Immigration Bill (Sixth sitting)
Sarah Champion Excerpts(8 years, 6 months ago)
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James Brokenshire
Matters of resourcing, and indeed the support that the director will require, are under careful consideration by Ministers. They are working on the recruitment of that individual and how that office will operate and be resourced. I would certainly wish to reflect further on the consultation, given its focus on the role and after hearing views in the debate on this Bill. We have not made final decisions about budgets or staffing—those decisions will be taken once there is agreement on the role and following the spending review. Clearly, the operation hub as part of that activity will be part of the overall examination of what is appropriate.
It is right that the consultation seeks views on the need for powers to share data and intelligence across the enforcement bodies and with other organisations. We are consulting a range of partners within and outside Government to understand what information they hold that might be of use to the director in designing the strategy to tackle performance and non-compliance and building the hub itself. We want to reflect further on how the hub is established, given what I have said about resourcing, the nature of the people who might need to be part of it, who would add the most value, and connections with different agencies. We have set the framework for this and I think that I have clearly set out the intent and what we wish to achieve. In implementation, we will certainly reflect on the further submissions received and the comments that have been made.
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
This really is not meant to be a difficult question. The Minister is putting a lot of weight on the consultation, as we are. Is there not the facility to pause proceedings on the Bill so that the findings of the consultation can actually affect the Bill and we achieve the best legislation, which is what we all want?
James Brokenshire
No, the provisions of clause 6 state that the director must gather, store, process, analyse and disseminate information relating to non-compliance in the labour market. It is important that we provide this statutory mechanism. Equally, in terms of further development and implementation, it is not appropriate for us to legislate while constantly taking into account further submissions. I do not think that that cuts across the need for clause 6 or the manner in which the labour market enforcement director would conduct his duties. I do not see them in any respect as being at odds. I hope that in the light of those points the hon. and learned Gentleman will be minded to withdraw his amendment.
Keir Starmer
I agree with my hon. Friend and am grateful for his intervention. What is important is that the objective behind the Bill is properly pursued. There is a real risk that introducing an offence against the employee will be counterproductive if it drives underground the very group of people who are the most vulnerable when there is little or no evidence that the offence is needed.
I want to go a little further than that, because this is an offence without any mental element in the Bill. It is strict in the sense that absent the right status, the offence is made out, and then it is an offence without a defence, which is an unusual combination in criminal law. For example, some people will be here working in the belief that they have the right status because they are sponsored by the employer or somebody else. However, unbeknown to them, they may not have status because their employer has not correctly completed all the necessary arrangements for sponsorship. They fall into a category of individuals who are here without the required status, but without any knowledge of that or any intention to be in that position. Given the inflexibility of the offence, they would be immediately criminalised without even the opportunity of raising a defence of reasonable excuse. Their defence would be, “I am working. I had understood that my employer or somebody else had completed all the necessary forms and legalities. It now transpires they haven’t, but I had absolutely no reason to think that to be the case.” At the very least, if the clause is to stand, such an offence—there could be many other examples—ought to have a reasonable excuse defence, and that argument lies behind the amendment.
Sarah Champion
I speak in support of my hon. and learned Friend. It is fundamentally wrong to make the employee a criminal—it makes no sense. I have not been convinced by any of the witnesses we have heard or any of the evidence that I have seen that this is the right way to achieve the Government’s objectives.
My main concern is that the measure will compound exploitation. I would like to quote Caroline Robinson, one of our witnesses, from FLEX—Focus on Labour Exploitation—who put the three issues more succinctly than I can. She said:
“First, we think that people will be fearful of coming forward to be referred into the UK national referral mechanism as victims of trafficking…The second reason is that we know that traffickers use the threat of deportation, removal and reporting to immigration officials in order to abuse and exploit workers…The third reason is something that was raised a lot on Second Reading, namely the criminalisation of trafficked persons. Although the Home Secretary set out the statutory defence, which is in the Modern Slavery Act 2015, it is quite narrow in its terms. The schedules exclude a number of offences for the victims of trafficking, such as aggravated criminal damage, but if I was to leave the building in which I was held I would no longer be covered by the statutory defence in the Modern Slavery Act.”––[Official Report, Immigration Public Bill Committee, 20 October 2015; c. 24-25, Q50.]
My biggest concern is that the measure will stop whistleblowers. How will we identify bad employers if the very people who can give us that evidence are too scared to come forward for fear of being criminalised? It is not only bad employers that could be overlooked, but health and safety risks that could impact on a number of employees.
I am pleased about the Modern Slavery Act, which is a good and strong piece of legislation. I am also very pleased that the Minister has made it clear that people are protected under the Act if they are trafficked into the country. If they are used as a slave, they are exploited. However, I would like clarification from the Minister about how someone will be dealt with if their status shifts. For example, if someone was trafficked into the country and forced into slavery, but then managed to escape and became an illegal worker, would they be protected because at the start of their journey they were protected under the Modern Slavery Act, meaning that they would be treated as a victim, or would they be criminalised because, at the end of their journey, they were an illegal worker? What happens the opposite way round? If a person comes to the UK as an undocumented worker and is then exploited by their employer, at what point would they be protected if, having come to the country illegally as a worker, they were then used as a slave?
Chloe Smith
The hon. Lady and I both served on the Committee that considered the Bill that became the Modern Slavery Act. I looked at the list of exemptions in that Act while we heard the piece of evidence that she quoted. It is worth reminding the Committee that there is a set of defences in the Act, and to that set of defences, there is a set of exemptions. In that set of exemptions—this is rather like a Russian doll, but bear with me—there is an exemption on this point of criminal damage. In other words, an individual might be at risk of being accused of criminal damage only if they had behaved recklessly and endangered somebody’s life. That is in the Modern Slavery Act 2015, which the hon. Lady and I debated. Has she reflected on that before trying to advance this line of argument that the provision is all one thing, rather than being nuanced?
Sarah Champion
I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention; she is always fantastic on detail. My answer is yes, but I am not a lawyer, so I would like the Minister to lay out, in language that a former charity worker can understand, the protections for people who are exploited. To be honest, I am unclear. A number of our witnesses said they were unclear, although I recall that clarification was sought on this point.
I will give the hypothetical example of a woman who paid a criminal gang for her passage here and came expecting a job. She was given a job, but then told that she had to pay additional costs, which took away all of her income, effectively making her a slave without legal protection under our current system. She could be beholden to that employer for an indefinite period and be too terrified to speak out, because I can guarantee that the employer would use the fact that she would be reported and become a criminal if she did.
I do not see how clause 8 helps that person in any way. I would like clarification from the Minister about how that person could have the confidence to come forward when their employer is telling them that they will be criminalised if they do so. Surely the best approach is to stick with clause 9, under which the employer becomes liable for the actions and will be criminalised for those actions.
We know where the employers are. They will be registered at Companies House and they will be filing their taxes. It will be a lot easier to follow that trail to get the prosecutions, particularly with limited resources, rather than spending an indefinite period trying to track down illegal workers when we do not know who they are, where they are working or their status, just on the off chance that we might catch and criminalise them so that we send out the right message. Surely it is better to go for the employers.
Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)
I wonder whether there is a misunderstanding, or at least an underestimation, of how vulnerable some of these workers are. Does the Minister realise the extent of their vulnerability? If he does, will he change his mind about criminalising those who work illegally?
I will cite an example of not a young vulnerable woman trafficked here as a sex slave, but someone whom hon. Members might use as an example of why we need to criminalise. On my travels a few years ago, I spent time with a man called Mehdi, who was fit and healthy in his mid-thirties. He was married to Rezi, who was pregnant with their first child. They sought asylum in the UK—I met him some years after all this happened—and ended up in Glasgow where, despite their best efforts, they were refused asylum because they could not prove they were in danger. She had a miscarriage and they were made destitute. They were told they would be deported and they embarked on a terrible downward spiral. They removed themselves from all support mechanisms, so frightened were they of being found and deported to certain danger, but they could not survive here, so Mehdi found a job. He knew he was not allowed to do that, as did his employers, who took advantage of that knowledge and made him work extremely long hours for £3 an hour.
Mehdi was abused, exploited and occasionally beaten. He was worked until he would regularly collapse with exhaustion, but he had no choice. Some Government Members might argue that he did have a choice because he could have gone back to his home country. However, he was not working not just to feed himself and get by in life in Glasgow, but to save money to buy false passports so that the couple could get out of the UK and away from the danger of deportation to his home country. Who among us would not do whatever it took to protect our loved ones and our own lives if we had to?
If the Bill had been in force when Mehdi was doing all that, what might the outcome have been for this loving and protective husband? This kindly but damaged man could very well have ended up in jail, followed by being deported to the country that he was so afraid of returning to. For him, the worst part would have been leaving his wife—
Paul Blomfield
I take the Minister’s point, but why give those who exploit yet another card to play? The threat of 12 months’ imprisonment and criminalisation is the card that will be exercised both in relation to those who have no right to be here, or to be working, and in relation to those who do.
Sarah Champion
One of our witnesses, Caroline Robinson from Focus on Labour Exploitation, said:
“We know that 78% of those exploited for their labour are, in fact, documented in the UK.”––[Official Report, Immigration Public Bill Committee, 20 October; c. 28, Q59.]
Paul Blomfield
My hon. Friend makes exactly the point that I was seeking to make. Even where people have rights to work, the lack of rights awareness and the intimidatory relationship between exploiter and exploited make this another card to play. I see the Minister is still shaking his head. Even if we were to restrict the measure simply to those who did not have the right to work, we are still giving the exploiter another card to intimidate and therefore make it less likely that people would be willing to whistleblow. I am happy for the Minister to intervene on me. Perhaps he could illustrate the evidence that suggests the clause will be of assistance—not the intuition, the belief, the view, but the evidence.
Paul Blomfield
The hon. Lady adds another dimension to my argument that the clause makes those who are already in a precarious situation more vulnerable and open to exploitation. In an earlier intervention, my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham mentioned the evidence given by Caroline Robinson from Focus on Labour Exploitation, which works directly with victims of trafficking for labour exploitation and of which I am the trustee along with some Members from other parties.
FLEX has identified three drivers of labour exploitation. The first is the feeling among migrant workers that they deserve less or have fewer rights than UK citizens. The second is a lack of checks on labour standards in the workplace, including everything from health and safety to minimum wage enforcement. The third is a fear of officials, especially of immigration officials. The Bill makes each of those drivers worse, and clause 8 has a particular effect on the first and third factors.
First, on the rights of migrant workers, the clause puts the focus on immigration status as a condition of asserting labour rights. By criminalising the exploited worker, whether they are committing the offence of illegal working or not, they can be treated and threatened by a gangmaster as if they are. On the second driver, we have talked at length about a number of aspects of labour market enforcement. The Bill seems to reflect the Government’s desire to move further towards an intelligence-based approach to enforcement. Essential to that intelligence is whistleblowing. We need to ensure that we do nothing in the Bill to discourage exploited workers from coming forward and thereby give gangmasters another card to play. Sadly, the clause risks doing exactly that.
On the third driver of labour exploitation, the problem that we identified earlier—the overlap between labour market enforcement and immigration enforcement—is at the heart of the Bill. The clause gives undocumented workers another reason to be worried. The consequence is that labour exploitation is not rooted out and continues to be a pull factor for migration, which is against the Government’s policy objectives.
Mr Bone, I will take your advice. I will not ask the Minister to intervene, but I press him to share evidence from anywhere in the world that shows that the approach of criminalising workers, unlike many other aspects of the Bill with which we agree, assists in the policy objective that he outlined and we share.
Sarah Champion
Will my hon. Friend comment on something else that Caroline Robinson said, which gets to the nub of his point that clause 8 does not meet the Government’s objective? She said:
“What we think will prevent people from working here undocumented is to reduce the demand for undocumented workers. To do that, we require enforcement of labour standards across the board. To be clear, the demand for undocumented workers is not because employers prefer undocumented over documented workers; it is because they cannot pay documented workers below minimum wage as easily as they can undocumented workers.”––[Official Report, Immigration Public Bill Committee, 20 October 2015; c. 28, Q59.]
Paul Blomfield
My hon. Friend will not be surprised to know that I agree. The quotation adds very much to the case that I seek to make; perhaps it makes the point more clearly than I was doing.
I want to move on and talk about international examples. I have challenged the Minister and I am confident that he will come back with examples later. I have challenged him to give comparisons, but let me share one that was shared with me yesterday when I met representatives of the Council of Europe convention on action against trafficking in human beings—GRETA. They shared with me the example of Italy. They had done some work and talked about the amendments made to the Italian Consolidated Immigration Act in 2002, the so-called Bossi Fini law, which was aimed at regulating migrant worker flows by introducing a system of entry quotas, and which was supplemented in 2009 by the criminalisation of irregular entry and stay. Their concern was that the requirements of a formal employment contract in order to obtain a residence permit exposed migrant workers who were already at risk of labour exploitation because of their irregular migration status. They were worried that irregular migrants would be afraid to report cases of exploitation to the authorities because they were concerned about being detained and expelled. The United Nations special rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially in women and children, reported on the negative consequences of the criminalisation of irregular migration for victims of trafficking.
In response to points made to them by GRETA, the Italian authorities indicated that there were 14 convictions for trafficking in human beings in 2010 and nine in 2011. GRETA was concerned that those conviction rates were very low and urged the Italian authorities to strengthen their efforts to ensure that crimes related to trafficking were proactively investigated and prosecuted promptly and effectively. They asked the Italian authorities to study the implications of their immigration legislation, particularly the offence of illegal entry and stay. As a consequence, in January 2014, the Italian Senate approved Government measures to decriminalise those aspects of illegal immigration. They had recognised that the approach of criminalisation was not only unhelpful and policy-neutral but actively counterproductive.
Sarah Champion
I could have used exactly that point in my argument, because it is the employer who makes the decision whether to employ the legal person or the illegal person. Why are we going after the illegal people when already, under section 24 of the Immigration Act 2014, we have the power to deport them? The Minister has cited other Acts under which we can deport. Why are we not punishing the employer who is wilfully employing illegal workers?
James Brokenshire
The Bill is doing both. It is taking steps in relation to employers and to employees, including with the overall enforcement approach. That is why I put things in that broader context. I will respond later to some of the specific questions on purpose, intent and how things fit in the overall deportation strategy. It is important to contextualise that so that the Committee understands the intent of the Government.
James Brokenshire
It is rather that the employer has to show the right-to-work check, which is what the provision relates to. There is certain documentation with which employers should be familiar. We still work on the basis of trying to raise awareness of the issues. We are not trying deliberately to catch out employers. I certainly want employers to know the relatively simple steps they have to take to comply. The obligation was introduced into law in 2006, when the civil penalty scheme was put in place by the Labour Government. That is, therefore, what needs to be shown and it is why the negligence piece sits within the civil penalty regime.
The amendment to the definition of the offence—having reasonable cause to believe—is for those who close their eyes and put their fingers in their ears so that they cannot be liable, trying to get around the existing knowledge requirement of the Act. Those employers are, frankly, trying to play the system, and we are making the changes because of the problems that the pre-existing offence presented for our ability to bring prosecutions. I think that hon. Members would want us to be able to bring prosecutions in such circumstances.
Sarah Champion
Building on what the Minister said in response to my hon. Friend, what would be a reasonable defence for an employer?
James Brokenshire
It will depend on the circumstances. It is about the distinction between negligence and having reasonable cause to believe. The legal tests are slightly different, and I do not want to hasten into issues of law as I am sure that the hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras will be well enough equipped with his knowledge and expertise in those matters to be able to underline the distinction, as will the Solicitor General. I will not hasten to stray into matters of law with such august representatives in the room.
At the moment, if a document that looks legitimate and real is presented to someone, that is often a defence in relation to the negligence argument. The employer has not been negligent. They have checked. We are not trying to make employers, or landlords—we will come on to them, I am sure, under the right to rent—into some sort of extension of immigration enforcement teams. If it is shown that the basic checks have been conducted in good faith, the civil penalty regime would not apply, even on the test of negligence—let alone the criminal sanction in clause 9. On that basis, the measure is an important step forward and fits within the broader enforcement strategy. I hope the clause will stand part of the Bill.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 9 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 10
Licensing Act 2003: amendments relating to illegal working
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Immigration Bill (Fifth sitting)
Sarah Champion Excerpts(8 years, 6 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. If I may add to what my hon. Friend is saying, Caroline Robinson, the policy director of Focus on Labour Exploitation, said in her witness statement,
“The point about the protective purpose of the director is very important. For us, the core purpose of that role should be the protection of vulnerable workers and the prevention of exploitation.”––[Official Report, Immigration Public Bill Committee, 20 October 2015; c. 27, Q54.]
That is what the amendment is trying to get at.
Paul Blomfield
I thank my hon. Friend for her helpful intervention. Throughout our deliberations, we should seek to draw on the evidence that we heard. The evidence cited by her and by my hon. and learned Friend the shadow Minister has powerfully made the case that the confusion of immigration functions and labour market enforcement is damaging and counterproductive to our objectives for the labour market and for immigration. The amendment seeks to provide absolute clarity. I hope that the Government will accept it.
Anne McLaughlin
If the hon. Gentleman was asking me to agree with him then I agree with him.
Sarah Champion
It is a clarification, courtesy of Google. The UN defines trafficking as
“the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability”.
As my colleague has just said, this gets to the nub of the problem. My understanding, and perhaps the Minister could provide clarity, is that when we are talking about trafficked people, the legislation is in place already so it can be enforced. What we are saying here is that a large number of people are in a grey area. They might, as in the example given by the hon. Member for Gower, have paid to come into this country to work but then, very quickly, find themselves in an exploitative situation.
We need clarity about the role of the labour market enforcement director. Is he very clear that he is responsible for enforcing good labour practice? Does he have the resources to do that and can he work collaboratively with the other agencies to make sure that when something like the Modern Slavery Act 2015 is enforced, that vulnerable person is taken care of?
The Chair
Just before we move on, I want to say that I have allowed the debate to go fairly wide of the mark on trafficking as it does indeed go to the heart of the Bill. If you recall, I did ask for one of the witnesses to define trafficking. I myself was none the wiser after she had finished speaking, unfortunately.
James Brokenshire
I would point to the fact that immigration enforcement—the directorate within the Home Office that is responsible for the enforcement of immigration rules—is not one of the structures that the director has responsibility for. I will cover in turn the point about remit because there is an important aspect to this. When hon. Members have heard what I have to say, I hope that they will understand that the hon. and learned Gentleman’s concern about some sort of merger is not what this is about. We intend the director’s remit to cover labour market breaches, not immigration offences. The director and the enforcement bodies will work closely with Home Office immigration enforcement wherever labour market breaches are linked to illegal immigrants or people working in breach of their visa conditions, but that is an adjunct and not the purpose of the director.
I was asked why this measure was in an immigration Bill. There are two reasons. First, immigrant workers can be particularly vulnerable to exploitation by rogue employers, a point that has been flagged by hon. Members already this morning. I am sure that that will be a continuing theme during our consideration of the Bill. Secondly, by ensuring that workers are treated fairly, we are preventing businesses bringing in cheap labour that illegally undercuts the wages of people already in this country. Good labour market enforcement has knock-on effects.
Modern slavery has been a theme of some of the contributions this morning. With the Modern Slavery Act, Britain is once again at the forefront of the fight against the inhuman crimes of slavery and forced labour—the hon. Member for Sheffield Central and others made comments on this—but it is important to understand that exploitation occurs in many forms and can start with abuse of employment law. We must step in to protect not just the vulnerable—I will address the point about vulnerability—but also local workers and responsible businesses affected by those who are prepared to exploit cheap labour. That is why there is the need for this strategic approach and for the director to work with the different organisations that are in place. This is not a merger, as the hon. Member for Sheffield Central highlighted in his contribution, but rather we have an over-arching strategy of looking at ways in which we can promote good practice.
I would direct hon. Members to the consultation published alongside the Bill to set out some of those details. It says that:
“The Director will lead and co-ordinate work to promote compliance by employers and labour providers with labour market legislation, and to encourage and enable people to report infringements and exploitation.”
We are conducting a consultation at the moment around the director. We look forward to receiving feedback and input so that we are able to reflect fairly and appropriately.
Our employment law framework guarantees decent minimum rights for workers, including from next April the national living wage for over-25s, and promotes fair competition between businesses. The majority of employment law is enforced by individuals taking their employer to an employment tribunal to seek redress if they believe they have been wronged. State enforcement bodies step in to enforce legislation where there is a higher risk of exploitation or vulnerability.
As I have indicated, clause 3 already defines the director’s role by reference to the legislation and enforcement functions that will be within his remit. It makes it clear that the three enforcement bodies for which the director will set the strategy are the Employment Agency Standards Inspectorate, HMRC’s national minimum wage team and the Gangmasters Licensing Authority. We want the director to bring co-ordination across the whole spectrum of breaches of employment law—from employers who do not know the rules right through to organised, criminal exploitation of workers. That will be the director’s broad remit. However, I am concerned about some of the pictures we see of organised immigration crime and organised criminality more generally that seeks to exploit labour markets and uses the front of employment. We are dealing with a broad spectrum, which ranges from vulnerability all the way to good practice and compliance. It is right that the director should have that remit—setting up strategy, commenting on the balance of resources across each of the three agencies and reporting to the relevant Secretary of State.
Sarah Champion
Could the Minister give clarity on how the director would work in collaboration with the Independent Commissioner for Modern Day Slavery? Whether it is in guidance or within the Bill, it would help if the two roles could be clarified, because there is a grey area.
James Brokenshire
It is important to stress that they are separate roles. We make that point clearly in the consultation document, where we say that the director will have a role that is distinct from the commissioner’s role. Obviously, the commissioner looks at all types of modern slavery, whereas the focus of the director will be on labour market exploitation and enforcement. The practical roles are equally different:
“The Director will set the strategic plan, priorities for targeted action and overall approach”,
whereas
“the Commissioner has a broad role to look at the effectiveness of all the bodies engaged in the fight against modern slavery, encourage best practice, and make recommendations for improvements. That role will in future include looking at the effectiveness of the new Director and the reformed GLA”,
which we are consulting on now. I hope that is helpful and explains that these are complementary roles. I think that the commissioner, Kevin Hyland, is doing an excellent job. He has a great deal of practical experience from his time in law enforcement. I remember a couple of years ago going out with Mr Hyland on an enforcement raid to do with trafficking, so I know the real passion he has for that job. I think that he will use and work with the new director in a very positive way to continue to confront the appalling evil that is slavery and trafficking, with people being horribly exploited and enslaved for gain. We continue to need to shine a light on this, so that it is seen for what it is.
Keir Starmer
Yes, I thank my hon. Friend for his contribution. I will come later to where the director will put his or her emphasis—on what might be called the higher end breaches, or on more routine breaches. I welcome that contribution and I ask the Minister to deal with it if he can in his comments.
Amendment 59 is intended to clarify the relationship between the director of labour market enforcement and the UK’s existing labour inspection agencies, ensuring that the current role, remit and resources of labour inspectorates are safeguarded. By way of background, I give an example, because practical realities follow from what we hope is a very good initiative. This year we saw the pay and work rights helpline merge with the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service. The pay and work rights helpline used to provide vital advice; it was a service with an annual cost of £500,000, yet, when it was merged, the money did not go with it, which has led to a strain on the service. As a result, ACAS struggles to meet extra demand with no extra resources. There is some evidence that representatives have been asked not to use it. By making explicit the resource implications in the strategy, we hope to avoid this sort of implication. Where there is a merger of various functions and enforcement without the resources, it becomes ineffective.
Sarah Champion
I give another example. During the witness session, I asked Professor Metcalf whether he believed that there were sufficient resources and he said,
“Probably not, but in the consultation document and, I think, in the Bill, it does not actually set out quite what the resources are.”
I went on to ask him what he thought they should be and he said:
“One understands the difficulties with the public finances, but we probably do not have sufficient resources. In the low-skilled report, we calculated that you would get an inspection from HMRC once every 250 years and you would get a prosecution once in a million years. That suggests that we do not have enough resources. In turn, that takes you to the potential trade-off between the resources and the punishments.”––[Official Report, Immigration Public Bill Committee, 20 October 2015; c. 19-20, Q36-37.]
Keir Starmer
I am grateful for that intervention, which is another example from the evidence that we heard last week about resources. Unless we tackle the resources issue head on, all that will be achieved is the creation of a director without any real powers to carry out the functions, which I think everybody accepts need to be enforced and enhanced. In a sense, if we try to do more with less, services are jeopardised and, in truth, the vulnerable workers suffer and we will not succeed in reducing the pull factor for illegal migration because exploitation will not be uncovered and penalised.
By way of example, the number of Gangmasters Licensing Authority investigations into the illegal activities of gangmasters dropped from 134 in 2011 to 68 in 2014, and prosecutions were down from 19 in 2010 to three in 2014. I accept that underlying this reduction will be some intelligence-led work, but those figures are stark and they underline the general point made by the witnesses last week, namely, that the concern about labour market enforcement is not so much about the agencies and the enforcement powers as about the fact that the resources are simply not there to allow for investigations and action to be taken very frequently. Unless that problem is addressed head-on, there is the danger that all we will create is a director who does not actually carry out the enhanced functions that it is hoped will be carried out.
Sticking with the GLA itself, its budget, of course, has been cut by 20% since 2010, so we are in an environment where the enforcement agencies are already suffering quite significant cuts. It means that the GLA regulates labour in a £100 billion sector with a budget of 0.004% of that figure.
I have some questions that I hope the Minister will be able to address in his reply. On page 8 of the Government’s consultation document, “Labour market exploitation: improving enforcement”, it states that there has been
“a shift from abuses of employment regulation towards increasingly organised criminal activity engaged in labour market exploitation.”
That shift has occurred during the past 10 years. But what is the evidential basis for that assertion? In other words, that is the shift of abuse from, as it were, lower-level routine abuse to increasingly organised criminal activity. Linked to that is another question. Does the Minister agree that if we do not enforce employment legislation effectively at the lower end of abuse—if you like, minimum wage, health and safety and so on—we will create conditions for higher levels of abuse to develop. So, as I say, where is the evidence to support that assertion? And if we abandon the lower end or do not put resource into it, do we not run the risk of creating conditions in which unscrupulous employers will get away with whatever they want?
Amendments 65 and 66 would include the functions relating to health and safety at work and child labour within the remit of the director. May I just be clear about the spirit in which amendment 65 was tabled? It aims to explore the thinking behind the division of functions here, and to understand why all the functions are not brought together under this director, while also recognising—as we do—the work that the Health and Safety Executive is currently undertaking. So, amendment 65 was tabled in that spirit of properly understanding the Bill’s limited remit. The health and safety at work aspects of the Bill speak for themselves; I think that the child labour functions are enforced by local authorities.
Earlier this morning, the Minister said that the purpose of the Bill was to cover the whole spectrum of labour market enforcement, and therefore the ownership of the HSE and of the legislation to deal with child labour were obvious. There may have been a good deal of thinking behind that, but it would be useful through this exercise to understand that thinking properly, because the exclusion of those functions from the remit of the director of labour market enforcement could have an influence on the issue addressed by amendment 55, namely, the primary purpose of the director. Why is the HSE excluded and what is the thinking behind that exclusion?
Of course, there is also a budgetary consideration. The budget of the three labour inspection agencies covered in part 1 amounts to just over £14 million. That is compared with the £81 million for the Health and Safety Executive, which adopts a cross-labour market role. If the aim is to cover the whole spectrum and there are already resource considerations—of course there are—why do these provisions not cover the whole spectrum and leave out the health and safety and child labour aspects?
Amendments 63 and 64 aim to ensure that labour market offences committed against all workers are included within the scope of the director of labour market enforcement’s work, irrespective of immigration status. I will try to explain our concern clearly. Trafficking offences, as we understand it, are outside the remit of the Bill, save where they touch on the role of workers. That makes sense on one level because we would not expect the director of labour market enforcement to be looking at trafficking offences outside the employment or labour context. The problem as we see it—which may simply require clarification or may require amendment—is that the definition of “worker” within the Bill is then not wide enough to cover all those who may be in the labour market, including undocumented victims of trafficking. Perhaps there is a clear explanation; there may be a simple amendment. We follow the logic of the scheme, but we are concerned that the definition of “worker” is in fact too narrow and will leave some who it is probably the intention of the Government to include outside the scope of the protection. The amendment is put forward in that spirit.
Sarah Champion
On that point, I wonder if the Minister could also clarify why clauses 3 and 9 use two different pieces of legislation relating to workers? It seems to be a bit of an anomaly. Some clarity on that would be welcome.
Keir Starmer
Finally, amendment 62 touches on the annual report and is intended to ensure that the director of labour market enforcement’s annual report links with his or her assessment about non-compliance in the labour market and the remedies secured by victims and threats and obstacles to effective enforcement. The bullet point is this: as drafted, the director’s strategy does not link with his or her assessment of non-compliance in the labour market and his or her annual report does not link back to the assessment of non-compliance as a baseline. The amendment aims to ensure that the strategy covers everything that it should and that the annual report is tied into the same process.
James Brokenshire
I thank all hon. Members for their contributions in this mini-debate. Equally, I should celebrate and recognise the contribution from the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North. I appreciate that this may be a rare moment in the consideration of the Bill—he is supportive of the measures—but, in good spirits, I welcome his comments and the support he has given. I think that there is a shared recognition that we need to deal with exploitation and to achieve better co-ordination, and that we need the strategic response that is provided by the Bill. I welcome his comments in the spirit in which they were made.
The hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras asked me at the outset about organised criminal activity and the evidence base. It is feedback from enforcement officers that tells us that the incidence of forced labour may be growing at a faster rate than other types of exploitation. It appears to be due to criminal gangs infiltrating the supply chain, which I know is a broader issue that was debated during the passage of the Modern Slavery Act. I will not stray widely, but perhaps that will give him a sense of what we have been looking at.
Amendments 57 and 58 relate to the contents of the director’s annual strategy to address non-compliance in the labour market in the forthcoming financial year. Although I agree entirely with the intention behind the amendments, they are unnecessary because it is the Government’s expectation that the director will feed information of that nature into the planning and reporting cycle. Page 24 of the consultation document says of the strategy:
“It will set out, for the financial year ahead: the priorities for enforcement; the outcomes required from the enforcement bodies; and the budgets for the enforcement bodies, within the total envelope of available funding.”
So we have been quite clear about our expectations.
The issue of how non-compliance in the labour market should be addressed is at the heart of the strategy, which is why clause 2(2)(b)(i) requires the director to propose how labour market enforcement functions should be exercised, or, to put it another way, how the three enforcement agencies under the director’s remit should operate to address non-compliance.
The Government would not consider the strategy to be effective if it did not identify the threats and obstacles to effective labour market enforcement. We expect the director to turn over stones to tell us where the gaps are and to propose how they can be addressed. That is a crucial and valuable aspect of the role. Similarly, the Government would not consider any strategy or report to be effective if it did not examine the important issue of securing remedies for victims, which would naturally include recovering wages owed to workers and sanctions against employers for labour market offences.
Sarah Champion
Therefore, will the Minister confirm that, as in amendment 62, non-compliance will be reported on and used as a baseline for forthcoming reports?
James Brokenshire
As the hon. Lady will note from the consultation document, the strategy is about setting out information and issues concerning the work of different bodies and agencies, including some themes of non-compliance. How that feeds into communication, good practice and sharing information is at the heart of the matter and needs to be reflected in the strategy.
Amendments 56 and 59 bring me to the director’s role in setting the resources of the enforcement bodies. It is the Government’s intention not that the director of labour market enforcement decides the budgets of the three enforcement bodies, but that the director should recommend how resources should be allocated within the total envelope of available funding. Hon. Members will be aware that the Gangmasters Licensing Authority is funded by the Home Office, and the Employment Agencies Standards Inspectorate and HMRC’s national minimum wage enforcement teams are funded by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. Funding for those agencies is secured via the usual departmental bidding process. While the Government intend that the relevant Secretaries of State will take the director’s proposals on resources into account during the preparation of those bids, it is right that the Government set the overall level of resources devoted to labour market enforcement in the context of the totality of pressures on public spending. I point out that HMRC has increased its budget for enforcing the national minimum wage; for 2015-16, that has increased by £4 million, meaning that the total budget has increased to £13.2 million.
James Brokenshire
The hon. Gentleman will be aware that information sharing is a specific point in our consultation. There are barriers—legal and otherwise—to sharing data between enforcement bodies. That is why we are consulting on that point, and some suggestions have been highlighted in the consultation document.
We are reflecting carefully on that and have put it out to consultation to consider the most effective and appropriate ways to do so. We want these gateways to information sharing, which we have in other enforcement spheres. I want to reflect on the responses to the consultation on that point to ensure that we act appropriately.
I hope I have set out why we think this role is different in character and nature, in terms of workplace safety and the best interests of the child, and why we do not think it would be appropriate to include the proposal in this part.
Sarah Champion
Does the Minister believe the consultation will be complete by Third Reading and able to influence the Bill?
James Brokenshire
We have today announced an extension to the consultation period. It was originally due to close at the beginning of November, and it has been extended by about four weeks—I can come back to confirm that. I want to ensure that we get the provisions right on some of these detailed points. The consultation may inform later parts of the Bill. Our judgment is that we should ensure that the consultation is framed to get the right responses from those actively engaged at the front end. That is why we have announced a time extension, which I believe will be welcomed by the different sectors.
There were comments about redefining the term “worker”. The clause and the proposed amendment do not redefine “worker” for the purposes of the Employment Agencies Act 1973, the National Minimum Wage Act 1998 or the Gangmasters (Licensing) Act 2004. The coverage of those respective Acts continues to apply. That means that the Employment Agency Standards Inspectorate and the GLA will still tackle non-compliance by employment agencies, businesses and gangmasters, regardless of whether the affected workers have the right to be or to work in the UK.
We see the director as being focused on improving the way we enforce labour market and employment law rules. The Bill is not about extending labour protections to illegal workers, and we think that the director’s focus should be on making sure that workers who are properly here are better protected.
However, we are committed to tackling serious crimes against individuals, whatever their status. We have set out in the modern slavery strategy and the Modern Slavery Act 2015 enhanced powers and an improved approach to tackling slavery and human trafficking, whether victims are trafficked for sexual exploitation, exploitation involving criminal activity or indeed labour exploitation.
That is why we have implemented life sentences for modern slavery offences, new preventive orders to stop harm before it takes place and improved protections for victims such as a statutory defence. We see an important but specific role for the director in supporting this crucial work. The director’s remit includes modern slavery offences where they are committed against a worker or person seeking work, or where a person is subject to slavery, servitude or forced or compulsory labour. We are also consulting on additional powers for the Gangmasters Licensing Authority to include tackling such offences in their proposed enhanced enforcement role. I draw Members’ attention to that.
We think the balance is right. The director’s role is focused on workers who are here legally, although he can include in his plans action against forced labour as well. Trafficking people from around the world to work in brothels in the UK is an absolutely unacceptable crime, but we judge it is right for the director of labour market enforcement to tackle those aspects that are within the remit outlined in the Bill.
Immigration Bill (Third sitting)
Sarah Champion Excerpts(8 years, 6 months ago)
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Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
I was going to move to a separate topic, if that is okay, Mr Bone.
Sarah Champion
Q 215 I would like to move to the subject of bail. How many cases are detained each year? How many are ultimately removed from the UK and how many are granted permission to remain?
Jerome Phelps: In 2014, 30,364 migrants entered immigration detention and 29,674 left detention. The Government publish statistics on outcomes for those who leave detention—53% were removed or deported from the UK last year, 7% were released on bail and 1% were granted leave to remain although, of course, others may have subsequently been granted leave to remain after release. These figures are interesting in the light of the Bill in that they show that bail is used fairly selectively by the tribunal. The Home Office releases 38% of detainees so it is not that large numbers of detainees are being released by the tribunal.
Sarah Champion
Q 216 Mr Phelps, could I stay with you? If the rest of the panel want to chip in, they may. There have been suggestions that provisions in the Bill would fuel more unlawful detention litigation. What is your view?
Jerome Phelps: Absolutely. Bail provides a crucial safeguard and one that is working reasonably well in the current system. As I say, it is not generating excessive numbers of releases. It is a vital safeguard, first, because the UK has the most unconstrained powers of detention in Europe. We have no time limit on detention, unlike the rest of Europe, and we have no automatic judicial oversight of detention. The ability of the courts to scrutinise decisions by the Home Office to deprive someone of their liberty is entirely dependent on that person’s ability to apply for bail. That ability is dependent on having an address. It is important to note that that is not out of any concern by the tribunal to reduce homelessness; the primary reason why people in detention have to provide an address to apply for bail are solid immigration control priorities of the Home Office, in that if somebody cannot provide an address, it is very difficult for them to reassure the courts or the Home Office that they will keep in touch and be detainable and removable if it becomes possible.
Although the explanatory notes are not particularly clear here, it appears as though the ability of a destitute detainee to access an address will be subject to a non-appealable, discretionary decision of the Home Office, which would effectively enable the Home Office—the detaining authority—to prevent significant numbers of migrants in detention from accessing the tribunal to apply for bail.
That will have two potential consequences. First, it will significantly increase the levels of frustration, alienation and probably non-compliance within the detention estate if people have no lawful route to challenge their detention. Secondly, and more pertinently to your question, it will force applications into the High Court, because there is no ability to challenge detention in the lower courts. The High Court is already reeling under the pressure of immigration and asylum-related cases. It is already receiving large numbers of unlawful detention cases, and the Home Office is already paying out around £3 million a year in compensation for unlawful detention. This seems like a very retrograde step that would force more cases into the High Court and would be likely to generate more findings of unlawful detention and more compensation payments. That is something that no one in this room would want, I am sure.
Sarah Champion
Q 217 Does the rest of the panel agree with that sentiment?
Adrian Berry: Yes. At the moment, the issue with the innovation in bail provisions proposed in the Bill is that there are difficulties with allowing, for example, the Home Office to vary a condition set by the tribunal. That is more than a cosmetic change. You have independent judicial provision for granting bail and for setting the terms after a hearing. A judge takes a view of what conditions should be imposed. The Home Office can then vary them at their own suit, possibly having lost the argument before an independent judge. You end up with a situation where conditions may be difficult to respect in practical terms, and that will have an impact.
The issue with the provisions in the Bill regarding bail goes beyond that, because it also deals with this idea of branding people as on bail when they have simply come to this country seeking admission. Hitherto, such people have been on temporary admission, which is a different sort of status. There is also an issue about the creation of a culture of presumption of detention and the presumption that you are on bail when, in fact, you have simply come to the country and sought admission, and you are lawfully here without any risk of absconding.
This rebranding is of a piece with the power grab, if you like, on the part of the Home Office against independent judicial scrutiny. What is really required is independent judicial oversight of bail at regular periods, so that you do not get into a situation where you have unlawful detention—in other words, where the detention is without legal foundation because it is unreasonable in most cases or it is contrary to the Home Office’s own policy. Without independent regular judicial oversight, you are going to have more unlawful detention cases and more compensation being paid out. As people have said, nobody wants that. It is not a good situation.
Colin Yeo: The Bill will have the effect of reducing scrutiny rather than increasing it. It turns independent hearings into, virtually, a charade. There is no point in having a hearing in front of an independent judge about whether you should be released and what the conditions should be, and arguing them out in court, when the Secretary of State has a power under the Bill to impose whatever conditions they want immediately afterwards. That reduces scrutiny heavily, and turns the whole thing into a charade, rather than increasing scrutiny, as we would like.
Rebecca Harris (Castle Point) (Con)
Q 218 Am I right in thinking, though, that the Government are reviewing the whole issue of detention in parallel with this Bill?
Jerome Phelps: Yes, we understand that there is an internal review taking place, and the Stephen Shaw review into welfare and detention is reporting around now. In that context, we welcome the decision to announce the closure of Dover immigration removal centre as suggesting a very positive intention to use detention more smartly. I hope that that reflects the overall direction of travel and that the Bill does nothing to get in the way of that.
Immigration Bill (Fourth sitting)
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Keir Starmer
Q 244 Back in 2008, Mr Duncan Smith—obviously he is now in a different role—described it as a “failed policy”. That may explain why it has not been used since the pilot. Do you disagree with that conclusion?
Councillor Simmonds: It manifestly did not work at the time. Therefore, if we were to revisit that as an approach, we would need to think very carefully about how it could be made effective. That would require a different approach on many, many levels.
Paul Greenhalgh: I agree with that comment. We have been working with the Home Office to explore areas in which we wonder whether further safeguards might make such an approach more effective.
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
Q 245 On that point, Mr Greenhalgh used the phrase behavioural change. I think we all understand what the Government are trying to achieve, but you do not believe that the Bill does that. What should be in the Bill to get the behavioural change that the Government are trying to achieve?
Paul Greenhalgh: One of the difficulties with the Bill as currently framed is that there will be a number of what we would perceive as unintended consequences. They are twofold, mainly around our duties to provide support and care in certain circumstances arising from the Children Act 1989 and the Care Act 2014. Mainly, section 17 of the Children Act is something that would come into play in these sorts of cases.
At the moment, 80% of those cases are funded by no recourse to public funds arrangements as a result of a Children Act assessment. As a result of the current drafting of the Bill, a lot of families who would receive no further support as a result of their asylum status being confirmed would come to the local authority if they were about to become destitute. The local authority would be bound to make a human rights assessment and, if there are children involved, a children in need assessment. Those assessments take some time, so if a family are at immediate risk of destitution, we would have to put immediate measures in place.
So the first of our significant concerns is that this could result in a huge increase in demand on local authorities, which would in effect be a cost shunt from the Home Office to local authorities in an unfunded way. The other consequence is the danger that people will not come to local authorities but will go underground, and therefore be more at risk of exploitation and less able to be supported by the authorities.
If those are our concerns, we think some measures need to be put in place to provide appropriate safeguards. First, there should be a clarification of assessment processes, to reduce the burden falling on local authorities and the difficulty for families of having to go through what at the moment are two assessment processes. If the assessment process could be streamlined, that would be one improvement to the Bill.
The other significant issue is funding and the extent to which, however we frame the Bill, it will result in more cost to local authorities to support people on an interim basis. If there is recognition that those costs are a new burden, and if there is engagement between local authorities and the Home Office to work together on a practical level to support those families and help them to engage, we could see some of the intention of the Bill working more effectively.
The Minister for Immigration (James Brokenshire)
Q 246 Perhaps I could just pick up on that last point and ask the witnesses about that engagement. Are you engaging with the Home Office and working through some of those details that you suggest may be needed?
Paul Greenhalgh: We are. We had meetings with Home Office officials during the consultation period. We put in a joint response, and 48 local authorities sent in individual responses. The feedback from Home Office officials is that there was a consistent response from local authorities. We made it clear that we were very happy to continue to work with Home Office officials, and we have been doing that. We have had three technical meetings so far, and we are trying to work through how we can try to address together those issues that I have raised.
Councillor Simmonds: I thank the Minister for making himself available for those discussions. The one challenge that we have found at a political level is that there are sometimes differences of opinion between officials in different Government Departments. For example, on Children Act duties, traditionally we have had feedback from the Home Office that broadly says, “We are seeing people through our role in asylum and immigration, which we are here to manage.” Those in the Department for Education would say, “We’re not interested in that. We see them as vulnerable children, and therefore the duties are absolutely and unambiguously clear, and at the highest possible level.” The more consistency that we can get on some of those challenges, the better.
Craig Whittaker
Q 253 So the cases that you are primarily dealing with do not apply to the Bill, because the Bill talks about removing support for those who have gone through the process and are deemed to be unlawful immigrants.
Henry St Clair Miller: It is both. Sorry—I will try again and then I will give up. It is both, because you are also looking at measures to tackle illegal migration in the UK such as landlord checking and the rest, which might give rise to more of those.
Paul Greenhalgh: Our concern is about families who have been given that status in terms of how the Bill is currently drafted. The onus will be on the families to leave rather than there being an enforcement to their departure. While they are still in this country, local authorities still have legal duties to them under the legislation that we have previously cited.
Councillor Simmonds: It is probably worth giving you some figures. When we look at the numbers for local authority responsibilities in providing support to irregular migrants, around 80% of those who are supported are those under the section 17 Children Act responsibilities. The remaining group tend to be with care needs under the Mental Health Act and the Care Act, so the vast majority will be entitled to support through their status as families with children, and there will always be further legal avenues by which they can regain that entitlement should one avenue be closed off.
Sarah Champion
Q 254 I have just a small question. Currently, when someone has failed their last appeal, what is the average time before they actually get deported? I just want an idea of the timescale in which they would be destitute.
Henry St Clair Miller: I have not learnt of that particular statistic, so I do not have an answer.
Sarah Champion
Q 255 Ball park. Is it hours, weeks, months?
Henry St Clair Miller: It is tentatively months. The main thing, whether it is data from our NRPF Connect database or independent research, is that the time on support for an individual case is currently well above two years. That is a statistical fact. I cannot determine the exact timescales from an actual refusal or how many claims are made within that period. I guess there is a concern for local authorities that, if we have to engage these safety net responsibilities, there should not be an assumption that it will be just short term. Obviously, we are very keen to work with the Home Office to try and reduce the time. I think we are making progress and I think the Home Office has been good in respect to hearing about our difficulties, so this may change, but I can only give the stats that we have currently.
Sarah Champion
Q 256 So, to clarify, if this legislation is enacted, your assumption is that a family would be without any support for a couple of months.
Henry St Clair Miller: It is hard to define this. I am saying that, when support is engaged under the safety net, historically it has not been something that is over and done with in a couple of months. Historically, it has taken longer to resolve the issues.
Chloe Smith (Norwich North) (Con)
Q 257 Does the Committee have any reason not to accept the figures in the Home Office’s August consultation document? I am referring to the public consultation on reforming support for failed asylum seekers and other illegal migrants. I am looking at the figures given for the scale of the situation: an estimated 15,000 refused asylum seekers with an estimated cost of £73 million. Do you accept those figures or have any concerns about them?
Paul Greenhalgh: We broadly accept those figures, yes.
The Chair
Q 270 We will now hear evidence from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the British Red Cross. I am afraid that for this session we only have until 3.15 pm. Will the witnesses introduce themselves for the record?
Peter Grady: I am Peter Grady, legal officer at UNCHR.
Karl Pike: I am Karl Pike, the refugees and asylum policy and advocacy manager at the British Red Cross.
Andrew Hewett: I am Andy Hewett, the refugee development manager at the British Red Cross.
Sarah Champion
Q 271 I have three questions. What types of non-asylum cases would be affected by the repeal of section 4(1) of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 and can you quantify the number of cases potentially affected?
The Chair
No conferring.
Andrew Hewett: I do not have the exact figures but our understanding is that the majority of people on section 4 are asylum cases. We could come back to you with some figures and an update on that if that would be helpful.
Sarah Champion
That would be very helpful.
Peter Grady: I do not have figures for you but it is our understanding that stateless persons could also be affected by the section 4(1) revisions.
Sarah Champion
Q 272 What could the consequences be?
Peter Grady: For stateless persons, if they are denied support?
Sarah Champion
Yes.
Peter Grady: They could be driven to destitution. There is that risk, just as there is for others. One of the concerns we outlined in our briefing is that there appear to be no replacement support provisions for stateless persons under section 95A, for example. There is a concern that if section 4 is withdrawn, there would not be a replacement form of support or a dedicated support that could benefit stateless persons in the UK.
Sarah Champion
Q 273 So there would be no other avenues for them?
Peter Grady: There might be other forms of support, as we heard recently, through local authorities in their obligations to individuals, including on human rights grounds, but not through section 4.
Sarah Champion
Q 274 What obstacles to leaving the UK do refused asylum seekers and other irregular migrants face? Which of those should justify eligibility for the proposed section 95A support?
Andrew Hewett: We see examples every day. The British Red Cross supports over 7,000 destitute people a year, some of whom will be able to apply for section 4 support. Some of them will then experience real practical barriers to leaving the UK. I have got some examples. One real, very recent example: a Palestinian male claimed asylum in 2004. He became appeal rights-exhausted the following year, 2005. He applied for assisted voluntary return through the voluntary return scheme; he applied for section 4 support. He was not able to progress his application for voluntary return because there is no direct route into Palestine. Therefore, he was not eligible for section 4 support. He cannot find a solicitor to make a stateless application, so he is really stuck. He has literally spent the last 10 years homeless and destitute in the UK, having pursued every legal avenue. So there are some real practical barriers with challenges to returning people from particular countries that have no embassies in the UK or those with no viable route of return or other practical challenges with documenting or proving their nationality. Where people have proved that they have done as much as they possibly can to effect their own voluntary departure and there are some obstacles in their way, absolutely that needs to be considered.
Sarah Champion
Q 275 The Bill allows extension of support where there is a genuine obstacle, so how do you think genuine obstacles should be defined in the Bill?
Andrew Hewett: We can provide some examples, but I think it would be more useful for the Home Office to consult on what the genuine obstacles should be and define them. At the moment, genuine obstacle is not really defined anywhere, so it is open to interpretation and we see some cases approved, but others are refused because they have not met that threshold. We need further clarification, but certainly where people have tried to pursue voluntary return and there is a bureaucratic or embassy issue, that is one credible example. There are others and we can come back to you with those, but that is the one that springs to mind.
Sarah Champion
That would be helpful.
Karl Pike: There is a list of countries where assisted voluntary return is not possible, which I imagine you have seen. It is fairly extensive—there are quite a few countries on it. That would be a good place to start for the people who should definitely get support. There is also a common problem that Andy knows quite a lot about, which is embassies that will not provide travel documents to a person on the basis that they no longer have original ID. Ethiopia is one.
Andrew Hewett: If you are an Eritrean national and the Home Office contests that you are from Eritrea—perhaps it says that you are from Ethiopia—you would be expected to attend both the Eritrean and Ethiopian embassies and almost go through the process of applying for a passport. Then the Home Office would want to see written confirmation from that embassy as to why it cannot issue you with a passport.
Practically, you could make an appointment at the embassy, go down there and go through the process, but neither of those embassies currently provides any written confirmation. So some of those people are in positions where they have to take an independent witness with them and then that person provides a witness statement to say, “Yes, the person did attend. This is what happened at the embassy” because there is no viable way of getting that confirmation from the embassy. The Home Office does not commonly accept those witness statements. These people are in an incredibly difficult situation. They have done everything humanly possible and followed every instruction, but there is some other barrier preventing them from meeting that very high threshold.
Sarah Champion
Q 276 So, for clarity, you think that that needs defining either in guidance or in the Bill?
Andrew Hewett: Absolutely, it needs crystal clear clarification and definition.
Karl Pike: We would like “genuine obstacle” to be defined in the legislation rather than allowing it to be subject to the regulations after the Bill has been voted on.
Rebecca Harris (Castle Point) (Con)
Q 277 I want to ask you the question that I missed the opportunity to ask this morning. We have a lot of problems with our immigration service—it sounded terrible at some stages this morning—and I wondered whether you had any relative knowledge of immigration procedures and enforcement in other countries. How do we compare with some of our European partners?
Peter Grady: Which aspect of immigration and enforcement procedures?
Simon Hoare
Q 302 Can I come back very briefly? I was interested in what you were saying because you made that point in an earlier submission. You are right to be worried about the social cohesion perspective. I suppose I look at it from the other end of the telescope. Do you agree that if everybody in society, irrespective of colour or creed—I put that in inverted commas—had safe knowledge that their neighbours and the people who lived in their communities were all bona fide, were all legitimate, were all citizens, or had right to remain in this country, it would ease the growing tension in many communities? That, in fact, of itself eases what in many communities is a growing tension—a tension between the settled, legal immigrant community and the illegal immigrant community. In my judgment, that is causing quite a lot of tensions in towns and cities across the country.
Saira Grant: You raise a very interesting and valid point, but I do not think that the answer is to create more suspicion and mistrust among members of civil society. It goes back to border control at the start; it is the Home Office’s responsibility, not that of civil society to be policing each other’s immigration status. We need to go back to the beginning. If the Home Office was making correct decisions, issuing correct visas and making it easier for people to lawfully go through the process, we would see a reduction in the numbers of those who are now irregularly here.
Sarah Champion
Q 303 Ms Grant, have you or your organisation had time to assess the west midlands pilot on landlords? Are you able to come up with some recommendations of how the pilot could be strengthened or any weaknesses in the Bill?
Saira Grant: Sure. You will be aware—I hope that Members are aware—that our organisation did an independent study of its own as well. We have sent copies of the report around. I have had a chance to go through it, although not in as much detail I would have liked, because it only came out on Tuesday, but looking at the evidence that they provided in the evaluation, it matches and mirrors a lot of the claims we have been making.
The first point to make is that the terms of reference are very different from our evaluation, because the emphasis is not on tenants; it is about landlords and the understanding that landlords have. Discrimination that we found has been alluded to—cases through mystery shoppers of indirect or potential discrimination—but that has not been the focus, and the tenants who are part of the survey are again a very low number, mainly students, so a very different group of people.
Something that really strikes me is to do with whether the reason behind these provisions is to ensure that those who do not have status do not stay in the UK and are encouraged to leave. If enforcement is the aim, look at what the results show: the claim is that 109 people have been “caught”, if you like, as a result of the right to rent checks, but break that down and at best you are looking at 15 people who directly came through the right to rent checks inquiry line and who came to the Home Office’s attention. That in itself is a very interesting statistic, because, of the 109 people, 94 actually had status and the right to remain, but the inquiry was made because landlords could not understand the complexity of immigration status. From the 15, it is really interesting. That is direct, but then we have a breakdown of the 109: 25 people had barriers to removal, 15 were progressing family cases, nine were granted leave by the Home Office and a further four had judicial reviews.
Whichever way you look at it, all of those who have outstanding legal cases need to reside somewhere. Because of the way we have changed our immigration rules, people might not have section 3C leave, which continues their leave, but if they have outstanding legal cases and therefore a barrier to removal, what is supposed to happen to them? Are they now just supposed to be destitute?
Going through their evidence, I would say that there needs to be a longer evaluation period; it needs to be not over the winter period, when no one really moves tenancies; and it needs to look at the impact on tenants, not just landlords. How can we possibly have a roll-out announced on the same day as the publication of this evaluation?
Rebecca Harris
Q 304 It is not particularly on this point. Within the provision of the Bill, do you think that there is sufficient resource and support for landlords to be able to make the assessment?
Saira Grant: No, quite the opposite; the Bill is now going to criminalise landlords, which will exacerbate the sense of “I don’t want to rent to anyone who looks or appears different.” Landlords have said that the code is hard to understand. I understand that the code is being revised—I see the Minister shaking his head, but I am looking at the evaluation and quoting from it, Minister. So no, there is not any further provision, but what we do have is a situation that will exacerbate discrimination, and that is not being tackled at all in the Bill. And I am not quite certain why the haste. Why are we rushing to strengthen the provisions before the provisions of the 2014 Act have bedded down and we have even looked at the impact properly?
Sarah Champion
Q 305 My final question is about immigration officers. Their remit is being extended, so that they will become more police-like in their areas and in their reach. Do you think that there is enough oversight and independent scrutiny of immigration officers in the Bill or existing legislation to ensure that they act responsibly?
Saira Grant: No, I do not and that is a real worry. So many enhanced powers are given—arrest without warrant, especially the driving licence provisions, no warrant needed to enter premises and to search people—and it was interesting that in your earlier evidence session when the police were talking about it. These powers are not just given to the police, but given to immigration officers and to anyone designated by the Secretary of State. There is no regulatory framework for immigration officers that I can see. It is extremely concerning that ever increasing powers are given to immigration officers, with no checks in place to prevent any kind of abuse of those powers.
Sarah Champion
Q 306 Do the rest of the panel members share those concerns?
Steve Symonds: I do. I would add this: I have followed immigration legislation over many years in different capacities, and I cannot think of a Bill over the last 15 to 20 years that has not extended the powers of immigration officers. I cannot think of a time when that has not been questioned in Parliament, and when the answer has not been that there will be better oversight, training and supervision this time. Actually, I cannot think of a time when it has resulted in a more efficient and effective system, let alone fewer concerns about instances of abuse of those powers.
It strikes me as inappropriate to be constantly expanding powers when, as has been referred to in an earlier session—the first session you had this morning—even the inspectorates themselves constantly refer to lack of management records of how the powers are used, inconsistencies in how they are used and inconsistencies about the guidance to officers about how they should be using the powers. We should stop giving more powers and concentrate on the ones that have been given now, at a minimum, and get those right before thinking ahead to expanding the range of powers given to officers and the expectations on those officers, who are much pressed and who no doubt find it difficult, given the range of legislation and guidance pressed on them. Sort out what they have got now before thinking of moving ahead. Oversight is not going to be the answer. I am not criticising oversight, by the way—I am all for it—but it will not provide the answer.
Rachel Robinson: Can I come in on the point about enforcement powers? I echo many of the points made by other speakers, but I add the very serious nature of the problems with the use of enforcement powers identified by the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration. A report covering an inspection period ending in 2013 found that in terms of, for example, the power to enter business premises without a search warrant, officers in 59% of cases lacked the required justification to exercise that power. In a further 12% of cases, there was not sufficient information to determine whether justification was there, so in only 29% of cases was the power being used properly. Yet, in the Bill, we see a massive extension in how intelligence is used by immigration officers.
We have had similar concerns from the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration about the approach to so-called intelligence. One example given in a recent report involved a raid on a fast food restaurant. The intelligence for that raid was that previous raids on fast food restaurants had uncovered irregular workers. That is not intelligence; that is a generalisation and a stereotype. We have serious concerns about how the powers are being used, and we urge the Government to consider looking again at those powers, how they are being used and whether there are ways to make them more effective, safer and more accurate, rather than giving immigration officers a whole range of new powers.
Rebecca Harris
Q 307 You might want to reassure our witnesses that we had a housing officer as witness who thought that giving housing officers the responsibility to ask anyone to verify who they were might reduce problems with prejudice and so on. My question to all of you, with your expert knowledge of this area, is what measures you think we should be introducing to encourage people with no right to remain in this country to leave, or ensure that they do so when they refuse. What would be your solutions to that problem, if this is not the answer?
Rachel Robinson: What we see in the Bill is a shifting of responsibility from the Home Office to private citizens, when what we should be seeing is an improvement in processes within the Home Office. I think that the Committee has had ample evidence that the provisions in the Bill are liable to undermine enforcement of the immigration rules by making it more likely that people will abscond. The Committee has heard ample evidence on the provisions on asylum support.
We would say that the solution is not to foist immigration powers on members of the community with no training or expertise and expect them to carry out the functions that the Home Office has failed to carry out effectively itself. The solution is for the Home Office to do its job better.
Rebecca Hilsenrath: We start by wishing that an equality impact assessment had been produced; it might have helped to look through the draft provisions with a closer eye on equality impact. In terms of general proportionality, you could take the same approaches and consider whether, in fact, the same measures could be looked at through the lens of greater compliance with human rights legislation. If we look, for example, at the provisions giving private landlords eviction powers where tenants have been found to be disqualified from renting, we do not really understand why that process cannot involve a review by the court instead of being, as it is at the moment, enforceable as a court order.
Immigration Bill (Second sitting)
Sarah Champion Excerpts(8 years, 6 months ago)
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James Brokenshire
Q 79 Such as?
Neil Carberry: The obvious one would be parts of agriculture.
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
Q 80 I look forward to serving under your chairmanship, Mr Owen. Mr Carberry, offences are already specified in the Immigration Act 1971 that are applicable to migrants who breach their immigration conditions. Do you believe that clause 8, which creates the new criminal offence of illegal working, is necessary, and do you think that it may have unintended consequences?
Neil Carberry: What we are particularly concerned about is that any criminal offence is genuinely used to go after criminal activity. Employment law offences are typically civil offences. As I have already said, breaches are largely inadvertent, or if they are not inadvertent they are due to lack of understanding on the part of an employer. The right place to police that is through education, the tribunal system, the advice that ACAS offers and so forth. I am not a criminal lawyer. To the extent that the offence that has been created is to be used to go after employers where there is repeated, multi-faceted and exploitative treatment of workers, we are very happy for that offence to exist, so long as the businesses that are brought to justice are engaged in those steps. What worries us particularly is not the existence of the offence but the risk that there may be a general drift of employment law in the United Kingdom from the civil to the criminal, because that would be quite destructive for employee relations in general.
Sarah Champion
Q 81 Just to unpick that, do you think that actually criminalising the workers is useful in changing practice?
Neil Carberry: I think that the critical issue is the action by employers. The CBI is not taking a position on criminalisation of workers; that is not within our vires as a business organisation.
Sarah Champion
Q 82 I agree that if employers are employing people illegally, they should be accountable for that. Do you feel that the Bill goes far enough to enable that to be enforced?
Neil Carberry: I think that the critical issue is not the law in this case; it is the will to go after some of the very worst practices in the UK labour market. It is about co-operation between the police and other authorities in getting into some of these beds in sheds places and taking action. One of the lessons we have to learn from the experiment with the Gangmasters Licensing Authority is that the GLA has largely been a box-ticking licensing organisation that has increased costs on the compliant. There is relatively little evidence that the creation of a registration approach has actually done anything to prevent exploitation. From a CBI perspective, we would far rather that the Government had a strong offence, structured in a way that would stack up in the courts, and then used powers of prohibition, for instance, to drive out bad practice. Of course, that is what we had before the GLA was brought into existence—albeit that they were not heavily or effectively used.
Sarah Champion
Q 83 Finally, do you believe that the director has the remit and the resources to prevent this from being a box-ticking exercise? Would they have the authority to make the necessary changes?
Neil Carberry: That remains to be seen. The director clearly has to develop an enforcement plan, which has to be approved by the Home Secretary and the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills. I would hope that that enforcement plan was well grounded in the effective work that some of the agencies are currently doing and would therefore be resourceable from within that. I had discussions last week with the HMRC team who are looking at non-compliance with the minimum wage; they feel that they currently have the resources to continue the good work they are doing.
Craig Whittaker (Calder Valley) (Con)
Q 84 I want to turn back to the evidence given to us this morning by Professor Sir David Metcalf. When he was discussing the CBI, he said that the regulation of the labour market proposed in the Bill would take away the cowboys and help your sector. He went on to say that it would go a long way towards raising the welfare of British residents. Do you think he has applied a risk-based, intelligent approach to his assessment?
Neil Carberry: I think the proof of the pudding is in the eating when it comes to the director. On the existence of a labour market director to do this work, his assessment could well be the case. What worries us is less what is in the Bill as introduced than some of the discussion in the Government’s consultation paper last week, which seems to suggest a broadening of a licensing approach. I think that would ultimately be a doubling up regulation on the compliant and would draw away from kicking down the doors of the non-compliant. From our perspective, there is every chance that the labour market director’s role could be very beneficial to lawful companies and workers.
Sarah Champion
Q 101 Thank you all for coming today. Lord Green, to give us some context, what is your estimate of the current size of the irregular migrant population in the UK?
Lord Green of Deddington: Yes, I am very glad to offer you some context, because I think we really have to see the Bill in the wider context. We realise that there are already 11 Acts of Parliament dealing with immigration and that there is a handbook of immigration law of nearly 2,000 pages. So we have that in mind, but, even so, the Bill in principle has our full support. We think it is a serious and intelligent attempt to tackle illegal immigration and the pull factors that drive it.
It has also come at a pretty opportune time. I need hardly tell you that immigration is the major issue of public concern, especially as the crisis in Syria and the middle east has led to the effective collapse of the borders of southern Europe. We have been lucky here in that, in recent years, we have had only 20,000 or 25,000 asylum claims, but I think we all remember when that number hit 80,000 and we found that there were half a million files lying around in a warehouse, which was appalling, especially for those who had genuine cases, but on any level that was appalling and must not be repeated.
In terms of context, it seems to me that we now need to get ahead of that curve, both in identifying genuine claimants and removing and deterring those who are in fact economic migrants. We think that the Bill can help in that task.
To answer your specific question about the probable size, in 2009, the LSE gave a central estimate of about 600,000. We looked at that and thought that a million was probably closer, but almost by definition it is impossible to be accurate. The conclusion to be drawn from those numbers is that it is absolutely inconceivable that the Government would introduce measures that removed a million people from the country by force. It cannot be done, would not be done and nobody would support it. That is why measures, including some of those in the Bill, are essential if we are to persuade people to make up their own minds and go home when they should.
It is worth mentioning in that context that the sheer scale of movement is not really widely understood. In any one year—I will take 2014—7.5 million tourist visas were issued. Clearly, some of those will be tempted to overstay. Business visitors: 1.7 million. Students and student visitors: 270,000 in one year. So you are looking at an enormous flow of people and no way in which you can forcibly remove them if you need to. Indeed, we do not even know who they are, or even if they are here. As you probably know, exit checks were abandoned by the Conservatives to the EU in ’94 and by Labour to the rest of the world in ’98. So for nearly 20 years, nobody— the Government, the Home Office—has the slightest idea who has gone home and who has not. We are starting from an appallingly difficult situation and, as I said, the only way to approach it is to improve the likelihood of people deciding for themselves. Also, it is necessary to tackle the difficulties that have arisen in the removal process. In my view, they are not very widely understood, and when I first heard them, I was rather surprised.
It is the case, surely, that an effective removal capability is at the basis of the credibility of the whole system. If people think that they can stay indefinitely and not be removed, of course they will do that if it is to their advantage. I am afraid that successive Governments have sort of concealed the weakness of the system by conflating various figures, but if you look at the number of immigration offenders who have been removed, in the last six years the average has been fewer than 5,000 every year compared to the numbers that I have just given you for the inflow. It will be obvious to you that work is required on this front, and I hope obvious to you that this Bill will help with that.
Sarah Champion
Q 102 To expand on that, at a practical level, you rightly said that there are 11 Acts of Parliament, and that we still do not know who is coming in and who is going out. Groups have said that if support to asylum seekers is withdrawn, there is concern that they might abscond from the system. On a practical level, what do you believe the Bill will add to existing legislation, so that we can deal with the problem? From my casework, I know that the biggest problem is that once the Home Office team has gone through the process to recognise that someone needs to be deported, it does not have the resources to deport them. On a practical level, I cannot see how the legislation will make that process more straightforward. Are there specific proposals in the Bill that will do so?
Lord Green of Deddington: Yes, and that is a very good question if I may say so. There is a huge amount to do, but I would pick out the appeal process, which has been leading to significant sources of delay, and is sometimes quite ruthlessly exploited by a bogus applicant, and is more likely to be so, and by some of the lawyers. The first-tier tribunal has considered 850,000 cases in the past seven years, so the provisions in the Bill that will provide for removal first and appeals later will be very important. Equally, it will be important that that provision is not applied when it should not be, and I am sure that you will be focused on that as a Committee. The reality, however, is that the legal system has been exploited to the disadvantage of the community as a whole.
So far, as I am sure that you know, the Government have reduced the number of kinds of appeal that you can make from 17 to four. When they applied the “removal first, appeals later” provision to foreign national offenders, they found that only 25% bothered to appeal and of the total, only 1% succeeded. Of course, foreign national offenders are likely to have a much less convincing case than many others, but if we can find a way, consistent with human rights of course, to shift the burden of appeals, we can get the whole system moving more rapidly than it has in the past. And as I said at the beginning of my evidence, now is the time to do it, because we must have a system. The Government keep talking, and rightly so, about breaking the link between people getting to Britain and believing that they can stay here indefinitely. That amounts to the fact that we must have an effective way both of differentiating between economic migrants and asylum seekers and of swiftly removing the first of those two. There is a lot to be done, and I think that the Bill will help.
James Brokenshire
Q 103 Lord Green, there has been some questioning during the course of this session about the introduction of offences relating to illegal working, in particular the creation of an illegal working offence against employees. Could you share any thoughts and comments on how we can have a firm response and crack down on illegal working in all its different forms, as well as some of the draws that entice people into migration? How would you respond to the challenge that this may somehow prevent people from coming forward who may be victims of exploitation or trafficking, for example?
Lord Green of Deddington: I will keep my answers shorter in future, Mr Chairman, but I wanted to set out some of the basic considerations.
Chloe Smith
Q 137 Mr Leenders, any reflections?
Eric Leenders: I think we can identify 123 million instant access accounts. If we were to apply the experience from the Immigration Act of roughly 1% of searches being referred to the Home Office, that would potentially lead to a working assumption of about 1 million or 1.2 million searches being referred to the Home Office. That, in itself, surfaces an operational point about the readiness of the Home Office to deal with that volume in the initial wave of searches in the first quarter of the implementation of the Act. That is just one of those technical issues that we would like to work through. We might be able to find mitigants to that. For example, we might be able to strip out those who currently hold UK passports, but that is detail that we can work through in secondary legislation. I would not see that as a primary legislative point at all.
Sarah Champion
Q 138 I have two small, mopping-up questions. Mr Leenders, you went through the customer service and administrative burdens that the legislation puts on you, but are you largely in favour of it? Are there any unintended consequences of the legislation that we should be aware of?
Eric Leenders: We do not have a policy position on the Bill, nor did we on the Immigration Act 2014. There are some customer service points that give a little cause for concern. Referring customers with a seven-day service level agreement to the Home Office leaves them, effectively, in limbo for a period, and that customer might, quite justifiably, be entitled to an account. We do not feel that is the best experience, so we would want to work through one or two details like that. We would certainly want to have a period of testing—we are already encouraged by the Treasury giving some consideration to its own pilot exercise—presumably during the formulation of the secondary legislation, such that the customer impacts are minimised so far as possible.
Sarah Champion
Q 139 Mr Smith and Mr Lambert, I was surprised by how small the sample size was in the west midlands pilot results. Of the 67 respondents who are tenants, 60 are students. My assumption is that students are much more likely to have passports and letters of authority from their institutions. Do you believe that this is a skewed sample?
Richard Lambert: The evaluation period could have been better. It could have been a lot longer. We would have said, ideally, a year to 18 months because most tenancies last more than six months. In order to understand how this process works, you have to give it that length of time so you can see tenancies coming to an end, and limited right to remain coming to an end and you can see how that renews. It also took place at what is probably the slowest time of the year so, inevitably, there were not going to be a lot of tenancies turning over. Then there were the difficulties of contacting the population. It is interesting that in a university area, most responses to the request for tenant respondents came from students who are possibly more likely to be active in some of the social issues and more aware of these things going on.
David Smith: Students are also, to a large extent, exempt from checks. Students are nominated into accommodation by their educational institutions so any student in a hall of residence is effectively exempt from checks anyway. Given that areas around Dudley and West Bromwich are not substantial student areas—parts of my family come from the area—it is a shame that there was such a high student sample. I would have liked to have seen a sample that more adequately represented a wider spectrum of social demographic groups. We remain concerned about the effects, not so much on, for example, Members of Parliament renting homes, but on people in the lower social demographics who increasingly are coming into the private rented sector, will have difficulty with this legislation and are often driven into the arms of less salubrious landlords.
Gavin Newlands
Q 140 I know from your written evidence that you call for a clearly understood and properly resourced helpline for landlords. Will you share your members’ experiences of the helpline during the pilot? A recent written answer from the Minister, for which I am very grateful, revealed that there were two full-time equivalent staff for the helpline. Was that sufficient for your members?
David Smith: We have not had any particular feedback. We have certainly had calls to our member helpline from members. I do not know whether that means that they were not happy with what they got. We are concerned about whether the helpline will continue to be resourced as a helpline once we are talking about all of England. That is not clear yet—I am looking at the Minister to see whether he nods or shakes his head. I can tell you that we run a member helpline and that more than two people staff it. It is that simple. Two people will not be enough to cover all of England, but I am not clear about the plans for widening the helpline.
If the helpline is not adequately staffed, there is little point in having it, I suspect. We would like more online resource. I note that, in the evaluation—the guide that was published today—the Government have highlighted the European PRADO database, but it covers only EU documents, not EEA documents. My members are not familiar with Liechtenstein passports, not that they would necessarily see a great many of those. However, many members are likely to believe that countries such as Ukraine are in the EEA, which they are not. We are therefore concerned about people both ignoring countries of which they should take account, and thinking that countries that they have seen in the news recently, which are around the fringes of the EU, must be in the EU.
We are also concerned about the potential for forgery that is opened up on list B. Several documents on there are potentially prone to forgery with a laser printer and we are very worried about the risk our members run of prosecution for not being the most adept spotters of forgeries. Immigration officers frequently examine passport documents and they are highly trained in that. My members are not equipped with UV scanning lights or skilled watermark detection systems, and I am afraid that many of them would not know a watermark if you asked them about it anyway. I am therefore concerned about how they will detect the more sophisticated forgeries, and what the break point is for what they should detect. I am not worried about sellotape.
The Chair
No, you have not, but please be brief.
Chief Superintendent David Snelling: We have been involved in discussions with the Home Office that have proposed this power, but to the question whether we approached the Home Office, the answer is no.
Sarah Champion
Q 149 Mr Gabriel, do you believe the provisions in the Bill covering landlords and the new responsibility of landlords to effectively become immigration experts are going to put a strain on community relations and perhaps lead to more discrimination?
Stephen Gabriel: We speak to landlords on a daily basis. Some of the landlords are not saying that they feel it is an extra burden. The point was made earlier that some landlords have already been looking for and taking information such as copies of people’s passports or other forms of identification, so the good landlords would have been doing checks anyway. Also, some landlords have said that where they felt a bit nervous about asking for proof, the pilot gave them a legitimate reason to ask for and get that information before they could move further with any contracts.
A point was raised earlier about the indigenous population having access to identification, and that could be a challenge. As we know, migrants or asylum seekers who are looking for accommodation will normally come with the relevant documentation. I think there is a point around the indigenous population having the right documentation. As was raised earlier, if two people come along at the same time and one has the documentation but the other does not, the landlord is likely to go with the one who does.
Sarah Champion
Q 150 As you said, good landlords are going to welcome this because it gives them more support to ask for documents to prove legitimacy and protect their tenancy. The group that I am concerned about are the accidental landlords, who just see this as another burden when they did not particularly want to be in this situation, and who may withdraw themselves from the market. I am concerned about the potential for bad landlords to fill that gap, offering substandard accommodation and not asking for the right documents, so that people could fall off the radar and people who choose to fall off the radar could go even further off.
Stephen Gabriel: Bad landlords have always been out there. Even with the introduction of this legislation, in the area that I cover in Sandwell, we are still picking up landlords who are not fulfilling their obligations. I talk about the grey economy of landlords, and I think there is still a lot of work to do to identify those landlords. In Sandwell, we have undertaken a proactive approach for one of our neighbourhoods that we know has a high turnover of newcomers. We are finding some real challenges in relation to the quality of properties that people are living in, particularly properties above shops. We have tried to go there with colleagues from environmental health and housing to take a holistic approach to those buildings, so we can get up and see what is happening above the shops. We found on one occasion two elderly people aged over 80 living in a property that I would describe as—well, not very nice.
Sarah Champion
Q 151 Unfortunately, I have areas like that with private landlords, and those properties tends to be occupied by migrant workers but also trafficked people coming over. What could be in this Bill that is not there already to target those bad landlords?
Stephen Gabriel: From my perspective, it is about what we do on the ground operationally and how we work with our enforcement colleagues. We have now opened up the channels of communication with the Home Office and the Gangmasters Licensing Authority. We have undertaken one joint enforcement activity in Sandwell, and other enforcement activities are coming through now. I am also aware that across the other authorities affected by the pilot, the increase in that relationship in sharing information, sharing data and going out on joint enforcement visits has really raised the profile of the work that we are doing among landlords.
Another thing is how we raise the profile among tenants. One of the things that we have done in the region is recently to launch a mobile app, which is called “Check Before You Rent”. One of the questions in the app is: is your landlord accredited, and have they asked you for any information about the immigration checks?
Mims Davies
Q 152 I must declare an interest in the road safety aspect, because that is an area I have worked in previously. Chief Superintendent Snelling, in terms of people killed or seriously injured, have you identified communities where there is a difference in the culture regarding drink or drug-driving? Have the police identified that as a concern?
Chief Superintendent David Snelling: In wider issues such as drink and domestic abuse and domestic violence, we have identified some communities that are more prone to that. That would be the remit of a local police chief superintendent. I am Sutton borough commander, so I have a good idea of the make-up of my communities within the area that I police. Were there to be specific community concerns or tensions, we would seek to look into it either through education or through enforcement.
On the road safety side, in Sutton we are working closely with Transport for London to raise awareness of safety among schoolchildren. For the wider population, we would hope that the provisions of the Bill would be widely publicised. As I have highlighted with the scenario for stopping, we have run certain operations nationally with the immigration service and we have worked with them to target areas of concern. They, like us, would be feeding into their community representatives to ensure that they would have an understanding of why we have exercised those powers.
The Chair
Good afternoon. We will now hear oral evidence from the Children’s Society, Coram Children’s Legal Centre and the Office of the Children’s Commissioner. As I indicated, this is the final panel, and we can go up to 5 pm. May I ask the witnesses to introduce themselves for the record?
Ilona Pinter: I am Ilona Pinter. I am policy adviser at the Children’s Society and co-chair of the Refugee Children’s Consortium.
Kamena Dorling: I am Kamena Dorling. I am head of policy and programmes at Coram Children’s Legal Centre and co-chair of the Refugee Children’s Consortium.
Adrian Matthews: I am Adrian Matthews. I am the policy adviser to the Children’s Commissioner for England on immigration and asylum-related matters.
Sarah Champion
Q 165 To all of you, please—if you could answer briefly—what do you perceive to be the risks for children’s welfare of the provision to remove support from families who have been refused asylum under clause 34? May I start with Ms Pinter?
Ilona Pinter: We think the risks for children from this provision are very serious indeed. Essentially, it would see families becoming destitute—they would no longer have accommodation and financial support under asylum support. That obviously brings with it a whole range of risks, from families being street homeless to families having to move around, potentially for short periods of time, to stay in potentially unsafe accommodation. The research broadly, including the Children’s Society’s research, shows that children who are currently destitute are at a heightened risk of being exploited, as well as at risk of remaining in circumstances where they are facing domestic violence. Obviously, some of the evidence that currently exists from serious case reviews highlights the real child protection risks for children of having no support.
Adrian Matthews: Could I add that some families will no doubt go into the woodwork? That actually creates all sorts of problems, because parents will then, in order to feed their children, resort to very unsafe practices—unsafe childcare practices and unsafe working environments, and so on and so forth. The other effect is very clear: a lot of families will turn to local authorities for support, and whether they are given that support or not I think is almost immaterial in the end. The fact is that it will massively increase the burden on local authorities in terms of processing applications and claims from families who are destitute and street homeless.
Kamena Dorling: I would echo what both Ilona and Adrian have said. A key concern is, as Adrian has mentioned, this shift of the burden on to local authorities. We are already seeing local authorities struggling to support the number of families currently in the UK with no recourse to public funds. This would look to increase that pressure, and one of the results we are seeing of that pressure is very low levels of support for families that are turning to local authorities, if they are getting anything at all, but also quite high levels of gatekeeping, where often families are turned away anyway. Then we are just going to see either children visibly destitute and homeless or going missing entirely from services, and that will presumably have a knock-on effect on their access to education, access to healthcare and all the problems that we are already seeing for children in families who are undocumented at the moment.
Sarah Champion
Q 166 Looking at current practice, from your experience, how are children’s best interests currently being assessed by the Home Office? How would this play a role in a decision to deport a family under the clause?
Ilona Pinter: The first thing to say is that there is currently no mechanism by which children’s best interests are decided, considered or assessed. That has implications not only for support, but for how families’ substantive decisions within the asylum process are taken into account. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees did a piece of research in 2013 that highlighted a lot of failings where children’s best interests under the protection claim were not considered, which has consequences down the line. The Home Office’s own evaluation of the family returns process highlights that most families involved in the process feared returning home. Reasons include families fearing what will happen to them and their children if they are returned. We believe that the provision to end support for families to encourage them to go home will not work, because they still have those remaining fears about the consequences.
Adrian Matthews: The current practice of Home Office decision makers in taking into account the best interests of children is patchy, to say the least. We had a good example last year that we were involved in as the Children’s Commissioner, in which the Home Office had removed a mentally ill Nigerian mother with a six-year-old who had been born here. She did not survive in Nigeria. She only survived through the foster parents, who had been fostering the child for six months and supporting her while the legal process was going on in the UK. Eventually, the upper tribunal decided that the Home Office had acted unlawfully in not taking into account the child’s best interests and returned the family to the UK.
Sarah Champion
Q 167 So building on that, the potential in the Bill to deport before appeal presumably raises concerns.
Adrian Matthews: Yes, exactly.
Kamena Dorling: I was going to say that when we look at a range of provisions within the Bill, there appears to be an assumption that children’s interests will be considered as a matter of course. From our day-to-day practice and at Coram Children’s Legal Centre, where we represent children and families in such situations, at best we get lip service paid to children’s interests. Quite often, there is no detailed analysis of how any immigration decision would affect a child in a family or on their own, which is really concerning. There is a huge absence here both when we are talking about changes to support for families in the asylum system and when we are talking about the extension of the deport-first appeal. Children are absent from later provisions. There is no consideration of the impact on children.
Adrian Matthews: I would very much like to echo that. One of the most serious aspects of the appeal provisions is the test of “serious and irreversible harm” but that is applied to the person who is to be removed, excluded or refused entry, depriving the child a voice in proceedings. Under the current arrangements, in an in-country appeal under article 8 human rights grounds there is at least the potential for the child’s voice to be heard. The change specifically excludes children who are settled or who are UK citizens from having a voice in the proceedings about how they will be affected by the removal or exclusion of a parent. That is a serious concern that engages the UK’s obligations under the United Nations convention on the rights of the child, particularly article 12, which requires the state party to allow the child to have a voice in such proceedings.
Sarah Champion
Q 168 The Government believe that they are compliant with the European convention on human rights and that there is no conflict with any children’s legislation. You would disagree with that.
Adrian Matthews: I would not agree with that.
Sarah Champion
Okay. To the rest of the panel, do you think that the legislation complies?
Ilona Pinter: It is notable that on the provision to withdraw asylum support, for instance, there is no mention of the section 55 duty on the Home Secretary to safeguard and promote the welfare of children in relation to all of the functions, including asylum support. There is no mention of how many children would be affected specifically by that provision.
Kamena Dorling: If we look broadly at the UN convention on the rights of the child, as has been already mentioned, article 12, which is about the voice of the child, is key, but so is article 3, which requires us to take the best interests of the child as a primary consideration. We have had a number of cases go to the Supreme Court on that, and we have got very good guidance from the Supreme Court about how the interests of children should be examined.
One of the findings of the Supreme Court is that children should not be blamed for the actions of their parents. Again, what we seem to see in this Bill is this idea that any immigration behaviour that is deemed undesirable can result in a policy of forced destitution, for example, which seems to me a very stark means of punishing children for the action of their parents. So there are a number of concerns.
Sarah Champion
To reassure the panel, I will point out that we are blessed with a Minister who has always been a child advocate and campaigner, so I am sure he will look very closely at these matters.
The Chair
We will just take Sarah and Kelly, and then we will try to get some responses in two minutes, I am afraid.
Sarah Champion
The panel responded to all the questions by talking about families. Does the Bill have any implications for unaccompanied children?
Kelly Tolhurst
I represent a constituency in Kent, where the issue of unaccompanied minors has caused great pressures over the past 12 months. It is already a burden on the local authorities and the local people. I wonder whether you think there are any measures that are not in the Bill that would discourage families from allowing their young people to travel here on their own?
Immigration Bill (First sitting)
Sarah Champion Excerpts(8 years, 6 months ago)
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Craig Whittaker
Q 34 In your 2014 report, “Migrants in low-skilled work”, which we have quoted several times, you talk about countries that use the International Labour Organisation labour inspection convention 81 of 1947, which seemed to be particularly effective. Will this new director bring us much closer to that working model?
Professor Metcalf: If I may say so, that is a really good question, because in some senses, what we were feeling our way towards in the “low-skilled” report was the notion of having an overall labour market inspectorate, which that ILO convention is about. What happened was the Prime Minister took up the issue of enforcement in the speech immediately after the election and set up an immigration taskforce, but on the immigration taskforce, you have different Departments who have different interests—the Treasury, with HMRC, and now the Home Office, with the Gangmasters Licensing Authority, and so on. I think it is quite understandable that the immigration taskforce—the ministerial taskforce—and probably, the Cabinet Office and so on, did not want to disrupt the machinery of Government completely and start with a blank sheet of paper and set up a new labour market inspectorate. They wanted people to get on with the job but have much more joined-up thinking and overall strategy.
We are where we are, and it may well have been that we would almost have had no labour market enforcement for the two years while we were trying to set the inspectorate up. It would be very difficult. Some of the people are not civil servants and some are, and they are located all over the place. Sticking with what we have got and trying to approach it in probably an incremental way is actually very sensible.
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
Q 35 Mr Bone, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. I have a couple of questions. I am a big fan of the anti-slavery commissioner. I think that in six months, he has had a big impact, precisely because he is independent and has a remit that goes across different Departments and organisations. You said that it was key that the post of director is able to work harmoniously with other Departments, but you mentioned the Health and Safety Executive and local authorities, and a lack of clarity about what the relationship would be. Do you think that ought to be fleshed out on the face of the Bill for this post to have the maximum impact?
Professor Metcalf: No, I do not think so at this stage. Doing it incrementally is really a rather good idea. The main enforcement people currently are the three in the Bill—the employment agencies, the Gangmasters Licensing Authority, and HMRC, with the minimum wage. In a sense, the new director, whoever he or she is, will have a major task to get those agencies to work in a bit more of a joined-up way. There may well be a case in the future for trying to bring in, under the same strategic role, health and safety, local authorities and on occasions, possibly the Department for Work and Pensions as well, which deal with national insurance, for example. For me, it is a major task to do what is being done, and I do not think that at this stage, it is necessary to do that, but it is possible that we might even think, three or four years down the line, when we have seen how it works, “This is three quarters of the way to a fully-fledged labour market inspectorate. Perhaps we could transform it into a labour market inspectorate and bring the other bodies in as well.” But I think this is very good—it is not a halfway house; it is a three-quarter-way house.
Sarah Champion
Q 36 You also mentioned the need for sufficient resources. Do you believe that, as things stand, the director does have sufficient resources to prevent worker exploitation?
Professor Metcalf: Probably not, but in the consultation document and, I think, in the Bill, it does not actually set out quite what the resources are.
Sarah Champion
Q 37 What do you think they should be?
Professor Metcalf: I think that successive Governments have put more resources in—certainly into HMRC, but less so with the Gangmasters Licensing Authority. One understands the difficulties with the public finances, but we probably do not have sufficient resources. In the low-skilled report, we calculated that you would get an inspection from HMRC once every 250 years and you would get a prosecution once in a million years. That suggests that we do not have enough resources. In turn, that takes you to the potential trade-off between the resources and the punishments. If you do not have sufficient resources, you may need to ensure that the punishments—certainly on occasion—are properly implemented. That is why I am in favour of the new offence of aggravated exploitation, which, in the extreme, carries a two-year jail sentence.
Sarah Champion
Q 38 Your hope was that the director would be able to set established minimum standards with employers. However, in parts of the Bill, the criminal aspect has shifted from the employer to the employee. What impact do you think that is likely to have?
Professor Metcalf: You mean on illegal working? I try, as chair of the Migration Advisory Committee, to stick to my knitting and do what we have done. Frankly, I have not thought about that very much. It is a matter for you, as the Committee, and for other people to decide what they think about illegal working.
Your point about employers is really important. I hope that the CBI, which is an excellent organisation— I know from my time on the Low Pay Commission how important the CBI was in ensuring that the minimum wage worked properly—buys into this. Occasionally, the CBI is rather hostile to regulation. In a sense, that rather surprises me, because the regulation that has been proposed here will help its members. It takes away the cowboys, as it were, and the people who do the undercutting. Therefore, your point about the effect on employers is very important. I hope that the CBI buys into this.
Rebecca Harris (Castle Point) (Con)
Q 39 What impact more generally do you feel illegal or poorly regulated workers’ protections have on the domestic, legal workforce?
Professor Metcalf: We went into that in some detail in the low-skilled report last year. It is interesting. When we went out to Wisbech and Peterborough and so on, the concerns were about the exploitation of the migrants. However, the people we spoke to were well seized of the consequences for British workers: possibly some displacement, although lots of times they would not actually want to do the jobs; and, for certain, downward pressure on the wages at the bottom end of the labour market. By properly regulating this aspect of the labour market—including immigrants and the British workforce—this will go a long way towards raising the welfare of British residents. I would have thought that this is something that we should all welcome. Our report was about immigrants, but it went into what the issue was doing to British residents. We did find evidence that it was undercutting wages. The measures will be very important to stop that.
Craig Whittaker
Q 57 You do not think that the UK has been a light touch, then.
Caroline Robinson: We have had a raft of immigration legislation over many years, with controls and responses. I am not sure whether that means that people think the more immigration legislation that we have, the more of a light touch people perceive us to be. Then perhaps there is a problem with the legislation, I do not know.
Sarah Champion
Q 58 Leading on from Mr Whittaker’s question, do any of the panel believe that clause 8, the offence of illegal working, will have any impact on people illegally coming to this country?
John Miley: I am not sure. In terms of licensing, I am not sure there would be any particular effect at all, I have to say. I am not sure that there is a major problem in licensed premises; maybe more so in late-night takeaways and off-licences. I do not perceive that to affect it at all.
Sarah Champion
Q 59 Does anyone on the panel think that clause 8 will prevent illegal workers coming into the country?
Caroline Robinson: What we think will prevent people from working here undocumented is to reduce the demand for undocumented workers. To do that, we require enforcement of labour standards across the board. To be clear, the demand for undocumented workers is not because employers prefer undocumented over documented workers; it is because they cannot pay documented workers below minimum wage as easily as they can undocumented workers. They still try, and as I mentioned, Channel 4’s investigation last night showed Romanian workers being paid below minimum wage and being treated in substandard conditions, because they were under the perception that they were not entitled to the same rights as British citizens.
We know that 78% of those exploited for their labour are, in fact, documented in the UK. So the reduction in demand for undocumented labour through the enforcement of labour standards by this director of labour market enforcement is welcome, but to do that we need a labour inspectorate that is level with other labour inspectorates across the EU. To have just 0.8 inspectors per 100,000 workers at the moment leaves us quite open to abuse. We just heard from the Migration Advisory Committee, which said in its report last year on low-skilled migration that there is just one inspection by the HMRC national minimum wage inspectorate per 250 years for employers. The frequency of inspections is certainly an incentive for employers to employ undocumented workers, as the fear of being caught is low.
Sarah Champion
Q 60 My personal feeling is that clause 8 is a show pony for the Daily Mail. It will not actually make any difference to people coming into the country to work illegally. However, what is your opinion of clause 9? Do you think that it goes far enough to put the onus on employers to not employ people illegally and not exploit workers?
Kevin Green: I gave evidence to the Modern Slavery Bill Committee when that legislation was going through. One thing that is quite important is that large businesses manage their supply chains effectively and are held to account. We recognise that there was some movement towards that in the legislation, and the anti-slavery commissioner clearly has a remit to look at that. We do not think that that has gone far enough. We think that large employers, such as supermarkets, need to be very aware of what is happening throughout their supply chain and should be held to account. That is much more likely to deliver results, along with strong enforcement, than creating more legislation and regulation that is not enforced.
Sarah Champion
Q 61 Specifically, previous witnesses have spoken about takeaways and the construction industry, which would be small employers. Does clause 9 go far enough to prevent that exploitation?
Kevin Green: It is helpful, but I am not sure that it goes far enough. Think about how the supply chain works for the construction industry, with multiple small organisations working into a large developer. Hold the large developer to account, make them accountable for what activity happens in their supply chain, and I think you will drive out a lot of the bad practice that we are hearing about.
Sarah Champion
Q 62 Mr Miley, as a licensing officer, does this give you enough to go on to stop illegal practice, or would you like to see more in there?
John Miley: I think it helps. I am quite keen to ensure that the licensing authorities are not given some sort of role in this in respect of being responsible. If we are making checks on certain documentation, I do not want us to be part of the problem. If something happens and we miss a check, we do not want to be responsible for it. It is important that owners and employers are responsible. It certainly gives the enforcement agencies the opportunity to take proper action against them.
Byron Davies
Q 63 Caroline, you mentioned the extent of harbouring. You talked about the Romanian case on Channel 4. What is the extent of this, and what is the evidence?
Caroline Robinson: Of people being harboured in situations of exploitation?
draft Modern Slavery Act 2015 (Transparency in supply chains) Regulations 2015
Sarah Champion Excerpts(8 years, 6 months ago)
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Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
It is a huge pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hanson. I have been very proud to serve with you on the Benches and know that you will be very able in your guidance of the Committee. It is also a pleasure to speak on these regulations, because the Minister took a different approach with the Modern Slavery Act 2015: a cross-party Committee worked on the drafts and we then went forward in a collaborative manner. The Act is much stronger for that.
We have no objections to the regulations. We like the fact that they were consulted on and that 79% of those who responded agree with the level set, to follow the Companies Act 2006. Nevertheless, I would like some assurances. Throughout the lifetime of the 2015 Act, we have had concerns that companies are being asked to supply the information that “may” be included. The Government argue that that gives businesses the flexibility to choose what works best for them to tackle slavery, but the fundamental issue with the Act is that there is no information on what businesses must include. That allows businesses to pick and choose what to include, which prevents direct comparison between business reports, and allows companies to highlight strong and, potentially, very weak points. Ultimately, that takes away the teeth from the Act.
There is also a danger of slavery and human trafficking in the supply chains of smaller companies. I appreciate that that is difficult to legislate on, as smaller companies lack the resources to conduct due diligence, but the issue demands highlighting. How does the Minister plan to address the smaller companies that might flout the legislation?
Oral Answers to Questions
Sarah Champion Excerpts(8 years, 7 months ago)
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Karen Bradley
I attended the launch event of that excellent Citizens Advice campaign, which has already helped me with a case in my own constituency, in which I was able to refer someone to the citizens advice bureau to get the specialist and expert support that they needed.
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
Reports of domestic and sexual violence are increasing across the country. However, in an attempt to deal with the relentless Government cuts, local authorities and the police are stopping specialist abuse support to victims and instead providing generic services or no services at all. Will the Minister commit to ensuring that everyone, regardless of gender, sexuality or ethnicity, feels safe and supported in their home?
Karen Bradley
I welcome the hon. Lady to her place on the Front Bench and I look forward to working with her. We have worked together on a number of previous campaigns and I know that she will be excellent in her new role. As I have said, the Home Office is refreshing its violence against women and girls strategy, and part of that involves looking at commissioning and local commissioning to ensure that those specialist services, which she rightly says victims need to get the support that they require, get the funding that they need.
Child Sexual Exploitation (Rotherham)
Sarah Champion Excerpts(9 years, 2 months ago)
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Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
Exactly six months ago to the day, the report commissioned by Rotherham borough council into child sexual exploitation in the town was published. Professor Alexis Jay’s damning report catalogued failings of both the police and the council over 16 years, which resulted in at least 1,400 victims of child sexual exploitation. Still worse, most of those alleging the crimes received no support, no recognition and in many cases were dismissed, belittled or told that it was basically their fault. There has been only one major prosecution.
I believe that what happened in Rotherham was predominantly the result of a culture that refused to countenance “troublesome” teenagers as victims and one that was prepared to tolerate the existence of sexual abuse—a culture where targets were more important than protecting children. The Jay report stunned me, the country and, to be fair, the world. How could such barbaric abuse occur, let alone go on uninvestigated? I simply do not have the answer to that question, and I doubt that I ever will: it simply should not have happened in a civilised society.
When I managed to get my head around the enormity of the failings, my next thought was to get help from the Government. If there had been a natural disaster in Rotherham that had affected 1,400 people and the council and police had insufficient resources to deal with it, the Government would of course have intervened. I would expect a visit from the Prime Minister, national co-ordination of charities, Government experts to arrive and, as a priority, resources and support for the victims and survivors to be provided. To date, we have had nothing.
In this Chamber on 2 September, I asked the Home Secretary for resources for the victims and survivors. She subsequently met me, and I discussed in detail what was needed nationally and, more specifically, locally—but no cash followed. On the same date, I asked the Chancellor for additional funding, and met a Treasury Minister on 10 September, when I handed over a proposal for emergency funding that I had worked up with my colleagues, the two other MPs representing Rotherham, the police, the council and clinical commissioning groups. To date, I have not had as much as a reply to that request, although after much chasing, I did get a holding letter dated “December”, telling me that the Treasury was looking into it.
John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making a powerful case, so I hope the Minister is listening. To be fair, one small step has been taken today, linked to the announcement by the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government of £250,000 for the commissioners for Rotherham council over two years, to reintroduce an outreach youth work project—a Risky Business-style project. Does she recognise, as I do, that that is merely 0.5% of the budget cut that the council must make in April, so it is simply not enough? Should not the Communities Secretary now release the troubled families and transformation award funds that have been withheld from Rotherham, because the council and other agencies need them to deal with the problems highlighted in the Jay and Casey reports?
Sarah Champion
I agree absolutely with my right hon. Friend about the situation in which Rotherham finds itself. It is unsustainable. Like him, I welcome this donation—[Interruption.]—or drop in the ocean, as my right hon. Friend says. It does not go anywhere near far enough. I shall come on to discuss what resources we need as I progress.
On 3 September and 19 November, I raised the issue of support for the victims and survivors of Rotherham abuse with the Prime Minister. I met him on 4 February, and he subsequently pledged support on “BBC Look North”, for which I am hugely grateful. I am delighted that, as my right hon. Friend has said, the Communities Secretary announced £125,000 a year for two years to reform Risky Business. Without wanting to sound ungrateful, however, it is indeed a drop in the ocean in comparison with the resources we need to allow the young people of my constituency to rebuild their lives.
I ask the Minister to recognise that Rotherham’s police force must pay for the intervention of the National Crime Agency from Rotherham’s policing budget, and that Rotherham council must pay for the Casey report and the commissioners from Rotherham’s resources. That is taking more money away from a town that needs more resources, not less, at a time when the Government have already reduced the police budget by 20% and the local authority budget by 40%. How, realistically, are we meant to cope? Why are the Government compounding the horror that we already endure?
Let me make some suggestions about the sort of support that we need. There are currently only two child sexual exploitation workers dedicated to the victims in Rotherham. One is employed by me, and I am eternally grateful to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority for giving me emergency funding to pay for that worker. However, that funding will run out on 7 May. The other is employed by Barnardo’s. She works only with people under the age of 18, and her work load consists of only 12 people. There are social workers, counsellors and police officers working in the field of child sexual exploitation, but there are only two people who are dedicated to supporting at least 1,400 victims and survivors. It should be borne in mind that 30% of the Rotherham abuse victims covered by the Jay report are over the age of 25, and most are over 18. There is only one worker to deal with the majority, and her role will end in two months.
I want the Government to recognise that Rotherham needs specific intervention to allow us to move forward. We need a fully independent unit whose sole purpose would be to support victims and survivors of child sexual exploitation. It should have charitable status, and a board of trustees that should include representatives of the Crown Prosecution Service, the council, the police, survivors, parents and the voluntary sector. The money that has been pledged today could provide a seed fund.
The unit would work in three ways. First, it would provide early intervention and prevention through a team of youth workers, survivor volunteers, family support workers, parent workers and health workers. They would deliver education and training to professionals and parents, carry out early prevention work with young people in educational and community settings, and provide awareness sessions for the community at large. Secondly, it would provide support and intervention for young people who were at risk and involved in grooming and sexual exploitation. That support and intervention would be delivered by a team of youth workers, social workers, police—police constables, and police and young people’s partnership officers—survivor volunteers and trained counsellors. Thirdly, the unit would offer one-to-one support, help with intelligence sharing and gathering, strategy meetings, and section 47 investigations. There would also need to be interpreters, policy writers and crèche workers. I see that as a model that could be replicated across the country.
Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)
I congratulate the hon. Lady on making this case and on all the work that she has done in Rotherham, although I am afraid that the problem of the lack of support for survivors who might come forward is not limited to Rotherham. What does she think about the negotiations which, I gather, are currently taking place between Rotherham council and Ofsted? In its “improvement offer”, Ofsted suggests that it should provide advice and support, although it failed to recognise the problem earlier, and something might have been done about it sooner if Ofsted had been rather better at its job.
Sarah Champion
It would take a great deal for me to have faith in Ofsted and trust it to investigate and, indeed, support Rotherham council, given the failings that it has demonstrated not just in Rotherham but throughout the country. Ofsted needs to be much more aware when it is assessing councils and individual organisations in the context of child sexual exploitation and child abuse in general.
In the short term, there also needs to be a Rotherham-specific organisation that is dedicated to co-ordinating the witness statements that victims and survivors are asked to give. We currently have a ludicrous arrangement whereby the same young victim is asked to give evidence to the Independent Police Complaints Commission, the National Crime Agency, and South Yorkshire police. That is hugely invasive, logistically demanding, and overwhelming for young people who are still trying to rebuild their lives.
We need a centre that can co-ordinate all of the interviews and questions so the victim needs only to speak to one person in a safe and supportive space. To facilitate this, I ask that the Minister funds a remote video link to enable a victim who is involved in a court hearing to give evidence from a remote location. That would help serve the needs of victims in Rotherham, enabling them to link into court proceedings without the trauma of attending court. This fact was highlighted as an issue for victims in the Jay report. There are challenges associated with delivering the initiative and the provision of defined funding to progress technological solutions would be beneficial.
To state the obvious, if we look after the victims and survivors we will get prosecutions. If we keep being demanding of their time as is happening currently, they will withdraw their good will and the case will be lost.
Another short-term Rotherham specific request is a dedicated Crown Prosecution Service team to provide timely pre-charge advice and progress cases. That would be a team of four or five CPS lawyers plus additional admin support to manage current and future cases effectively. Initial discussions have taken place and the suggested team size and cost has been provided by the CPS.
I also recommend that an additional independent sexual violence adviser, or ISVA, should be recruited, to be co-located with the public protection unit in Rotherham to offer support and advocacy for victims as they are identified. Alternatively, the ISVA could be community-based. The ISVA would need to be trained as a child ISVA and therefore be able to support child victims in both current and historical cases.
Kevin Barron (Rother Valley) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making a very good case. On her point about the CPS, I dealt with a case in 2003-04 that is still being investigated. It was with the CPS at that time, and they are a distance away from the borough. To echo another point, within the past hour, I spoke to the father of one of the victims who I have been in touch with for many years now who had a meeting this week with the police and crime commissioner, but setting up regular meetings to try to sort something out is hindered by the lack of income because of budget cuts for the PCC and Rotherham borough council. May I tell the Minister that we need help to sort this situation out?
Sarah Champion
I echo what my right hon. Friend says. In the CPS for South Yorkshire and the Humber, the Sheffield CPS has seven lawyers, each carrying a caseload of at least 100 individuals.
Finally, in Rotherham we have three voluntary counselling services trying to support all our survivors: Apna Haq, GROW and the women’s counselling service. Although it was welcome that Rotherham council gave each organisation £20,000 to fast-track child sexual exploitation cases, that is only until the end of the financial year. What is needed is long-term investment to enable them to work with victims and survivors in an intensive way and at the pace that the victims and survivors want.
In discussions with the police and crime commissioner, he has offered to be the fundholder for all the schemes I have outlined, as I am aware the Prime Minister was nervous about giving additional funding to the police or council.
I would now like to focus on what needs to happen nationally. We know that Rotherham is not an isolated case; it already follows high-profile cases of widespread sexual abuse in other towns and cities. The sexual exploitation of vulnerable teenagers is happening across the country. It is of grave concern that our statutory services are not in a fit position to respond consistently and convincingly. In addition, there is a serious shortfall, and inconsistencies, in the support provided to victims of child sexual abuse and exploitation that must be urgently addressed, from disclosure, through the criminal justice system and into therapeutic support for those who need it.
Research conducted in 2009, currently being updated by the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, found there was a shortfall in therapeutic support for victims of sexual abuse of more than 50,000 places a year, a huge gap between need and service provision. Victims are subject to a postcode lottery with only one support programme for every 25,000 children in the UK. The 508 services that are available are so overstretched they are now being forced to stop taking on new cases.
On Monday, the shadow Home Secretary committed a Labour Government to creating a dedicated child protection unit. I urge the Government to do the same. This topic should be not about politics but about doing the best for our children. I would like to propose a five-point plan to tackle child sexual exploitation nationally. The first is the establishment of a national taskforce for organised child sexual exploitation, based on a similar model to the forced marriage unit or the modern day slavery commissioner. That would be a small, dedicated team of experts in policing, prosecuting and psychological support that can be used as a resource by police forces, councils and the voluntary sector if they suspect organised child sexual exploitation. If that taskforce had existed when the Jay report came out six months ago, the police and the council could have immediately had specialist support on how to work with the victims; best practice in securing prosecutions; setting up a dedicated investigation team; and how to manage communications.
In reality, the police and the council have been left to flounder for six months, learning by their mistakes rather than being supported through an intensely difficult time. When the Jay report clearly identified failings with the police and the council, why did the Government not offer immediate support? I welcome the intervention of commissioners now, but why could they not have been brought in much earlier, avoiding some of the mistakes that have been allowed to happen?
My second point is that we should introduce mandatory personal, social, health and economic education for key stage 1 children. This is about teaching children not about sex, but about what is, and is not, a healthy relationship. We need to give our children the tools to arm themselves against abuse, not leave them to discover the horrors of the internet and, in the absence of proper education, be forced to consider what they see there to be normal.
I would also like the Government to make it mandatory for anyone employed to work with children to have training in spotting the signs of child abuse and how to report concerns.
Fourthly, I am tired of professionals being more concerned about protecting data than about protecting the child. The Government need to send out a clear signal that there will be penalties if health and education services, local authorities and the police do not share information to prevent child abuse.
Finally, we need a culture where victims of child abuse are believed. In Rotherham, victims were trying to report their abuse for decades. They repeatedly had doors shut in their faces and were branded prostitutes, worthless or complicit. I say to the Minister that that culture has to change. It is slowly changing in cases of rape and domestic violence; it needs to quickly change in the case of child abuse.
Lynne Featherstone
My hon. Friend makes an important point. We need that kind of hands-on experience in both Departments as well as co-ordination between them, because we do not want anyone falling through the holes or not recognising what needs to be done.
Louise Casey’s report also describes how a small youth project, Risky Business, had developed a ground-breaking approach to reaching out to victims of sexual exploitation and to collecting evidence about perpetrators. Unfortunately, misguided and inappropriate decisions made by the council resulted in the closure of the service. The report concludes:
“The critical work they undertook is now missing from RMBC.”
That situation should not continue, and the victims of historical child sexual exploitation should be given the help they need. Accordingly, subject to being provided with an appropriate business case demonstrating value for money, I am prepared to make available £250,000 over the next two financial years for a Risky Business-style service to be established.
Sarah Champion
As I said in my speech, I am extremely grateful for that, but as my right hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey) and I have both pointed out, £125,000 a year is a drop in the ocean. It will pay for four workers and an office. I am really hoping, therefore, that the Minister is about to tell us that she will make available more Government support for the victims and survivors.
Lynne Featherstone
I understand the hon. Lady’s anxiety and need. When someone knows a situation as closely as she knows this one, they can see all the answers and they want something right now, and a lot of it—[Interruption.] Indeed, it would be for the victims.
The Home Secretary has led a series of meetings with her Secretary of State colleagues to consider what more we as a Government can do to help to prevent these failures from happening again. Those meetings have focused on the issues highlighted in Rotherham: the complete failure of local leadership; the culture of inaction and denial in the police and the council; the failure of local agencies to work together to protect children; and the lack of support for survivors. A report on the action to address each of those issues will be published shortly. A key part of that response will recognise the need for further support for victims from statutory and non-statutory support services, and for their engagement with the criminal justice system.
Effective, timely support for victims of child sexual abuse is a matter of national importance and it is one that this Government have prioritised. We have put rape support centres on a secure financial footing, by providing more than £4.4 million a year to 86 organisations across England and Wales that provide support to women and girl victims of rape and sexual violence. That funding is targeted at women and teenage girls who have been the victim of rape or sexual abuse; whether as a result of a recent attack or of historical abuse. We have funded a further 15 new rape support centres in areas that were lacking specialised support—13 centres were brought into existence by June 2014, and the final two centres, located in Grantham and Crawley, were commissioned by the Ministry of Justice in September 2014 and will be open during 2015.
Lynne Featherstone
I will but I may not get to the end of the list of support we are giving.
Sarah Champion
I hope that the Minister realises that rape is a completely different crime from child sexual exploitation and grooming.
Lynne Featherstone
I do recognise that, but these services all relate to sexual violence. On rape and sexual violence, young women may come to those clinics as a result of what has happened to them, so there is some overlap between child sexual exploitation and sexual violence against teenage girls.
We recognised the gap in services supporting men and boys and, as a result, launched a fund dedicated to supporting male victims of rape and sexual violence of more than £600,000 over two years. We have awarded a further £400,000 over two years to Survivors UK to help it create the first ever national website to provide an online support service for male survivors of rape and sexual abuse. We have funded a network of independent sexual violence advisers at a cost £1.7 million per year to part-fund 87 ISVAs to provide appropriate and independent support for victims. We have funded a network of 13 young people’s advocates, at a cost of £400,000 per year, who provide direct and dedicated support to young people who have been victims of, or are at risk of, sexual and domestic violence and/or sexual exploitation.
We do, however, recognise that there is a need for an uplift to these services. In the past two years a 40% increase in child sexual offences has been recorded by the police, leading to significant increases in the demand for support for survivors. The large increase in the number of victims reporting child sexual abuse and exploitation to the police, and other bodies, has resulted in a significant demand. That is why we agreed in December an immediate uplift in non-statutory sector support to victims of child sexual abuse of £7 million. That fund was split between an immediate uplift of £2.15 million to the 84 existing rape support centres; a £2 million fund to non-statutory organisations, which are reporting an increase in demand as a direct result of the announcement of the child sexual abuse inquiry; and a £2.85 million fund for non-statutory organisations providing support across England and Wales to help meet the increased demand on those services. Tragically, this is happening right across the country, although Rotherham’s is the case that we all know best and that was so shocking. We will ensure that this funding is available to organisations supporting victims and survivors in areas where there is a high prevalence of child sexual abuse and exploitation, such as Rotherham. As the hon. Lady will know, the funds are being administered by the police and crime commissioner for Norfolk, because the chief constable there, Simon Bailey, is the national policing lead for child protection and abuse investigation. The Home Office is also supporting that work, and bidding for both funds will close on 2 March. We would expect successful bidders to be notified by the end of next month.
Let me deal with some of the specific points the hon. Lady raised. On the need for a remote link for vulnerable victims and witnesses to give evidence, the Ministry of Justice has committed to set up at least one remote, non-court video link in each Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service area by the end of next month. Although specific locations cannot yet be confirmed, there will be a site in the north-east region, which covers Rotherham, as well as in other locations in England and Wales. In addition, vulnerable and intimidated witnesses can give evidence using a live link from any other Crown court and most magistrates courts away from the trial court. It is recognised that that has to be available.
I am way off Government message on PSHE, as everyone well knows. I totally agree that it does need to come forward but as we are very near to the ending of this Parliament, I hope that all three parties will come back with a recommendation for that. I have particularly to agree with the hon. Lady on data sharing. Like her, I started with an issue in my area, with baby Peter being the issue in my constituency, and in my experience and in all the serious case reviews I have read since then, the lack of data sharing at every point has allowed a gap for a child to fall through. As I say, I will report all her requests to the Home Secretary.
Child sexual abuse is a despicable crime and this Government are absolutely determined to eradicate it. In the past, all too often these horrific crimes were ignored, but now child sexual abuse is rightly centre stage as an issue and we must work together to tackle it. I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this debate, and on all the passion and commitment she brings to this issue.
Question put and agreed to.
Child Abuse Inquiry
Sarah Champion Excerpts(9 years, 3 months ago)
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Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
I am afraid that this whole inquiry has now become a farce. It is very frustrating that my right hon. Friend the shadow Home Secretary has had to call the right hon. Lady to come to the House, because we need transparency and clear communication. We also need not just an inquiry but a national taskforce, because this is a national issue and the regional forces do not have the capacity to deal with it.
Mrs May
I commend the hon. Lady once again for the work she has done, particularly on the child sexual exploitation that has taken place in Rotherham, but also for the way in which she is using that experience to inform others to try to ensure that we put in place the necessary support mechanism and that the terrible things that happened in Rotherham do not happen elsewhere.
I made it clear in my statement that I will come to this House once a decision about the chairmanship has been taken, and I was very clear in the letter I wrote to the panel inquiry members in December that that decision would be taken by the end of January. It is fully my intention to come to the House when that decision has been taken, as I indicated to the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), to set the whole package before the House and for the House to be able to look at that.
The hon. Lady also raised a point that is not just about the work of the panel inquiry. I am also chairing a group of Secretaries of State who are looking more specifically at the allegations that arose in the Rotherham case, and which have, sadly, been replicated elsewhere, and particularly those from the hon. Member for Stockport (Ann Coffey), who did important work with Greater Manchester Police on what happened in Greater Manchester. We are looking at the issue of support, and work is being done with local authorities to look at the support that is available and how they can identify and make sure these things are not happening.