debate in the House of Lords, which told us to learn from California about having no central spot where supply chain reporting happens. I have been struck by the keenness of companies on having a central spot, because good-quality companies will benefit from this legislation on supply chains. They are keen to ensure that there is proper comparability between the reports of different companies. The Minister could now say—it does not require legislation—that she will work with the commercial and voluntary sectors to try to establish a single repository for those reports, because if we do that, customers will be able to hold companies to account.
Oral Answers to Questions
Paul Blomfield Excerpts(9 years, 4 months ago)
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Mike Penning
The hon. Gentleman raises an important issue. We continue to keep a close eye on the regulations. I would not say that they are being reviewed, but we will look at whether they need to be addressed in view of that current threat.
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
Let me give the Home Secretary another chance to answer the question that she has failed to answer so far. When Sir James Dyson describes her plans to further restrict post-study work opportunities as a short-sighted attempt to win votes at the expense of the economic interests of the UK, it is a serious matter. Will she think again?
Mrs May
I say to the hon. Gentleman exactly what I have said in answer to the other questions that I have been asked on this matter. As a Government, we are very clear that the brightest and the best should be able to come here and we have no limit on the number of people who can come to an educational establishment to study for a genuine university degree, but we have sorted out, and continue to sort out, the abuse that remains from the system that was run by the last Labour Government.
Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill
Paul Blomfield Excerpts(9 years, 4 months ago)
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Mr Hancock
It is more than regrettable that that has happened—it is despicable. Of course the hon. Gentleman is right that it must have an effect on people. It would have an effect on me if I had that sort of problem. I know what it is like to have abuse thrown at me. I know what effect it had on me. Goodness knows how other people feel when they have abuse thrown at them day after day. I hate the thought that people in my constituency have stooped to cutting off a pig’s head and sticking it on the gatepost of an Islamic school. What sort of message does it send to young children going to school if there is a dead pig’s head stuck on a railing outside that school? It is appalling, and the hon. Gentleman is right to say that we must combat such things and be more realistic about allowing certain comments to go unchallenged. It is important that that message comes over loud and clear in debates such as this.
I hope that the Bill gets the support it deserves and that the promised resources are forthcoming and go to the right places. All of us involved in this issue for one reason or another must work hard with our communities and, most important, with those who are prepared to step out and say the right things, and encourage young men and women to think that there is an alternative to what they believe in. However, it is no good suggesting for one minute that those young men and women do not believe 100% in what they are doing at the present time, because they certainly do.
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
I will make a couple of brief points on amendment 20 and the impact of clauses 21 to 27 on universities, and I do so as someone who represents Sheffield’s two universities and more students than any other Member of the House.
Some 28 years ago, in my previous career in the university sector, I remember preparing a draft code of practice on freedom of speech in universities, to entrench further something that has traditionally always had a strong place in our higher education sector. I did so in response to the Education (No.2) Act 1986, introduced by the then Conservative Government, which sought to ensure that universities maintained that commitment to freedom of speech.
As I am sure the Minister is aware, that Act imposed a duty on universities to ensure that the use of their premises is
“not denied to any individual or body of persons on any ground connected with the beliefs or views of that individual”.
Universities have always taken this issue seriously and sought to fulfil their legal responsibilities, but it is not clear how that provision sits alongside new responsibilities in the Bill. What potential legal quagmire might a university find itself in if, for example, an action is brought by a third party to challenge a decision made under the provisions of this Bill, on the basis of the university’s responsibilities in the 1986 Act? That issue needs clarity so that we do not find ourselves in a very big mess.
My second point relates to the general, sweeping nature of the Government’s new powers in the Bill, and the potential for direct intervention in the governance of universities that it establishes. Amendment 20 deals with that issue, but the House would be making a big mistake to allow such a measure to proceed without ensuring proper parliamentary scrutiny. I understand that universities have been reassured by the Home Office that guidance is being prepared, but our difficulty is that we have not yet seen that guidance and do not know how the Government intend to proceed. It seems a fairly fundamental principle that Parliament ought to be able to scrutinise the initial guidance, and any subsequent guidance that the Government might issue should they feel that universities are not complying with requirements in the Bill. Amendment 20, which I hope the Minister is able to embrace, seeks to strengthen confidence in what the Government are trying to achieve by ensuring proper parliamentary scrutiny of the process, and that links to some of the imprecision in the language and description of terms in the Bill.
Modern Slavery Bill
Paul Blomfield Excerpts(9 years, 6 months ago)
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Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
I will indeed bear that in mind, Madam Deputy Speaker, and will speak briefly, although I think that the issues that I wish to raise are fairly substantial. While I agree with all who have congratulated the Members on both sides of the House who have brought us to this point, I think that there is still a lack of action on key issues, and that the Bill, as it stands, falls a long way short of providing justice for victims of slavery.
There are three core gaps in the Bill. First, we need to get the definitions right, which is the aim of my new clause 24. If we do not do that, we shall risk leaving open legal loopholes that will allow traffickers to thrive. Secondly, the Bill must deliver for victims, which is the aim of new clause 21. Thirdly, there are issues in relation to prevention, which I hope to address later in the debate around new clause 1.
The definition of human trafficking was established in an internationally binding treaty and was integrated into the national laws of some 134 countries. That definition brings with it significant victim protection and a comprehensive framework for addressing trafficking, which is why I propose that we return to that in new clause 24. Unlike the international definition of trafficking, the trafficking provision in this Bill does not criminalise the “harbouring” or the “reception” or the
“exchange or transfer of control”
of victims or even the “recruitment” of victims where those acts do not involve the arrangement or facilitation of travel. We should recognise that there is a real problem in cases involving large criminal networks where different people take different roles in the trafficking process. There is also a problem where victims arrange their own travel into and around the UK and to the site of exploitation, as often occurs when individuals are deceived about work conditions or conditions deteriorate over time. The Bill’s definition, which is narrowly focused on the movement of victims, adds nothing but confusion and will let traffickers off the hook for the crimes they commit, as my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) pointed out.
Let me turn briefly to the purpose of new clause 21. In its current form, it is hard to see what this Bill would provide for the 40 Hungarian men found last year living in squalid conditions and forced to work for less than £2 a day in a mattress factory in Dewsbury, west Yorkshire. The men were barely surviving on limited food. They were crammed into a two-bedroom flat and threatened with violence if they resisted. They were exploited by gangmasters who supplied their forced labour to a factory run by the bed manufacturer KozeeSleep, which provides its products to some of our major national retailers.
Those victims of human trafficking have a right to compensation for the appalling wrongs that have been inflicted upon them. Clauses 8 and 9 include provisions for reparation orders to be made in cases where the perpetrator is convicted and a confiscation order is made, but from 2011 to 2013 only 252 trafficking and forced labour cases were prosecuted, and just 78 of them—less than a third—resulted in convictions. Not only are conviction rates low, but compensation orders are rare. The Government do not keep statistics on this, but we know from victim support providers that they are few and far between. I have tabled new clause 21 to allow victims themselves to bring civil claims in the county court, to seek compensation directly from the trafficker—not from the public purse—in the many cases where a criminal prosecution has not been possible. A similar provision is currently in use in the US Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act 2003, and is frequently used successfully to secure compensation for trafficking victims.
These steps are essential to get a Bill that makes a difference to the lives of victims. We must get the very foundations of this Bill right by aligning our definitions with international law and, where people are exploited, making absolutely sure that they are compensated for the abuse suffered. I recognise that we may not get that through agreement on these amendments today, but I hope that these issues will be addressed when the Bill is debated in another place. These measures, together with real action on prevention, can make the difference between a Bill that will deliver headlines and a Bill that will deliver justice.
Stephen Barclay
The official figures for this year showed that more people were trafficked for labour exploitation than for sexual exploitation. The crux of that is money, and new clause 20, which is supported by the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Sir John Randall), seeks to identify how we can make it easier to recover money from criminals and strike at the heart of what is driving this trafficking trade.
There are two reasons why at present we recover so little from this organised crime. According to the National Audit Office and the Public Accounts Committee, we currently recover just 23p in every £100 that is identified as criminal assets. That has two results. First, increased pressure is placed on law enforcement agencies when, at a time of austerity and many other demands, investment in forensic investigators is often not a priority. The second reason relates to the high hurdles relating to evidence, which create a disincentive for the Crown Prosecution Service to apply for restraint orders. If there is insufficient evidence, the CPS can incur costs through losing an application. The resulting delay in freezing assets often means that they can be difficult to trace and expensive to identify. The Joint Committee has looked at this matter.
The new clause seeks to make it easier to freeze assets within the first 24 or 48 hours. I know that my right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip has spoken in the House previously on the merits of that, and of learning from the example in Italy. Amendment 151 seeks to achieve that in relation to the presumption about criminal assets being dissipated post-arrest. We need to give the police a clearer incentive to invest in forensic investigators. If I were a chief constable, why would I make such an investment this year if I knew that it would take several years to recover the money, and that if the money were recovered, the Home Office would take 50% of it? We need to change that. We need to overcome the objections of the Home Office and the Treasury so that those who carry out the investigations are those who benefit from the assets that are secured, once the victims have been compensated.
We also need to place a higher duty on financial advisers. At the moment—I say this having worked for such an institution—it is very easy to hide behind a suspicious activity report. In essence, that report is a defensive mechanism, and more than 350,000 are filed with the Serious Organised Crime Agency each year. At the point of an arrest following an investigation by financial investigators, a higher duty should be placed on financial institutions, should they then choose to move the assets in question. We should freeze any assets over and above those that are required for reasonable living and business costs, so that money can less easily be moved offshore. We should also require an asset declaration that could be used to demonstrate an aggravating factor, should assets that had not been declared be discovered following further investigation.
There is a suggestion from the Home Office that some of these issues will be addressed in the Serious Crime Bill, but it is clear that it will not address many of the matters that have been raised in the Joint Committee and by Members here today, so I hope that the Minister will look again at the extent to which the measures in this Bill that relate to the financial proceeds of crime can be strengthened so that we can tackle the root cause of the problem—namely, the funds.
Modern Slavery Bill
Paul Blomfield Excerpts(9 years, 10 months ago)
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Mrs May
The hon. Gentleman mentions some figures. The difficulty in all this is that we do not know the figure. The work that was done by the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) and others suggested that it might be 10,000. Fewer than 2,000 have been referred to the national referral mechanism, which is the only firm statistical measure, but we are all pretty clear that the figure is larger than that. I am reviewing the national referral mechanism, and the work of that review will be taken into account when I publish the Government’s strategy later this year. As I have said, this is not just about legislation. Other actions that do not form part of a Bill need to be taken to help the victims and pursue the perpetrators.
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
Will the Home Secretary assure the House that the review of the NRM will be published before the Committee stage of the Bill?
Mrs May
The current intention is that an interim report will be published, which should be available before the Committee stage is completed, but the final review will be published in the autumn alongside the Government’s strategy.
We have listened carefully to the findings of the pre-legislative Committee and, where practicable, we have addressed its key concerns. We can all play a part in tackling this scourge. As Bernard Hogan-Howe, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, said at the modern slavery conference at the Vatican in April:
“We need to make combating human trafficking part of everyone’s consciousness. As with our fight against terrorism, prevention is better than cure. … Much misery and distress can be prevented if more of us pay attention to something that does not look or feel right, then care enough to do something about it.”
The Modern Slavery Bill will help ensure that we can tackle slavery in its modern form. With cross-party support, we have an opportunity to make a real difference to the lives of today’s victims.
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
Like other Members, I commend both the Home Secretary on prioritising and championing this legislation, and the Government on providing the House with the opportunity to grapple with a problem that transcends any single Department. I share the comments made by the hon. Member for North East Cambridgeshire (Stephen Barclay) about the need for joined-up action across Government.
The question before us today is how best to legislate in order to achieve the outcome that we all want to see. We need to look honestly at the Bill and address its weaknesses. Without such action, we will fail to meet the challenge set by the hon. Member for Central Devon (Mel Stride) when he said that he wanted this legislation to put us in the vanguard of fighting modern slavery.
Many hon. Members have said that victims must be at the centre of our response to modern slavery, and that is clearly right because they are at the centre of the crime. But experts in the field are clear that any effective response must address what my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) called the three Ps—to prevent such action being exacted against another human being, to protect victims and provide remedy and restitution to those who have been harmed, and to prosecute those who have committed such acts. We need to be clear that without all three, any attempt to solve the problem will fall short. The weakness of the legislation is that the Home Secretary has apparently thought long and hard about the third pillar, which is prosecution, but has given insufficient attention to the first and second pillars, prevention and protection, on which this Bill has too little to say.
A number of Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Slough, have talked strongly and passionately about the protections and assistance that victims require, and that is right, but I want to focus my remarks on the first of the three fronts on which modern day slavery must be fought, and that is prevention.
Prevention is included in this Bill only where a crime has already been committed, or a person is suspected of having committed a crime of slavery or human trafficking. The proposed slavery and trafficking prevention orders and slavery and trafficking risk orders in clauses 15 and 23 will enable the courts to place restrictions on the activities of those who have been convicted, or those who have been involved in an offence, but not convicted. I acknowledge that those are positive measures, but surely they are too late to count as true prevention because, by definition, prevention stops an act from happening at all.
It is widely recognised that prevention requires a strong labour inspection system as a first line of defence against exploitation in the employment market. Experts in this area, including Focus on Labour Exploitation, of which I am a board member, are clear that effective monitoring and enforcement of labour standards is key to preventing acts of trafficking for labour exploitation. Indeed, many cases of labour exploitation have been uncovered in high-risk sectors such as agriculture and food processing by the Gangmasters Licensing Authority. For example, in the case of DJ Houghton Ltd, 29 Lithuanian men were found to have been treated like slaves. They were used to catch free range chickens for one of the UK’s largest processers of eggs and chickens. I am talking not about small players, but major companies.
Following its UK country visit in September 2012, the Council of Europe group of experts on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings advised the UK Government to
“step up their efforts to discourage demand for the services of trafficked persons...through strengthening the role of labour inspections.”
I welcome the fact that just last month, the UK Government voted in favour of a new protocol and recommendation to the Forced Labour Convention at the International Labour Congress that called for improved labour inspections. The Government themselves were acknowledging that that was an essential prerequisite. They also called for an enforcement of labour law as a key prevention measure. This is the elephant in the room with regard to the Government’s approach to modern slavery, because the same Government who are seeking to tackle this issue have launched a comprehensive attack on labour inspectorates; limited labour inspections; and, in their eagerness to slash red tape, removed vital protections for workers.
In a report published only today, the Government’s own Migration Advisory Committee has highlighted this issue as a major problem. It has said that, because of the resources that are available to pursue this essential work, employers can expect a minimum wage compliance visit once every 250 years, and, at the current rate, face prosecution once every million years. That is the Government’s own committee.
The Health and Safety Executive has had its funding reduced by 35% and has reduced its proactive inspections by one third since 2011. Cases opened by the national minimum wage inspectorate have fallen from a peak of 4,773 in 2007-08 to 1,615 in 2012-13 and, as we know, there are very few criminal prosecutions for failure to pay the minimum wage—only one in 2010-11 and one in 2012-13.
Mr Frank Field
Does what my hon. Friend said earlier about the actual prosecution rate not give a new meaning to “a millennium goal”?
Paul Blomfield
I could not have put it better myself, and I thank my right hon. Friend for his timely intervention and for all his work on this issue, for which he has won respect from those on both sides of the House.
It is all well and good for the Government to announce increases in fines for non-payment of the national wage, but without enforcement those increased fines exist only on paper. Instead of reforming the employment agency standards inspectorate, the Government effectively disbanded it in all but name in July 2013.
Modern-day slavery thrives in the UK, feeding off victims’ vulnerability, dependency and marginalisation. Victims are coerced through physical means, including violence, and more commonly through psychological means, including the abuse of power, deception and threats, as many Members have highlighted. Exploiters use vague employment relationships and arrangements as well as hidden costs, fees and debts owed by workers to trap people in precarious situations, preying on the vulnerability that pervades high-risk employment sectors.
Let me give another example. As we know, increasing numbers of construction workers in this country face the problem of false self-employment. Although the number of the construction work force has been falling, the Union of Construction, Allied Trades and Technicians reports that the number of self-employed workers in construction rose by 37,000 between 2009-10 and 2011-12. It estimates that about half of those are falsely self-employed. That precarious employment status leaves construction workers extremely vulnerable to abuse, as employers are absolved of responsibility for their employment rights and entitlements. Despite recognising that false self-employment is a problem, the Government have reduced safety protections for two thirds of all self-employed workers.
I urge the Home Secretary to consider extending the remit of the Gangmasters Licensing Authority into industries such as construction. Hospitality, care and cleaning are vital sectors, as they are industries where there is a high risk of forced labour and exploitation that particularly affects women.
As I said earlier, the Home Secretary deserves credit for pushing the issue of modern-day slavery to the front of the political agenda, but political decisions taken elsewhere in Government will determine whether she is successful. However well meaning her intentions, the good work in the Bill risks being undermined by the Government’s consistent attack on employee rights and protections. It is disingenuous of the Government to say that they are combating modern slavery with one hand while the other hand is actively promoting the conditions under which that slavery can take root.
Worker protections have been sacrificed through measures introduced by the Government such as reduced health and safety reporting requirements, limits on health and safety protections for self-employed workers and the introduction of fees for employment tribunals. The enforcement of GLA licence violations has been undermined by the light sentences awarded in many labour exploitation cases. Offenders receive only small fines, convictions without punishment or suspended sentences and too often victims receive no remedies.
The prevention of modern-day slavery means ensuring that the cracks in our labour protection framework that permit widespread abuse against global workers are closed. To do that, we need an effective labour inspectorate that engages with workers to gather vital intelligence about those who exploit their vulnerabilities. We need a strengthened and adequately resourced GLA, acting as an intelligence gathering and enforcement agency with a remit extended to high-risk sectors such as construction, hospitality, care and cleaning. We need a GLA that can enforce unpaid wages and other payments due to workers to ensure employment law is effective in practice. Finally, we need a GLA that sits within the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, not the Home Office, with employment law enforcement rather than border control as its key priority.
I hope that the Home Secretary will work with Members on both sides of the House and organisations external to the House that want to strengthen the Bill in that regard. However, the debate in which the Home Secretary needs to engage most pertinently is not the one taking place in this Chamber but the one with her Cabinet colleagues whose agenda on labour market reform and red-tape cutting has directly undermined her attempts to address modern slavery with this Bill.
Oral Answers to Questions
Paul Blomfield Excerpts(9 years, 10 months ago)
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Damian Green
Many police and crime commissioners across the country have taken different decisions about taxation, and across the country we have seen crime coming down. Of course the great virtue of the system we have introduced is that if people in Gloucestershire or anywhere else are unhappy with the decisions taken by their PCC, they can, unlike under the old system, vote in 2016 to get rid of them. That is why introducing democracy into police governance is a good thing.
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
T9. My constituent Peter Hobson works hard, but earning the minimum wage for a 40-hour week will never enable him to pass the income threshold for his wife to obtain a visa to live with him in the UK under the rules introduced by the Government two years ago. In a parliamentary answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) on 6 December 2012, the then Minister for Immigration committed the Government to keeping the impact of these rules on family life “under review”. Will the Home Secretary publish the outcome of that review?
James Brokenshire
I hear the point the hon. Gentleman has made, but he may also know that an outstanding case at the Court of Appeal is precisely examining these issues. The Government are awaiting the judgment on that case and, obviously, we will reflect further in the light of it.
Student Visas
Paul Blomfield Excerpts(9 years, 10 months ago)
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James Brokenshire
Absolutely. I can certainly confirm that to my hon. Friend. He makes a number of important points about presentation and how others seek to present a false picture of our immigration system and the important requirements that we have. We can puncture some of the myths that are perpetrated overseas. Ministers visiting those key countries seek to underline that, but we have firm processes and procedures in the visa system for a purpose—to prevent abuse—and that is why steps such as interviews are important safeguards against those who are not legitimate, who are not genuine and who seek to abuse our hospitality.
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
We clearly all welcome the action against bogus colleges taken by this Government and their predecessor, but is the Minister concerned that, contrary to the Prime Minister’s declared objective to increase international student numbers, for the first time in 29 years bona fide international student numbers are falling and our competitors are benefiting? When will the Minister listen to the recommendations of seven Select Committees of this House and the other place on the action needed to restore our competitive advantage?
James Brokenshire
The latest report from the Higher Education Funding Council for England, published on 10 April, shows a 3% increase in the number of undergraduate entrants between 2012-13 and 2013-14, a 1% increase in postgraduate course entrants and a 5% increase in postgraduate research entrants. We are focusing on ensuring that genuine students are attracted to the UK for study and that we continue to attract the brightest and the best, but it is important also to focus on the substance of what I have said—on ensuring that we are rigorous in our approach to those who seek to exploit our system. I know of the hon. Gentleman’s personal interest in the matter, and I respect his point, but his party appears to want to set an arbitrary growth target, which only risks further abuse.
Immigration Bill
Paul Blomfield Excerpts(10 years ago)
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Sarah Teather
I am sorry that the Minister is upset, but it means that he has heard me.
If an unaccompanied, vulnerable child turns up at a police station, the police do not put them in a cell, but get in touch with social services. Why can we not do the same for unaccompanied children who come here as migrants or to apply for asylum? Why do we need to detain them? Surely our duty is to protect them. There is plenty of legislation that allows us to do that, and I have not heard an example of detention being required as opposed to protection with appropriate powers of social services.
What really bothers me is whether this is a preamble to a more significant change in policy on the forced removal of unaccompanied, asylum-seeking children. Currently, the United Kingdom does not routinely remove unaccompanied, asylum-seeking children, but it is probably the worst kept secret that the Home Office wants to be able forcibly to remove more unaccompanied children, particularly to Albania and Afghanistan. My concern is that the Government’s amendment leaves wide open the possibility of a drastic expansion of forced removal of children. Instead of moving towards the ending of detention of children for immigration purposes, the clause could allow more unaccompanied children to be detained for the purposes of removal. I am desperately hoping that the Minister will tell me that my fears are ill founded, and I will be delighted if he does so. I hope that he can answer my other specific points about why we cannot simply involve social services and protect children in the small number of such cases instead of detaining them using enforcement powers.
My amendments to Government amendments 6 and 7 also relate to child detention and essentially ask for clarification and strengthening of our 2010 commitment not to split families to achieve compliance with the immigration process. The Minister will be aware that Barnardo’s, which works closely with the Government at Cedars, has produced a report stating that family splits are, unfortunately, sometimes used to effect enforcement of immigration provisions. We agreed in 2010 that we would not do that, and my amendments seek to strengthen that commitment and to make it clearer. In particular, there are sometimes cases when a parent lives away from the family temporarily. The obvious case is when they are in immigration detention, but similar cases are when someone has been sectioned, is in hospital or is in prison. I am worried that the legislation as drafted does not capture such cases or consider the best interests of children, and is not in the spirit of the agreement that we negotiated in 2010.
Finally, I tabled an amendment to Lords amendment 19 to clarify that the best interests of the child should continue to be a primary consideration in all cases involving children. The Joint Committee on Human Rights criticised the Government, saying that they have
“not explained how in practice the provisions in the Bill are to be read alongside the section 55 duty. Without such explanation there is a danger that front-line immigration officials administering the legal regime will be unclear about the relationship between the children duty in section 55 and the new tests introduced by the Bill which use different and unfamiliar language.”
Lords amendment 19 goes some way to meeting that concern, and I explored some of the issues in amendments tabled on Report. It confirms that it is necessary to take into account the need to safeguard and promote the welfare of children in the UK, but I am worried that it does not go far enough because the section 55 duty applies only to the Home Secretary and not to the courts. My amendment makes it clear that consideration of children’s welfare should always be the primary concern. That is necessary because there is growing evidence that recent immigration rules are negatively impacting on decision makers’ understanding of what factors should be taken into account when considering the best interests of children. For example, research last year by Greater Manchester’s immigration aid unit into unaccompanied, asylum seeking children found that, in seven of 10 cases analysed, the Home Office failed to carry out any determination of the child’s best interests. Similarly, last year’s audit of Home Office procedures by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees highlighted the lack of any systematic collection or recording of information necessary to determine a child’s best interests. That includes the lack of a process to obtain the view of the child. This proposal simply tries to make sure that the Government do the things they say are their priority. At the moment, the Bill still leaves some confusion.
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
I want briefly to seek clarification in relation to international students and the changes that have been made to the Bill in relation to landlord checks. I pay tribute to Lord Hannay and others who have pressed this point in the House of Lords. I regret that students are included in the Bill at all, and I know that many Members on both sides of the House feel that they have no place in this debate.
The point relates to the changes that have given powers to universities to nominate students to occupy accommodation. That is a welcome move, and I am glad that the Government have accepted it. Speaking for the Government, Lord Taylor said in the other place that
“nominating is just the naming of an individual as being a student at a higher education institution…It is a form of vouching for the genuineness of the student’s immigration status. That is all.”
Baroness Warwick asked whether it would be
“legal and proper for the landlord to enter into that arrangement even though at that point, because of the time involved and so on, the potential tenant has not actually got their visa?”
This is crucial, because there is a brief period between being accepted into an institution and being enrolled during which many students sort out their accommodation. In response to Baroness Warwick, Lord Taylor said:
“Yes, absolutely: that is the case.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 3 April 2014; Vol. 753, c. 1056-1057.]
That involves a potential contradiction.
Will the Minister confirm in his closing remarks, or in intervening on me now, that an institution can nominate a person who has accepted a university place and has been given a confirmation of acceptance to study, but is awaiting a visa, so that they can confirm their accommodation before they have been issued with their visa?
Mr Harper
I am grateful to be called to speak, Mr Deputy Speaker. I will make sure that I leave the Minister sufficient time to respond to the points that have been made. I will keep a close eye on you, and if you think I am not leaving adequate time, I am sure you will indicate firmly that I should sit down.
I support what the Minister said in rejecting Lords amendments 16 and 24. I very much want us to deal with those who have been trafficked and victims of modern slavery, but I want us to implement a system that will apply to all children who have been trafficked, and a system that works. I want that decision to be informed by the pilots that the Minister is conducting. That is because in England and Wales the local authority has the legal responsibility to look out for the best interests of those children. In some local authorities, that system works very well, but in many it does not. The legal position is clear, but what is important is not what the law says, by itself, but how it is implemented.
That is why I want to make sure that the Minister runs those pilots and looks at their results. He has clearly stated that he will make sure there is an enabling power in the draft Modern Slavery Bill and that the detail of how we bring these powers into effect can be informed by the pilots. He gave a very clear commitment at the Dispatch Box to use what is learned from the pilots to bring that into force. That is a sensible procedure. I agree with the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field): I think there is no disagreement in the points made by him, by the Minister and by the hon. Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy), who has long experience of these matters. We all want to achieve the same thing, and I want to make sure that it is done in the most practical way possible.
I welcome the moves in amendments 5 to 9 and 29 to 34 to put on to the Statute Book the Government’s current policy on the family returns process. I previously gave some commitments at the Dispatch Box when this matter was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert), and when the Bill was going through Committee, in saying that the Government would bring forward those amendments in the House of Lords. I am very pleased that my hon. Friend the Minister and his colleague, Lord Taylor of Holbeach, were able to do so. That is a great step forward that locks these provisions into place.
The manuscript amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Brent Central (Sarah Teather) are not helpful. The issue of an individual living in a household with the child is important. Otherwise, those who have no right to be in the United Kingdom but who happen to have a child here for whom they have no parental responsibility and with whom they have no contact will use that child as a legal tool to avoid being removed from the UK. What is worse, it would encourage people who have no right to be in Britain—a judge set this out clearly in his legal judgment on a specific case in which he jailed the relevant couple—to have children for the specific purpose of avoiding removal from the country. That is not in the interests of children or of the proper working of the immigration system, so I urge the House not to support the manuscript amendments.