Immigration Bill (Fifth sitting)

Simon Hoare Excerpts

Tuesday 27th October 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)]

The Scottish National party tabled the amendment with Labour because we believe that the primary purpose of the director of labour market enforcement should be to enforce the rights of workers and protect people from exploitation. Indeed, the Government’s background briefing states that the new labour market enforcement agency will be established to protect people against being exploited or coerced into work. The Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association has said:

“Where those working or living in very poor conditions are deterred from accessing assistance because of their immigration status”—

this will clearly make it harder for them—

“or because of their vulnerability to threats by unscrupulous employers in relation to their immigration status, agencies will be restricted in their ability to gather the intelligence needed to exercise their regulatory functions and protect against labour market exploitation. A lack of clarity over the protective function of the labour market enforcement agency may therefore undermine its aims.”

It would be good to have a little more clarity.

Last week, one of the Conservative Members really shocked me with a statement about illegal workers. On reflection, I wonder whether there is a genuine, fundamental misunderstanding about some of these people that might need to be addressed. The comment was that if people knew that the Bill was being introduced and that it was going be so much harder to work here illegally, they would be less likely to allow themselves to be trafficked. That really shocked me. We are talking about the most vulnerable people, who are taken from other countries against their will. They do not choose or allow themselves to be trafficked. They are used and abused. The Bill will make it so much worse for them. Does the Minister believe that people are trafficked here because they choose to be or not? If there is a belief that there is an element of choice to trafficking, I understand where the measures come from. I would like to know that the Minister intends to protect the most vulnerable people.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

If the hon. Lady accepts the premise that the trafficker is the conduit for the individual to go from A to B, does she accept that if the individual understands that entry to B is now harder and tougher, it is likely that they will not be sought to be trafficked in the first place or that they will ask the traffickers to traffic them elsewhere? It is all about signal and message.

[Anne McLaughlin]

So there is the answer to my question. I really would love the Minister to respond and to understand that people do not choose to be trafficked. They do not say, “Please kidnap me, tie me up, bundle me into a van, and take me to a country that I’ve never been to where I can’t speak the language.”

[Simon Hoare]

That is kidnapping; it is not trafficking. Trafficking, in my judgment, is when somebody goes to somebody else who is providing that service and says, “I want to get from A to B. Will you get me there?” That might be in a private motorcraft, an aeroplane or whatever it might happen to be. When I talk about trafficking, that is what I am talking about, not about kidnap, which is illegal.

[Anne McLaughlin]

In legal terms, the hon. Gentleman is wrong. That is not what trafficking is. He needs to look up the legal definition of trafficking because trafficking happens against somebody’s will. We have to protect those people. Now that the hon. Gentleman understands, perhaps he will support this amendment.