Modern Slavery Bill

House of Lords, 23 February 2015.

Report (1st Day)

Baroness Hamwee (Liberal Democrat)

My Lords, I also have Amendments 2 and 3 in this group. The Minister has, quite understandably, urged noble Lords not to endanger the Bill by continuing to seek to improve it—or, to use his words, to improve it “even further”. We must all accept that the Bill has been improved significantly and will be improved, the more so when we get to the end of this stage. We will be considering, I think, 72 government amendments this week.

I well understand, of course, the point that he makes. As much as with any Bill that I have ever known, there is a passion within and outside this House to end up with the best Bill possible, and we owe a lot to a lot of people who work on these issues. What is possible may not be quite the same as what would be if we had another six months, and I accept that some of what some of us would like to see in the Bill needs time for consideration and consultation—more time than we have before the end of the Parliament. I prepared all that to allow other noble Lords to leave the Chamber before I got to the point of my amendment.

We have opportunities for changes or to make sure that the Bill does what we think it does, which we can do without the best endangering the good. With my amendments in this group, I want to be quite sure that Clause 1, whose first two subsections reproduce Section 71 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009, does not itself, in its additional subsections, become the victim of the best. The term used in subsection (3) is that “regard may”—and I would like to inquire about the purport of that—

“be had to all the circumstances”.

Subsection (4) gives examples of “personal circumstances” that may make someone particularly “vulnerable” to servitude, slavery, forced labour and so on.

I tabled amendments to the same effect in Committee, because I was concerned then, and remain concerned, that “circumstances” is a term used for external matters, while “characteristics”, which is the term I use in my amendment, means things that are intrinsic to the person. Yesterday I went to the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary. I am ashamed to say that I had not realised until then that “circumstance” comes straight from the Latin: “circum” meaning “around” and “stance” from “stare”, meaning “to stand”: in other words, something surrounding—as I say, something external. On the other hand, “characteristic” is defined by that dictionary as,

“a distinguishing trait or quality”.

The distinction that I had been concerned about is borne out by the definitions. A characteristic is not a circumstance.

The examples given in Clause 1(4) are not an exhaustive list—I accept that. The list includes at least one item that is both a characteristic and a circumstance: that is, “family relationships”. They are an externality, if you like, but they impact very much on who a person is. My Amendment 3 would add “disability” to the list because disability is not an illness. The list refers to “mental or physical illness”. I think the days are past when people often confused mental illness and disability.

I mentioned this to a colleague, who pointed me to the Equality and Human Rights Commission guidance that deals with what are called “protected characteristics”, of which disability is one, along with age, sexual orientation and five others. Disability is recognised as distinct from illness later in the Bill, in Clause 3(6), which deals with exploitation for the purposes of trafficking. It is also distinguished in Clause 45(4), which deals with the defence for victims who themselves commit an offence; that refers to “relevant characteristics”. I think that mental disability, such as learning difficulties, could be more likely than mental illness to make someone vulnerable to being picked up and forced into labour. Psychological characteristics—I am using very non-clinical language here—such as being unable to cope with life could make someone very vulnerable.

The point, of course, is that one would not want a prosecution to fail because the term “circumstances” is too limited. My noble friend might tell me that the formula “regard may be had” might be a safety net here, or he may be able to point to case law since,

“references to holding a person in slavery or servitude or requiring a person to perform forced or compulsory labour are to be construed in accordance with Article 4 of the Human Rights Convention”.

In Committee, the Minister said:

“Through its decisions, the European Court of Human Rights has provided clear guidance on the meaning”,—[Official Report, 1/12/14; col. 1134.]

of the term “servitude” and so on. I looked at the guidance and it is certainly clear, but I got no help on the term “circumstance”.

The Minister will come to his Amendment 4 in due course, but I welcome bringing closer the actions that constitute an offence under Clause 1 and exploitation for the purposes of trafficking. I hope the Minister

will address points made about this by the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which I assume he has received, that the amendment does not capture all those who facilitate or arrange exploitation where there is no movement or movement cannot be evidenced—this was something that we spent some time on in Committee; that it does not cover situations where there is no overt threat of physical force; and that it may reduce protection for children.

I look forward to the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Hornsey, introducing her Amendment 7. In Committee, the Minister said that the EU trafficking directive covers liability for,

“offences by third parties that occur as a result of lack of supervision”,—[ Official Report , 1/12/14; col. 1198.]

but I was unclear, reading Hansard again, where that takes us on enforcement. I do not want to pre-empt what she might have to say on this, but I am offering her some support when she comes to probe that point.

I also take the opportunity to raise a point on that EU trafficking directive. I hope the Minister is aware that I was going to raise this, as I emailed him this morning about it. I understand that the UK has still not submitted a report to the EU on the implementation of the directive, which was due last year, although most of our partner states have done so. This is specifically in relation to Article 20 of the directive, where the deadline was last October. I am told—I have no evidence other than one email, but it was from someone I trust—that the UK has not been participating in EU meetings of the national rapporteurs and equivalent mechanisms, and that in the last meeting it was the only member state not to be represented. This is obviously important in itself, and because delay means that there is a problem in having civil society organisations comment on the report.

Having gone through some rather inquiring comments—I do not want to say that they are critical, because I very much support what the Government are doing in this area—I come back to my original points on circumstances and characteristics. I beg to move Amendment 1.

Baroness Young of Hornsey (Crossbench)

My Lords, first, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, for her support on my Amendment 7. I raised this issue in Committee, but since then I have made a little refinement to this proposed new clause to make it clearer. I thank Klara Skrivankova again for her help in talking me through the importance of this provision. I should declare an interest as a trustee of the charity Aid by Trade, which supports the Cotton made in Africa project—the House will perhaps see the relevance of that later on—and as a patron of Anti-Slavery International.

I do not want to take up too much time because, like the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, I agree that we want to push on with the Bill and make sure that we get it into the best possible shape that we can in the limited time that we have. However, it is worth while just going through some of the background to this amendment. The amendment tries to draw attention to the fact that those who benefit financially from forced labour, which is now recognised to be something like a $150 billion-trade, are not only those who are

directly involved in the exploitation of their victims. It goes wider than that. The individuals and companies that choose to disregard information about slavery in their supply chains so as to ensure continued revenue maximisation are also culpable.

The business model behind forced labour demonstrates that the two main reasons for using it, and for implicitly accepting exploitative practices in the supply chain, are of course cost reduction and revenue generation. The total cost of someone who is working in a coercive situation for an exploitative employer is clearly less than it would be if the arrangement were lawful. In a very competitive environment where there is constant pressure to cut costs, many agents promise to provide workers for an extremely low outlay. While the Bill provides for significant penalties for those who enslave or traffic others, it currently omits liability for those who benefit from the enslavement of others through the acts of third parties. This allows those who choose to do so to ignore a situation where there is exploitation and to escape justice, even though they derive profit from such unlawful activities.

The issue of liability for benefiting from modern slavery is addressed, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, has already mentioned, in the EU trafficking directive to which we are a party. I reiterate the question which the noble Baroness asked of the Minister: to explain why it seems that we are a little behind in endorsing that in an active way.

The directive requires member states to establish liability for benefiting from the exploitation of others committed by a third party and to make provision for criminal and non-criminal sanctions for those who benefit in this way. There is a similar provision in the United States under Code 1589, which makes it an offence punishable by a fine or imprisonment of up to 20 years to knowingly benefit financially or receive anything of value from forced labour or services.

When I raised the earlier version of this amendment in Committee, I shared the example of a Belgian motorway restaurant company that was held liable for the exploitation of the workers who were cleaning the toilets at its premises. Those cleaners were actually employed by a subcontractor, not directly by the restaurant company, but essentially that company was brought to justice for its role in ignoring the very clear evidence that this form of exploitation was taking place on its premises in its business.

I am concerned, though, that there are British businesses that benefit from forced labour. A number of noble Lords will be aware of the situation in Uzbekistan with regard to cotton harvesting, but unfortunately it looks as if a couple of British companies are continuing to trade in cotton from Uzbekistan, despite the fact that it is well known that the authorities there use forced labour from their own citizens to pick cotton, most of which is destined for international export. Children and adults are forced to pick cotton under threat of punishment or incarceration, and the only way out is to try to find the money to pay someone else to do that job for you. We know—there is masses of evidence—that trading in cotton from Uzbekistan means trading in a commodity that is

effectively produced entirely by slave labour. If you are trading with Uzbekistan, you are profiting from that slave labour, and under the amendment you would be liable to be brought to justice for doing so. I understand that two UK companies currently buy and trade in cotton from Uzbekistan despite their knowledge of what is going on there.

If we are serious about stamping out enslavement and forced labour, particularly that involving children and young people, we have to make it unprofitable, and that is what this amendment seeks to do. It would also address instances where a person is exploited in domestic servitude in a private household and is lent to friends or relatives as free help in the knowledge that this worker has been treated like a slave by the employer. It would cover landlords who know that their property is being used to harbour those in a situation of slavery but who choose to ignore it because of the revenue from renting out the property. Clearly no one in the UK should be profiting from enslavement—that is the driving force behind the Bill—so I hope that the Minister will give careful consideration to this in the same manner as he has to all the previous arguments and debates on the Bill. Obviously we all want to achieve the same result, but we want to make it as hostile as possible for people to benefit from trafficking and enslavement, even if indirectly.

The obvious villains are the traffickers and enslavers—they are the big baddies who we can obviously go after—but, as I have tried to outline here, there are a number of companies and organisations, not just in Britain but around the world, which are profiting from that in a knowing way, and that is wrong. As I said, we have an obligation under EU law to do something about this, so perhaps the Minister can explain to us why the Government seem to be slightly reluctant to put the principles underlying the amendment in the Bill and to reinforce its message on forced labour and trafficking.

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Labour)

Bizarrely, my Lords, I support government Amendment 4 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Bates; it has not yet been moved but I am sure that he will wish to respond to the debate as a whole. I am grateful to the Minister for the huge amount of work that he has done behind the scenes in Committee and on Report, bringing forward a number of changes to the Bill, including on offences. I do not think that the amendment goes far enough, as will be clear when I speak in the debate on the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey; we would have liked to have seen clearer and better defined offences, as was recommended by the draft Bill committee. However, we recognise that the government amendment before us today is a step in the right direction in bringing to justice those who have exploited others—adults or children—so we welcome it as far as it goes.

In a letter to me, the Minister spoke of the very good way in which the collaborative nature of this Bill has worked. It vindicates the enthusiasm that we all have for pre-legislative scrutiny, which not only improves a draft Bill but enables all those concerned to be properly engaged and makes the legislative process a lot better, so I look forward to more of it.

Lord Bates (Conservative)

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, for her welcome for the amendment which I shall move later. I appreciate it as it gives me an opportunity to respond and to speak to all the amendments in this group. I reiterate what I said in correspondence, which is that this Bill has been an exemplar of the legislative process. A Bill was published, it was given pre-legislative scrutiny and, following that detailed scrutiny, a revised Bill was published which went through its stages in another place. Let me be generous to the other place and say that sometimes things go through at a bit of a speed and without careful scrutiny to the level that we would like to see, yet this Bill received that level of attention, such is the interest that we all have in seeing the changes made.

Many changes were made in the other place. Between consideration in the other place and here, the Government added the new clause on the supply chain and during the detailed process we went through in Committee, 23 amendments were tabled. There was then an extensive period of meetings with interested Members of the House of Lords. The level of engagement, not only from Peers but from NGOs and charities that work in this area and have deep concerns, was incredibly impressive and helpful. They brought their expertise, and we were able to hear from the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner, who gave us an insight into how he sees his role. As a result, the Government have tabled a record number, I think, of amendments—72—which we will go through. I set that out as context to show that there is cross-party commitment to see this legislation on the statute book as soon as possible to make sure that victims are protected and that law enforcement agencies have the powers they need to be able to tackle people who are guilty of these crimes.

I now move to the amendments in this group. I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Hamwee and the noble Baroness, Lady Young, for their amendments and for this opportunity to debate Clause 1. It sets out the offence of slavery, servitude and forced or compulsory labour. This group of amendments, which includes the amendment I shall move, relates to the circumstances the court can consider when assessing whether an offence has taken place. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Hornsey, for tabling and speaking to Amendment 7, which is to ensure that committing modern slavery offences does not benefit offenders or third parties who either benefit from these crimes or look the other way when they are committed.

One of the improvements the Government have made to the Bill following pre-legislative scrutiny is to make clear that the court can consider all the circumstances when assessing whether a Clause 1 offence has been committed, including the vulnerabilities of the victim. I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Hamwee for testing through her argument whether this provision is drawn widely enough to cover all possible forms of vulnerability. After looking carefully at it, I am confident that it does.

Amendments 1 and 2 aim to ensure that characteristics intrinsic to a person can be considered by the court in determining whether a person is a victim of the Clause 1

offence. I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Hamwee for so effectively testing the Government’s approach. However, I assure your Lordships’ House that the term “circumstances” is broad enough—even as defined by the

Oxford English Dictionary

—to cover any relevant characteristics of the victim. That is made clear by the non-exhaustive list of vulnerabilities that can be considered which are set out at Clause 1(4), and which includes mental or physical illness and whether the victim is a child.

Amendment 3 seeks to include disability in the list of personal circumstances which may make a person vulnerable at Clause 1(4). I assure the noble Baroness that the list of circumstances simply gives examples. The court may consider all circumstances that may make a victim vulnerable, which include disability.

On government Amendment 4, tabled in my name, we had a very healthy debate on child exploitation in Committee, and I have reflected on those exchanges carefully, as the noble Baroness, Lady Young, reminded us that I said I would. We will have a full debate on child exploitation in a moment. The Government are determined to give law enforcement the powers needed to tackle child exploitation, and exploitation more broadly.

I have not brought forward a separate offence after taking the advice of the Director of Public Prosecutions, the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner, the national policing lead for modern slavery Chief Constable Shaun Sawyer, and the National Crime Agency, which argue that there is no gap in the law and that a new offence would make prosecution harder. That point was underscored again in the letter which Kevin Hyland circulated to many Peers ahead of this debate.

However, I share noble Lords’ concerns that we need to make sure that we have effective offences in the Bill which tackle serious exploitation. That is why I brought forward government amendments in Committee to ensure that the Clause 1 offence fully reflected the specific vulnerabilities of child victims. The House will recall that we amended the Bill to make it clear that consent by the victim does not prevent a conviction. We also made it explicit that the vulnerability of a child victim can be considered.

Having reflected on our Committee debates, I will address a different concern, about the range of conduct that can be covered by the Clause 1 offence. I know that there are real concerns that it might not be possible to use that offence in relation to a victim, particularly a child, who is forced to beg or pickpocket. However, we can see that the breadth of the offence may not be well enough understood, including by front-line professionals dealing with these cases. That is why I have tabled government Amendment 4. It clarifies that, for the Clause 1 offence of slavery, servitude and forced or compulsory labour, the court can consider any work or services provided by the person, including work or services provided in circumstances which constitute exploitation within Clause 3. That deals in particular with the point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Young, and the example she helpfully gave us, and it will help law enforcement, prosecutors and the police understand the breadth of that offence better. The court will be able to look at

exploitation in Clauses 3(5) and 3(6) and understand that conduct captured there such as begging and pickpocketing is capable of being work or services for the purposes of the forced or compulsory labour offence as set out in Clause 1.

We also need to strengthen the knowledge and awareness of the front-line professionals who come into contact with vulnerable victims and make decisions about investigations and prosecutions. My noble friend Lady Doocey will speak to that subject later, which she feels passionate about. Those professionals need to understand the behaviour they are seeing and the offences they can use to tackle areas such as child exploitation. That is why I am pleased that the Director of Public Prosecutions and the national policing lead have agreed to work together to drive up awareness among front-line professionals of their powers to tackle child exploitation and build stronger cases together.

We all share the determination that the criminal law should protect the vulnerable, including children. The Government are determined that the Bill should achieve this, which is why we have already made a number of important changes to the offences in the Bill, and have gone further in that regard today.

On Amendment 7, in Committee we had an excellent debate on how the Modern Slavery Bill will ensure that committing modern slavery offences does not benefit the offenders or third parties who benefit or look the other way when these crimes are committed. I am grateful to the noble Baroness for tabling the amendment to provide further scrutiny of our approach. It would make it an offence for persons, including legal persons, to benefit from modern slavery when the offence was committed for their benefit, and their lack of supervision or control enabled the commission of the offence. As I explained in Committee, we believe that it is absolutely right that companies that profit from modern slavery can be held responsible, as well as individual perpetrators. That is why the offences in the Bill can be committed by all persons, including legal persons. This means that they can be committed by companies, providing that the usual legal principles of corporate criminal liability apply. This extends to aiding and abetting in an offence. Companies can also be held liable under the civil law, such as negligence and proceeds of crime legislation, when they benefit from modern slavery committed for their benefit. So companies that make money as a result of modern slavery committed for their benefit can be deprived of those profits and pursued for damages by their victims, which is what we all want.

In Committee, I committed to keep this subject under review. Having looked closely at the debate, we remain confident that currently, and under the Modern Slavery Bill, we are fully compliant with the requirements of the EU trafficking directive around liability of legal persons. The UK Government are fully compliant with the directive and committed to fulfilling its reporting obligations. Given the extensive positive changes being made to the UK’s response to modern slavery through this Bill, which we are still in the process of, the national referral mechanism review and the implementation of the modern slavery strategy, the UK Government will make a full report on progress shortly,

once these legislative processes have been completed. That will enable us to more fully demonstrate the UK’s activity in this area. We are working to agree this approach with the EU anti-trafficking co-ordinator.

On the assessments from the Equality and Human Rights Commission, the Clause 1 offence can be used against anyone who holds a person in slavery, servitude or subjects them to forced or compulsory labour. This includes someone who aids or abets an offence—for example, by arranging or facilitating the victim’s exploitation. Today’s government amendment does not change that point.

I want to set this compliance in the context of some of the wider action that we are taking in this area. As noble Lords are aware, we are also taking action in the Modern Slavery Bill to require large businesses to disclose what they have done to ensure that their supply chains are slavery-free. We believe that the resultant transparency will encourage others who have not yet taken decisive steps to take action. We will discuss ensuring that this provision is effective later on in the Report stage. I also want to reassure noble Lords that we are committed to ensuring that we recover the ill gotten gains of slave-masters and traffickers. That is why Clause 7 subjects those convicted of slavery and trafficking to the most robust available asset recovery regime.

Given the House’s concern to tackle exploitation, I ask noble Lords to consider supporting my amendment, which makes it clear that the courts can look at exploitation to help them understand the breadth of the Clause 1 offence. I hope, given my assurances that they are not needed, that noble Lords feel able not to press their amendments.

Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (Crossbench)

May I take the Minister back to what he said in answer to the arguments made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, on Amendments 1 and 2? I may have misheard him, but was he saying that “circumstances” were identical with “characteristics” on his reading of the dictionary? It seems to me that one is by definition endogenous and the other exogenous. If I say that the noble Lord handles the debate very well “under the all the circumstances”, I mean that around the House there is a huge degree of expertise and interest in this Bill, and he handles that very well. If I said, “under his characteristics”, it would imply that I was casting some aspersion on the Minister, which is the last thing I would wish to do. Surely the argument that he advanced against the noble Baroness’s amendment does not hold water? Characteristics and circumstances are intrinsically different.

Lord Bates (Conservative)

It is difficult to know how to respond to that, although I obviously welcome the noble Lord’s clarification. Of course, I accept that the two words have different meanings in a grammatical sense. However, I was referring to the legal context, in which we believe that the term “circumstances” is broad enough to cover any relevant characteristics of the victim. I know that that is using both words in the same sentence but we believe that the term is wide enough to cover

both elements. Again, I am happy to look at that point further to make sure that we have got this absolutely right and, if necessary, I will write to the noble Lord.

Lord McColl of Dulwich (Conservative)

My Lords, I wholeheartedly agree with the Government’s determination to see more perpetrators of these terrible crimes prosecuted, punished and prevented from reoffending. Unfortunately, the evidence we heard in the Joint Committee during pre-legislative scrutiny of the draft Bill highlighted some difficulties of using the existing offence of slavery, servitude and forced or compulsory labour in certain situations involving exploitation, with which the Minister has dealt.

One very experienced prosecutor told us:

“Clause 1 should potentially be extended to exploitation as well. I have a concern about the definition of exploitation within the Bill, which applies, it seems, to the trafficking element but not to the slavery, servitude and forced or compulsory labour element. There are cases where you can fall between the two of them”.

I am therefore very pleased to support Amendment 4, in the name of the Minister, which will bring situations of exploitation that apply for the trafficking offence in Clause 2 into consideration when determining whether a Clause 1 offence has been committed. From the evidence the draft Bill committee heard, cases involving child victims would particularly benefit from the consideration of wider forms of exploitation under Clause 1 because trafficking may be difficult to prove and establishing evidence for servitude or forced labour without looking at other types of exploitation could be problematic. I have been concerned about the evidence I have heard of the limited use—

Baroness Garden of Frognal (Liberal Democrat)

I apologise for interrupting my noble friend but the Minister has made a winding-up speech on this set of amendments. I wonder what relevant points the noble Lord is making at this stage. I think he may be referring to the next group.

Baroness Butler-Sloss (Crossbench)

My Lords, the noble Baroness may not be entirely right as the Minister was putting forward the government amendment. As it happens, the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, spoke to that amendment before it had formally been put forward. As I understand it, the noble Lord, Lord McColl, is now speaking to the government amendment, and I believe that he is entitled to do so.

Baroness Garden of Frognal (Liberal Democrat)

My Lords, I understand that my noble friend was responding to Amendment 4, in which case I apologise.

Lord McColl of Dulwich (Conservative)

I have been concerned by the evidence I have heard about the limited use of the equivalent existing offence for crimes against children in Section 71 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009. This is not because no children are exploited; there is clear evidence to the contrary. I hope, therefore, that this amendment will make Clause 1 more useful to the CPS in prosecuting those who exploit children, for whom I have a particular concern, as your Lordships know.

I wish to ask the Minister two questions. He has made it clear through this amendment that situations in which children are forced into slavery through threats or coercion will come under the offence set out in Clause 1 through Clause 3(5), and, if the child is targeted specifically because they are a child, they would be covered under Clause 3(6). Both of these are welcome reassurances.

Will he please clarify what the situation would be where there is no force or coercion but it is difficult to prove whether a child has been specifically targeted? I also wonder whether he has given consideration to strengthening the imperative to consider these situations of exploitation in Clause 1(4) by requiring that regard “should” be had to them, rather than the present suggestion that regard “may” be had. I look forward to his reply.

In her foreword to the draft Bill, the Home Secretary wrote:

“I want a strong message to go out to any individual or group involved in the enslavement of victims; you will not get away with it, we will catch you and you will go to prison for a very long time”.

I completely agree. We must ensure that offences of exploitation of all kinds, as well as trafficking, slavery, servitude and forced labour, can be properly and regularly prosecuted. I believe that Amendment 4 will help to do this and I commend it to your Lordships.

Baroness Hamwee (Liberal Democrat)

My Lords, I wish I had thought of “exogenous” and “endogenous”. I will resist changing the term “characteristics” to “circumstances” when it appears later in the Bill.

However, I remain concerned, for the reasons I gave. I was not just playing with words for the pleasure of playing with words but because of the impact that the wrong word may have on the success or otherwise of a prosecution. It is not really the way to go about it if there is a better way of doing so. One should not rely simply on examples that strain the meaning of the term about which the examples are given. There are better ways of doing it.

As I said at the start of the debate, I understand the Government’s concern to make sure that we get the Bill on the statute book. However, if the Minister is able to look at this matter before Third Reading, I would be very happy for him to do so; I shall certainly not pursue the point today. With regard to the trafficking directive, I look forward to finding out how long “shortly” is in this circumstance. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 1 withdrawn.

Amendments 2 and 3 not moved.

Amendment 4

Moved by Lord Bates

4: Clause 1, page 2, line 4, at end insert—

“(b) to any work or services provided by the person, including work or services provided in circumstances which constitute exploitation within section 3(3) to (6).”

Amendment 4 agreed.

Amendment 5

Moved by Baroness Doocey

5: After Clause 1, insert the following new Clause—

“Offence of child exploitation

(1) A person who exploits a child commits an offence.

(2) Where the exact age of the child cannot be determined, it shall nonetheless be an offence under subsection (1) to exploit a person if the accused believed, or had reasonable grounds for believing, that the person exploited was under 18.

(3) It shall be an offence even if there was no threat or use of violence, or other form of coercion, deception or any abuse of a position of vulnerability.

(4) Exploitation means the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, including begging, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude, or the exploitation of criminal activities, or the removal of organs.

(5) A child may be in a situation of exploitation whether or not—

(a) escape from the situation is practically possible for the child; or

(b) the child has attempted to escape from the situation.

(6) Where the person exploited is a child, the consent or apparent consent to the exploitation of the child, or of any person having lawful authority over the child, is irrelevant.”

Baroness Doocey (Liberal Democrat)

My Lords, the amendment would introduce a separate offence of child exploitation. I acknowledge that the amendment that the Government have just moved goes some way to meeting the concerns expressed in Committee by noble Lords across the Chamber and by the large number of voluntary organisations that work with exploited children. I very much welcome the government amendment as a major step forward; however, I still have two key concerns that I ask the Minister to address.

First, the Bill is not clear enough on the issue of children who are exploited but where the child is not forced to commit a crime. I know that the Government are seeking to ensure that the offence of,

“Slavery, servitude and forced or compulsory labour”,

in Clause 1 reflects the fact that children can be influenced in subtle ways. However, for Clause 1 to have the same effect as a separate child exploitation offence, the Government need to make explicit their intention that it shall be an offence, even if there is no evidence of force. The Minister, in his letter of 16 February to the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, said that the Bill makes clear that:

“Where a person deliberately targets a vulnerable person, such as a child, there is no requirement for any force, threats or deception to be used to induce the child into being exploited”.

If the Government were willing to include this wording in guidance, that would go a long way to meeting my concerns in this area. Children who are groomed into criminality or begging often become very attached to their exploiters, identifying with them so closely that they do not understand that they are being exploited. This presents a problem for prosecutors when deciding whether a case has a realistic prospect of a conviction. Because of this uncertainty, many of these cases never get to court. Perhaps the Minister will deal with this point when he responds.

My second area of concern is to ensure that the definition of “exploitation” is crystal clear to everyone. Criminality is ever-changing, as are the ways people

find to abuse and exploit the vulnerable. Children are being specifically targeted for use as domestic slaves, to guard cannabis factories, for harbouring guns, for serial theft and increasingly for use as drug mules. However, the evidence available to police in these cases often does not reach the threshold required to prove slavery, servitude or forced or compulsory labour. That is why it is so important to ensure certainty over what constitutes exploitation, so that people who exploit children can and will be brought to justice.

I was interested to hear the list that the Minister read out of all the really important people who do not think a child exploitation clause is necessary, such as the Director of Public Prosecutions and the national policing lead. However, the myriad offences that the Government and these people say can currently be used to prosecute child exploitation are simply not being used. This is reflected in the pitifully low number of convictions. Charities and other organisations working in this area on a daily basis are encountering cases of exploited children slipping through the net time after time. In the past two years, the police have identified more than 1,000 child victims of human trafficking, but the Government have been unable to indicate a single prosecution of forced labour involving a child victim. In total, there were just 41 prosecutions for human trafficking offences last year.

I very much welcome the Minister’s statement that the Director of Public Prosecutions and the national policing lead will now work together to raise awareness on how to prosecute child exploitation, but I hope that there will also be appropriate recognition by police and crime commissioners to prioritise child exploitation and to provide training for front-line police officers. This training must make use of face-to-face lectures by recognised experts in this field. Too often, so-called training involves nothing more than giving police officers a CD and asking them to sit in front of a computer screen and listen to it when they get time.

I shall keep a very close eye on how this new legislation is implemented. If expectations are not fulfilled, there will be clear demands to reopen the legislation all over again to enable more effective prosecutions, because we must protect the most vulnerable in our society: our children. I beg to move.

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Labour)

My Lords, I rise to support the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, in her Amendment 5. As I mentioned in the last grouping, while I welcome government Amendment 4, in my view it does not go far enough. It is evident that something is missing in the current legislative framework that is preventing criminals who exploit people of whatever age being brought to justice—but especially with regard to children.

The noble Lord, Lord McColl, referred to the Coroners and Justice Act 2009. Nationally, according to Crown Prosecution Service data, there have been no cases of a prosecution where a victim was a child since the introduction of Section 71 of the Coroners and Justice Act on slavery, servitude and forced labour. Yet, of the 59 defendants charged with human trafficking offences in 2013-14, there was only one case that was not sexual exploitation in cases relating to child victims. Clearly, the numbers are not adding up.

Although we were grateful for the views of the Director of Public Prosecutions, Alison Saunders, the national policing lead for modern slavery, Chief Constable Shaun Sawyer, and the director of the Organised Crime Command at the National Crime Agency, Ian Cruxton, in the letter that we received last week, we still feel that there is a legal difference of opinion on this issue which has not been resolved. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, who was until recently the Lord Chief Justice and the most senior criminal judge in the country, said of the Bill:

“We are making provisions for slavery, servitude and compulsory labour in clause 1 of the Bill. In clause 2, trafficking is the offence. It becomes an offence because you do it with a view to exploitation … You could have an offence of trafficking, full stop, and a separate offence of exploitation”.

Alongside him, the former DPP, Keir Starmer, and Nadine Finch, a barrister specialising in children’s law, have identified a need for separate offences for exploitation and human trafficking. In particular, with regard to children, she said in her evidence to the Public Bill Committee in the other place:

“Children are at a huge disadvantage in evidential terms. They very rarely understand they have been trafficked—what trafficking means—or what kind of evidence is needed … Many of my child clients can tell me about what happened when they were exploited in domestic servitude, in a restaurant or in prostitution; but they actually did not understand enough about the links between people who brought them across England, Europe or the world, and therefore they are not able to assist the police or prosecutors in terms of a trafficking offence. They can assist in the matter of exploitation, and I have got quite a few children who have been able to take the police to a house where they have been kept in domestic servitude or sexual exploitation, but they are not able to explain who brought them to that house, and therefore no prosecution happens”.

In his letter of 16 February, the Minister outlined his reservations with regard to the prospect of creating a separate child exploitation offence. I have a couple of questions relating to some of the points he made. Why would providing age in cases involving child victims be difficult? Again, I quote from the evidence of Nadine Finch to the Public Bill Committee. She stated:

“I appeared last year for the Children’s Commissioner in the case of L and others and one of the issues we took up was the difficulty of addressing age assessments in a criminal court. Lord Judge, the highest judge in the criminal courts at that time, accepted that the criminal court already has case law that enables a judge to adjourn a hearing if there is an age dispute. The court can seek expert evidence on its own, but it can expect both prosecution and defence to bring evidence that will enable them to resolve an age dispute. That is set out in detail in the case, and there was no doubt in the mind of the Lord Chief Justice that it was workable. It has worked for decades in terms of age assessments, so that issue, in many ways, is a red herring”.—[Official Report, Commons, Modern Slavery Bill Committee, 21/7/14; col. 35.]

The Bill is intended to consolidate existing offences in order to get more prosecutions. I therefore ask why adding a separate child exploitation offence would cause confusion or make policing and wider criminal justice procedures less straightforward. Surely we want our offences to be watertight in order not to leave any gaps.

I come back to an issue raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey. The Minister spoke earlier of the CPS and the national policing lead working more closely

together. Like the noble Baroness I welcome that. However, how will specific training now be provided for front-line police officers? As the noble Baroness said, often training is provided that is not adequate. I think that we all wish to hear from the Minister that the training will be incisive and will enable police officers to identify child exploitation.

As I mentioned earlier, the government amendment is not ideal and we would have preferred to see separate offences of adult exploitation and child exploitation. However, I trust that we will return to this matter, either as the noble Baroness mentioned or in post-legislative scrutiny, to see whether the offences as outlined in the Bill have resulted in a sharp increase in prosecutions and victims coming forward. I very much hope that they will. I take this opportunity to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, for her tenacity in pursuing this issue—which, I have no doubt, was a catalyst for government action thus far.

Lord Carlile of Berriew (Liberal Democrat)

My Lords, I agree with everything that the noble Baroness has just said. It is a particular privilege for me to speak in support of the amendment moved by my noble friend Lady Doocey. Those of us who have known her for—I hesitate to say it—some decades know her to be careful, accurate and tenacious, the word used earlier by the noble Baroness, Lady Royall. I pay tribute to my noble friend for her tenacity in pursuing what many of us regard as an extremely important issue.

My noble friend identified the issue with great clarity. She said that if the law is as clear as the Director of Public Prosecutions and others have said it to be, why are there no prosecutions? Why is this successful, clear and full law resulting in no outcomes at all for exploited children in this country? I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response to those questions when he replies to this short debate.

Many of us are surprised and disappointed that there is no specific offence of child exploitation in one place in the law. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, has said much the same previously and most lawyers who have to consider child exploitation would welcome a single offence in a single place which could readily be assessed and understood. The noble Baroness, Lady Royall, spoke about age disputes. I hope the Minister will confirm that the suggestion that age would create a difficulty in enacting an offence such as the one proposed in Amendment 5 is a false point. Age disputes are litigated almost every day in the Administrative Court—they are extremely common—and there are clear ways in which such disputes are determined. They are determined—surprise, surprise—by evidence, and the evidence available to determine such disputes is now expert, well-tried and tested, and capable of speedy decision when such disputes occur.

If the Minister rejects, as I apprehend he will, my noble friend’s amendment. I hope he will a give a government commitment to plug any gaps that may emerge hereafter if his views are proved to be incorrect. It is shocking that there has not been a single case brought of child exploitation, at least of the kind envisaged here. We heard discussion earlier about the number of prosecutions for female genital mutilation. If one takes child exploitation and female genital

mutilation as two of the most important and horrifying offences committed against children in this country and reflects that there have been two prosecutions so far—one monumentally unsuccessful recently—in both those categories added together, one has the right to be concerned.

I ask the Minister to tell your Lordships what he expects to be the outcome of the work which has now been started, apparently, between the Crown Prosecution Service, the police and others. If the outcome is merely to discover that there have been no prosecutions because there is an inadequate understanding of the law, one is bound to ask why. I suspect the answer will be because the law is confusing, and so we go round the full circle and arrive at the conclusion that there ought to be the new offence—albeit with assistance from government draftsmen—proposed by my noble friend Lady Doocey.

I would ask the Minister to ensure that, if he rejects the amendment, he can leave us in a frame of mind of genuine optimism that there will be more prosecutions and an increased prospect of convictions even if no change is to be made to the law. Somehow I doubt it and I suspect that we shall be returning to this very important issue in the not too distant future.

Lord Patel (Crossbench)

My Lords, I rise to support the amendment moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey. I have added my name to it. I will be brief as both the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, and the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, who has just spoken, have made the case clearly and forcefully that the current law must be inadequate as there have been no convictions. I have heard the argument before that there is no issue with the law, but that it is the practice which is the problem, and that is why there have been no convictions. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, has just said, it cannot be that it is just the practice, it must be that the law is deficient in some way, otherwise there would have been convictions against those who commit this horrible crime against children.

The treatment of cases involving children must reflect that in international law children are a special case because of their particular vulnerability and so cannot consent to exploitation. As it stands, Clause 1 of the Bill does not state clearly enough that there is no need to show that force, threats or deception were present in cases of child exploitation. Subsection (3) of the proposed new clause set out in Amendment 5 makes the point that there is a need to include that in the Bill.

The noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, mentioned the letter written by the Minister to the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, on 16 February. It stated:

“Where a person deliberately targets a vulnerable person, such as a child, there is no requirement for any force, threats or deception to be used to induce the child into being exploited”.

This statement perfectly encapsulates what the Bill itself should state so that there are no grey areas and those prosecuting cases are 100% clear what the thresholds of proof are in children’s cases. Government Amendment 4 is welcome, but in my view it does not go far enough towards including that. The Government must formally commit to their intention that force, threats or deception are not required in children’s cases. A failure to improve

the current Clause 1 offence leaves the Bill open to interpretation on this key issue, which would be a major disservice to child victims. They must be able to trust in our laws to protect them and ensure their access to justice for the heinous crimes committed against them. I hope that the Minister will be able to comment on that, if not in the Bill, then to state it clearly for the record that that is the Government’s intention.

Baroness Butler-Sloss (Crossbench)

My Lords, I am the first person not to support the amendment moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey. I have sympathy for the points she has made and I am very relieved by government Amendment 4 which was discussed earlier. However, one important point that the noble Lords, Lord Carlile and Lord Patel, have rather overlooked is that the present law will be changed by this Bill. Therefore one hopes that when it becomes law, there will be the prosecutions which have been so lamentably absent under the previous law.

A lot of what has been said turns on issues of training and practice. This morning I met the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner, who was at pains to tell me that he sees his job as commissioner to include pushing the College of Policing, pushing the chief constable, Shaun Sawyer, with whom he has been in conversation several times and is seeing again next Monday, and pushing the Crown Prosecution Service towards better practice and better training. He sees all this as some of the most important parts of his work.

I hope that when the Bill becomes law much of what has been said so far today will fall into the background. It is also important to remember that when the joint pre-legislative scrutiny committee, of which I was a member, discussed child exploitation, we rather bravely and rashly put forward our own Part 1 of the Bill. In it, we had a child exploitation clause, but within the wording that we put forward in the clauses that we recommended. The Government did not accept our Part 1 of the Bill and have put in, under Clauses 1 and 2, different propositions. If we now have a child exploitation clause, it will clash with and to some extent repeat what is already in Clause 1. There will therefore be a degree of confusion for the police, the Crown Prosecution Service and even at the end of the day, I suspect, for the judge instructing the jury as to what the position really is. It is very important that when the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, for whom of course I have the greatest admiration and respect, spoke about the child exploitation clause, he was doing so in the context of giving evidence to the Select Committee at a time when he was looking at our draft as well as at the former government draft, which is not the same as the present one.

Another point, made by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, is that age dispute issues in the Administrative Court are easy to resolve. They appear, from what I am told, to be a great deal less easy to resolve in the criminal courts. Indeed, Kevin Hyland, the commissioner, said to me that when he was head of the human trafficking group in the Metropolitan Police, he was present at a trial when an issue was raised of whether the child was or was not a child under 18. It took up so

much of the time, and the jury clearly was not satisfied whether the child was or was not a child and acquitted. There is no shortage of young women coming into this country who are attractive and mature; they may well be 14, or they could be 19 or 25. We are not talking perhaps so much about English children brought up in this country, but children from Nigeria.

Lord Carlile of Berriew (Liberal Democrat)

I am very grateful to the noble and learned Baroness for giving way. Does she not recognise, first, that exactly the kinds of dispute she is describing now are litigated on a daily basis in the Administrative Court and, secondly, that good case management, which is part of the Leveson reforms and recommendations, can make the preparation of these issues and their determination very much easier and as routine as analogous issues?

Baroness Butler-Sloss (Crossbench)

I certainly hope that the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, is right about that. However, with the government position under Clauses 1 and 2, including with Amendment 4, you do not have to prove that the young person is 16, 17 or 18 in order to get a conviction. You will have an aggravated situation if you show that it is in fact a child, say of 14 or 15, and not a young woman of 20, and the judge’s sentence will no doubt be greater. However, the issue of age will not arise for the jury to try because, under Clause 1, you do not have to have an age—anybody who is treated in the way that Clause 1 describes can be found to be a victim. This seems to me to be something introduced by the Bill which has not come in before and which will, I certainly hope, make a very dramatic difference to the way in which prosecutions are dealt with.

Another point that Kevin Hyland made, which I think is of some interest, is about control and prevention orders, on which we have spent virtually no time at all in this House. He told me about a group of Roma—not all of whom are Romanian; some are from other parts of Europe—who apparently are camping at the moment in either Park Lane or Hyde Park. They are begging, and the children are no doubt thieving, in Edgware Road and Oxford Street. He says that when the control and prevention orders come into place, if you can find that these children are doing this, a control or prevention order can be made against the adult—many of whom, of course, are not the parents of these children—and that can last for up to five years and will protect the children, who can also be taken into care. He also made the point that this could be done at the border by the border police, who can get a magistrate’s order in order to protect these children well before you have to come to a prosecution because the children are being exploited. I thought that these were quite interesting points to relay to the House.

Baroness Howarth of Breckland (Crossbench)

My Lords, I am somewhat bemused about where we are in this debate. My view has always been quite clear: we already have enough legislation. I think that some of these cases are already appearing before the courts under general children’s legislation.

As I understand it, CAFCASS has recently been involved in a situation where a child was begging. We have to remember that very often the people who are exploiting children are the children’s own parents or relatives. This child was being exploited and selling the Big Issue 12 hours a day on the streets. She was exploited by her father, who went to prison. That seems to be just the sort of case we are talking about, but prosecuted under quite different legislation—the children’s legislation concerning neglect. Maybe that is where we should also look. We should see where else action is being taken.

I listened to the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, very carefully. I do not agree with her amendment but I am very much in sympathy with what she was saying in her speech. She identified some very important issues. One issue that perhaps we have missed throughout this debate is the one found in proposed new subsection (6) of the amendment, about vulnerable children who find themselves in difficulties because they do not understand what they are being expected to do, and even if they do, they have been so groomed or so frightened that they carry out whatever action is undertaken quite unconsciously; and even if it is consciously, they are in difficulties. We need to look at that and make absolutely sure that we are not going to be prosecuting children and young people when they are in those sorts of difficulties.

However, I am still of the belief that if we look at all the horrific incidents in the newspapers that have happened to children and young people recently—never mind all the ones that we in the profession know about: the thousands of children on child protection registers and the hundreds of cases that go through the courts every day—we know that there is legislation that could have protected those children. There is no doubt that the girls of Rotherham could have been protected by the legislation that is there. That is what the inquiry found: they could have been protected. So I disagree with my noble friend—

Lord Patel (Crossbench)

Rarely.

Baroness Howarth of Breckland (Crossbench)

I have huge respect for him, but I really do think that this is a question of practice and of training. We keep repeating those words like a sort of mantra. What happens is the real issue—what action is taken to make sure that not just the police and the prosecutors but the health workers, social workers and voluntary workers, not those in the specific field of action but those who come across children in different ways, understand what they are seeing. I fear that, certainly in my area, modern social work training is not as precise in helping people to understand what they are seeing and then giving them courage and a legal understanding of what they can do next.

I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, that I stand somewhere in the middle on this issue. I have never been a great believer that more legislation will make a difference. My experience—and history—tells us that it does not. Some legislation will make a difference. The Government’s clause may well give a little jolt to the whole issue, but I hope that they will tell us what they are going to do to encourage all the

professions to take this seriously. That goes not just for this area but for the whole range of child care and protection. We are at this time in this country in serious difficulties in making sure that our children are adequately cared for and protected.

Lord Judge (Judge)

My Lords, I rise because I have been quoted both in judgments and in evidence that I have given, and if I sit here and do not say anything, some might think that I did not agree with what I said last time. Well, I do.

I am concerned about child exploitation. I think that there are cases—and we have certainly been aware of them in court—where children have been exploited in circumstances which it would be difficult to describe as slavery or servitude or forced labour or even human trafficking. Children are exploited in many different ways and I do not think, if I may say so with respect, that the law caters adequately for those who exploit children who are not under some kind of parental or guardian responsibilities.

For that reason, I support the amendment. One problem with this area of the law seems to be that although we can often find the child who has been exploited we do not seem to be very good at hunting down through the chain of exploitation. For instance, we are very concerned, and obviously so, with children who come from abroad and are left in charge of cannabis factories. So far, we prosecute the child. We do not wait to see who is bringing the food once a week that is thrown through the prison door—because the house is no more than a prison. Where are they going? Who are they looking at? Who are they talking to? Who is making the money from the cannabis plant that the child is looking after?

The other feature that I want to draw attention to is how we relate to the provision on the protection of victims—that is, the defence under Clause 45. We provide a defence, which I strongly support, for slavery or trafficking victims who have committed an offence in circumstances that are defined, but the Bill speaks in Clause 45(1)(c) of “relevant exploitation”. Relevant exploitation in the Bill cannot address child exploitation of the kind that the amendment is designed to address. I ask the Minister to look at that, too.

Baroness Hamwee (Liberal Democrat)

My Lords, no one could possibly fault my noble friend for lack of persistence or focus, and no one would not want the best legislation for tackling—or, better, preventing—offences against children. I am afraid that I cannot support her amendment. I am sorry about that because I know her ambitions for the Bill, but I understand many of the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, about practice. I would have thought that the point just made by the noble and learned Lord about cannabis farms was also one about practice and observation by the police; I would not have thought that a new offence was needed for that to be dealt with properly.

I have heard it said that a separate offence would mean that the police would take the matter seriously, but what we have heard from the criminal justice professionals, as other noble Lords have said, is that it is not a matter of an alternative but that there would

be real risks to Part 1 of the Bill. They argue not just that a separate offence is not necessary—we often hear in this Chamber that something is not necessary and tend to ask, “Well, what harm would it do?”—but that in this case there would be harm. Alison Saunders and Kevin Hyland referred to the issue of determining age, which noble Lords have mentioned. This has bedevilled claims for asylum and responses to asylum seekers for a long time.

To add to the point that the noble and learned Baroness made, in relation to the letter that several of us received today from Kevin Hyland, the point about the case which he discussed with her was not just that so much time was spent on the issue of the woman’s age but that, as he writes, it was,

“distracting the jury from the real issue of her exploitation”.

I take that very seriously. I also take the point made by Alison Saunders that the clause would require evidence beyond reasonable doubt that the accused,

“believed, or had reasonable grounds for believing”,

that the person was under 18.

One briefing that we had asked how the evidential barriers would be overcome. The Government’s answer is not to require that bit of evidence. Consent and issues of age are in a sense excluded when one looks at other changes that have been made to the Bill.

Mention was made in the statements that the Minister circulated to guidance and sentencing guidelines. I have already referred to the fact that Clause 1 provides that regard “may be had” to certain factors. I do not know whether the Minister can help us about the weight of that “may”. Is it in normal parlance “shall” when we couple it with “have regard to”—because of course age is an issue in all this?

I very much take the points made about training. We have compared trafficking with domestic violence and how practice in dealing with domestic violence—which is by no means perfect—has progressed over the years. That, too, has been a matter of applying existing law in many cases.

In Committee, the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of Cradley, referred to future-proofing. She was of course right about new forms of evil being found, but we cannot future-proof at the expense of clarity in the present. The term in the clause, “practices similar to slavery”, worries me on that score.

Finally, I do not want to risk devaluing or demoting offences against adults by introducing the possibility that they would not be recognised because they are treated differently and separately from those against children. Vulnerable adults, too, need that help and support.

In Committee, I mentioned the directive which refers to a child-sensitive approach, but it does not provide for a separate offence. Thinking about it again, it seems to me that being child sensitive—we should be and the Bill is—does not require a separate offence.

Lord Palmer of Childs Hill (Liberal Democrat)

My Lords, having listened to all the various learned speeches on the matter, I should like to tackle the matter from a

slightly different angle. Although it is very hard to find a different angle at this stage of this short debate. What harm would be done if the new clause were included in the Bill? The Government have already moved forward with Amendment 4 but, as other noble Lords have asked: is that enough? The telling point has been made that it would clash with and be repetitive of other legislation. Are we saying that there is no legislation in this land which does not clash and is not repetitive? We have that all the time; perhaps we should not.

However, the question we must ask here is, I hope, this. If the amendment under consideration, as proposed by my noble friend Lady Doocey and supported by the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, and others, was passed by this House or taken into account by the Minister after this debate, would there be a possibility of even one child not being exploited where previously that child or children may have been? I think that the numbers will be great but even if it was one child not being exploited, surely it would be worth while having this specific provision in the Bill. It would mean that it would be clarified and made more important for those who enforce the law. I hope that when my noble friend the Minister replies, he will say that the Government—

Baroness Butler-Sloss (Crossbench)

Perhaps I might ask the noble Lord about the other point that I made on confusion. What does he have to say about confusion?

Lord Palmer of Childs Hill (Liberal Democrat)

I thank the noble and learned Baroness very much. We are talking about semantics and about circumstances, confusion and all the other words in the English dictionary. I would in fact be cheerful if there were some confusion, if it saved one child from being exploited. At the moment, I can see that there may be some modest confusion but I do not see that that weighs in any way with having specific legislation to protect the child. Are we saying that for fear of being confused, or of clashing or being repetitive, we desire to be in the middle, which I call sitting on the fence with the nails sticking in you where they should not? That is not enough; what we want is the best protection for the child.

I have not heard any Member of your Lordships’ House, on any side on this debate, say that they are not against the exploitation of children. I think we are all of a mind on that but what is not in agreement is whether this amendment is needed. I am not a lawyer and I shall not nitpick about confusion or circumstance, or any other such word in the dictionary. But having listened to the debate, to my mind we need a strengthening of Clause 4. I believe that this amendment would do that and that it is worth any confusion—any sitting on the fence, any clash or repetition—if it saves the exploitation of even one child.

Lord James of Blackheath (Conservative)

My Lords, my Amendment 6 is in the same group. I suspect that the followers of Amendment 5 are now well past number 11 and following on in the second innings, so I wonder if I could be forgiven for taking over to speak to my Amendment 6. It is the consequence of a long-running dialogue between the Minister and I, where we have

failed to agree having had a long time together on the subject, so I have brought this amendment back from its first appearance in the early stages.

Your Lordships will recall that I first raised this subject when I was reminded of my experience in working for the Australian Civil Service in London. I recounted in Committee that I was deeply suspicious of the circumstances in which I was being required to herd small children on to boats at Tilbury for transportation to Australia. They did not have names; they did not know who their parents were, or where they came from, and they were completely terrified. I was suspicious that these children were improper migrants—that they did not have the proper authority to go—and it was a very strange position. Since then, I have done a lot more research and a lot of very interesting things have come to me in the post, including a little hate mail, which was actually very useful. Because of the fact that I had admitted overseeing the transportation of some 2,500 children, I was accused of being worse than Jimmy Savile. I think that Jimmy Savile might have been quite offended at that because he is being accused in relation to 300 children, whereas I have about 2,500 on my slate.

However, in the circumstances that was interesting because it raises two questions. First, was it illegal at the time that these children were being transported and, secondly, is it something which could occur again? My own belief is now, emphatically, that it was illegal and that there was no proper authority for the transportation of those children. It involved many tens of thousands of children over 15 years; we should be deeply ashamed of it, and make sure that the Bill cannot talk about controlling slavery without making it absolutely certain that we can never again repeat this dirty little secret of our history.

I need to give a bit more detail. I am going to quote the reference for a committee report that was brought to my attention by the Child Migrants Trust, and which I was initially told by the Library no longer existed. However, I am happy to say that our wonderful Library found the only copy that it thinks officially exists today. I will read its number into the record for the House: HC 755 I and II in volume XCVI, 1997-98. That report has now been found and is on the shelf behind the inquiry desk in the Library for any noble Lords who want to verify it. I have mentioned this at the start of what I am going to say because everything I will say is verifiable somewhere in that huge book. The committee in question was a Department of Health committee from 1997 to 1998. It was a rare committee because it was funded to travel to Australia to carry out its investigations on the ground for nine days. I am afraid we do not have committees like that any longer.

The story starts at Christmas 1944, when the Prime Minister of Australia contacted the coalition Government in England and said, “You’re getting towards the end of a war and you’re going to be overrun with orphans. We want to help you. We’d like to take 17,500 orphans from you every year for the next 15 years. We want at least 150,000”. The British Government thought about this for a while and said, “We’ll talk about it”. Then they brought in the orphanages and social services. Of course these were coalition times, so Herbert Morrison

was in charge. By a quaint quirk of fate, I knew Herbert Morrison very well later on because he was president of a cricket club where I was the secretary, and I could not have asked for a man of greater integrity, personal charm or dedication. He was a very human being indeed, and I cannot believe that he would ever have done anything disreputable whatever. However, what happened under his hands was appalling.

They set about getting together a policy to find 17,500 children a year who could be given to the Australians. They brought in the heads of the orphanages and got Dr Barnardo’s to head the exercise. They got the local councils to get their heads of their child agencies, which I suspect was then an industry somewhat in its infancy compared with what it is now, and started to put the process together. Then came an election. The Labour Party won it with the very high promise of Beveridge’s social reforms, including the National Health Service. I do not remember anyone telling the electorate at that time that if they wanted a health service they would have to accept that we were going to dispose of 195,000 of our children to a foreign country without trace or record being kept, but that is in fact what happened. As the head of Barnardo’s says in a clear and precise statement at the opening of the committee, “It was an economic necessity. We couldn’t afford to look after the children we had. There were too many of them. We hadn’t got enough beds and couldn’t feed them. We had to do it. It was a Government-led initiative which we had to do”. That is an interesting comment and someone might want to look it up on the record one day.

So they did it. On the face of it, things were going to be fine because the Australian Government were falling over backwards to be helpful. They said, “You send the children to us. We will have prearranged adoption homes and domestic places for each of the children and we will ship them off directly as soon as they land, after giving them a medical check, and we will then give a maintenance cash allowance to every home that takes one to look after these children. Then we’ll get the adoption process carried through the courts”. So the British Government said, “Sounds fine to us”. However, Morrison said, “We will insist upon the British Home Office maintaining an oversight responsibility for their welfare afterwards”. We need to remember that because there is no evidence that it was ever done, and we need to see what happened to that.

A change of Government having taken place, Morrison steps aside and Chuter Ede becomes Home Secretary. There was nothing wrong with Chuter Ede but there might have been something wrong with a few of his servants. The process goes like this: the Labour Government take office on 26 July 1945, and on 16 September that year the first ship sails full of children, 2,000 of them. The 2,000 children set off into the blue and are the first of 155,000 who are sent between that date and the end of 1960. After 1960, another 120,000 are sent, bringing about a total in aggregate of 295,000 children, all from orphanages and local council overspills, which could not cope with them.

These children, having been sent away, were supposed to have been going to homes. Unfortunately, disaster struck as soon as the first boat reached Australia. The courts immediately refused to sanction a single adoption on the grounds that there was no parental consent for any of them. Without parental consent, the Australian courts did what a British court would have done and said there could not be adoption. Consequently the Australian Government cut off the supply of maintenance to the households that were going to pick them up and the households threw the kids out on the street, where a great many of them have been ever since to this very day. That is the issue. On any actuarial basis, as we sit here today debating this, some 25,000 to 30,000 of those children are sleeping somewhere rough in the semi-outback of Australia tonight. We had better think about them a bit. There is a real, ongoing problem.

When the Minister says that we do not need to ban child transportation because it will never happen again, we cannot be sure. All right, we have a coalition Government at the moment who certainly would not do it. I hope that if we get a Government represented by the Benches opposite back in, they will have learnt the lesson of last time and would not do it again, but we do not know that by next time round, perhaps in two or three years’ time, we are not going to have little purple men from Mars in power the way things are going on in this country at the moment. For all I know, they may be better than the options available to us, but for the moment we have to put up with what we have. We cannot trust the moral hazard of leaving this as an issue that could recur in future.

It got worse after the court would not sanction the adoptions. The worst thing possible happened: two charitable organisations stepped forward and said they would look after the children, that they were very rich and that they would take control. They were the Sisters of Mercy, an organisation of Catholic nuns, which was very improperly named, and the Christian Brothers, who were already known in government service as the “Christian buggers”. They took control of the whole process and created two networks of homes, one for girls and one for boys, state by state across Australia, with an average of 350 people in each. The Christian Brothers published their rules. The homes were to be run as strictly as possible like borstal institutions in England. These children had not done anything wrong and should not have been in a borstal of any sort, but they were being subjected to this. The rules of a Christian Brothers home were that if you were abused by one of the holy fathers, that was an act of god, and if you complained about the holy father, that was a sin against god and you would be flogged for it. By the way, the flogging was with a metal hacksaw replacement blade. It did not leave much of a kid. This went on.

Eventually, after 150,000 of these children had gone, the penny dropped that there was something wrong with it. The Government of the day could not look back today and say that they did not know about this abuse because something called the society of social workers or social advisers—something like that; I have written it down as I had never heard of it before yesterday—told the Labour Government in 1948 what

was going on in Perth at the Christian Brothers home, and there was no doubt from that moment on. Any ship that was allowed to sail from that date on was allowed to sail in the knowledge that the inmates were going to be raped and abused. That is beyond just simple migration. Still nothing was done to demand from the Australian Government that they brought this thing up to date or did something about it. Nothing was done to stop the transportations. They went on and on.

In the vast resources I have now been allowed to read on this subject, there are just four stories I am going to tell which illustrate how awful this was. They are four out of more than 600. Before the committee got to Australia, the Australian Government agreed that they would write to every known migrant and ask them to write an account of their experience. They could find only 600 out of 295,000 to write to. They got those replies. Those reports, uncorrected as to spelling or grammar, are in the report which is in the Library. They are all cross-referenced by code number and name, but they are there as they are written. I will quote four little stories from there.

The first one, to make clear how dreadful it was, happened not in Australia but in Sheffield. A single parent and her daughter, seven years old, are already known to the local child authority—we do not know why. They get a message that they are to report one day to a council office in the centre of Sheffield, taking nothing with them. They do that, and at the office they find four nuns waiting for them, who pounce upon the two of them. They pin the mother to the ground while they tie a clothesline or something like it round the daughter, binding her very securely, and proceed to drag her through the streets of Sheffield to the railway station, where she is mixed up with a lot of other girls, taken on the train to Liverpool, put on the boat that night, and sails away. Mother and daughter have never said a word to each other from that day to this. That is how the councils worked, and there are many other examples like that; it is not an isolated example, although it is a terrible one.

For me, the worst story in the entire book is that when the committee was going through this, it asked to meet the authors of selected reports, and the Australian authorities set up 263 interviews for them. They ran for an hour each, and the committee broke itself into units of two and three to get maximum productivity. They walked in to meet a man who was 50 years old at the time—this was in 1997—and he was in tears over the table. “What’s wrong?” they said. “Go away—don’t talk to me. Please go away”, he said. “What’s wrong?” they asked again. “No, you mustn’t talk to me—you’ll destroy everything”. They asked why, and gradually got it out of him. He had been in the Perth home of the Christian Brothers and had got away at the age of 18 and got lucky—he got a job with a timber merchant. The timber merchant had been very kind to him; he fed him and let him sleep in his shed. He got paid a wage, and eventually he married a local girl. Twenty years later, they have two boys, who have finished their schooling and have places at university. He explained, “If it gets out that I have been interviewed by you, it’ll be known that I am a migrant child and we will never again be allowed to work for—”

Lord Taylor of Holbeach (Conservative)

My Lords, there is guidance as to the length of time noble Lords should address the House on Report. The noble Lord has very graphically illustrated the point he is trying to make, but I ask him to wind up this contribution on Report in the interests of the other Members present who want to hear the following business.

Lord James of Blackheath (Conservative)

I can very easily move to the end. I quoted that last example because it indicates how, in the words of that fellow of 50, all migrant children are now regarded as the untouchables of Australian society. They have no place, no identity—nothing. When the Minister says that he does not think that we need to ban this once and for ever, I say that we do, because the reasons he gives for it being safe are the very reasons it happened at all. He says that it requires a court order, but it got a court order when it was done 50 years ago, relying on the fact that the order was endorsed or signed over by the orphanage or whatever local council had the authority. Therefore we cannot do that, as it is only the same situation. We have to stop the possibility of anybody doing this again in any circumstance. I want to see that point completely written into the Bill so that we ban this dreadful thing once and for all from ever happening in our society. We got it badly wrong last time; let us not even think of doing it again.

Lord Bates (Conservative)

My Lords, it might be helpful at this point if I first speak briefly to my noble friend’s Amendment 6 to put some remarks on the record, and then return to Amendment 5, on which a number of other Members of the House will probably wish to comment further or to listen to particular points I will make.

When this case was raised by my noble friend Lord James at Second Reading and in Committee, it was a new chapter of this country’s history that I had not been particularly aware of, and a very regrettable one too. We went into some detail of this in correspondence and at a number of meetings with my noble friend, as well as with my noble friend Lord Freeman. It was quite a harrowing experience, and I know that for my noble friend the recollection is personally very harrowing. At the conclusion of those meetings, I said that I would put some words on the record regarding the Government’s response and previous Governments’ responses to what had happened as an acknowledgement of our apology, which I will come to. I hope that that reassures him that we believe we now have in place the safeguard, chiefly through the courts, of a court order being required for any child being moved outside this country. That is a significant enhancement.

On 24 February 2010, the then Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, made a formal apology in Parliament on behalf of the nation, expressing the nation’s regret for the misguided child migrant scheme. The Prime Minister spoke for all of us when he expressed his deep regret for those flawed policies and expressed sorrow that child migrants were allowed to be sent away when they were at their most vulnerable. Almost five years to the day since that apology was made, I am sure that noble Lords will join me and my noble friend Lord James in echoing that regret and that apology.

I want to take a little time to reassure your Lordships that the Government have taken action to support child migrants in regaining their true identities and reuniting them with their families and loved ones. We cannot undo the past but such action can go some way to repair the damage inflicted. I know that that is what my noble friend Lord James wants.

Alongside the formal national apology in 2010, the Government announced a £6 million child migrants’ family restoration fund to support travel and other costs for former child migrants who wish to be reunited with their families. Since its launch in 2010, the fund has provided more than 700 former child migrants and their families with support in travelling to be reunited. In September 2014, the Government announced that the fund will continue until March 2017. By then, the Government estimate that the fund will have helped around 1,000 former child migrants and many thousands of family members.

I also pay tribute at this point to the work of the Child Migrants Trust, which administers the fund. It is the key charity that focuses on family tracing, social work and counselling services for former child migrants and their families. I specifically pay tribute to the work of the trust’s director, Margaret Humphreys, who, like my noble friend Lord James, has done so much to raise awareness about this issue.

I reiterate that it is our belief that the legal guarantees are now in place to prevent any such activity ever happening again. Moreover, I believe that, together with the courageous apology made five years ago, the reparations and the work of the Child Migrants Trust, the guarantees go some way towards redressing the wicked wrong of the past. On behalf of this Government, I reiterate our apology for previous Governments’ involvement in that terrible episode.

It is right that chapters such as the one in 1944 but also those that went on until the late 1950s and even the early 1960s remind us to have an element of humility when we talk about child protection issues in this country. Therefore, I am grateful to my noble friend for raising the issue. I very much hope that the remarks that I have again put on the record and the guarantees that I have underscored will allow him to draw not only a legislative line but a personal line under this very sad chapter.

I turn to the child exploitation offence, which has been the substantial part of a very interesting debate, as it was in the previous stages of this Bill considered in your Lordships' House. The catalyst for that has been my noble friend Lady Doocey, whose description as tenacious I can say, as the Minister involved in this matter, is probably a bit of an understatement. She has taken on, engaged in and championed this issue in the best traditions of parliamentary work. I pay tribute to her and to the work that she has done.

In many ways, the debate that we have had on this issue highlights the difficulties that the Government have had in approaching it. The Government do not come from any position of an ideological or principled approach to this matter. Clearly, the amendments that we have made by the score to this Bill would suggest

that, if we genuinely felt that this was something that, in the words of the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, would lead to one more successful prosecution, without hesitation we would support this amendment. That is without doubt. The contrary argument has been made by the DPP, the national policing lead and, of course, by the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner, who was in charge of human trafficking until taking up his post.

The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, referred to her conversations with Kevin Hyland, which are very much echoed by my own experiences with him, when he gave case after case where he feared that, if he had had to prosecute on a particular age-related offence, it could have meant that he was not able to get the prosecution. That is very much the argument for and against. One believes that it will secure an additional level of prosecutions, while the other view, which we have heard very clearly articulated by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, and my noble friend Lady Hamwee, is that it could make it more difficult and we could be put in a position that people might get away with this and there could be fewer prosecutions rather than more.

I turn to the central point being put forward by my noble friend Lord Carlile, who asked why the law that was in place has not been used. Why have there not been more prosecutions? The argument was made that there has been only one—in fact, somebody said that there had not been any, but there has. I have an example of one, which the Crown Prosecution Service made successfully under Section 71 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009, where there was a slavery, servitude and forced or compulsory labour offence involving child victims. The offence was used to convict a mother who sought to sell her baby for £35,000, and a man who acted as agent. They were both convicted and received sentences of seven and nine years respectively. The fact that those are all too few instances—I recognise that, and the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, said that it was a troubling concern—is in many ways a reflection of the fact that it is the practice of the law that is at fault here rather than the word and letter of the law. That is why it is very important that, in addition to the words that I put in my letter to the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, which I will happily repeat on the record here today, the most crucial element is what is going to happen in terms of the prosecutions going forward and what is going to happen with the training. We received a letter today from the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner in which he talked about the very important role of providing training and engaging with the College of Policing. That is in addition to the measures that the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Crown Prosecution Service have announced they want to work together on.

The effect of the Bill will be measured and evaluated in post-legislative scrutiny or through the annual report to be laid before Parliament by the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner. Someone will keep a tally and ask how many successful prosecutions are being brought forward and put on the record. Clearly, we are talking about something which is a quantum leap above the DVD/CD type of approach and is more of a systemic change. My noble friend Lady Hamwee is right: we are

talking of a systemic change almost along the lines of what we have seen in tackling domestic violence in terms of understanding it, seeing it from a victim’s point of view and people being trained how to deploy the resources available under the law to achieve successful prosecutions. That process is augmented by other measures in the Bill.

I listened carefully to all the contributions, but particularly carefully to that of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge. The Bill contains a defence for victims, and children are included in that. We have introduced child trafficking advocates and are applying a modern-day strategy for the first time. We have introduced the control orders, which were mentioned, as well as the overhaul of the national referral mechanism to make it more effective in protecting children in particular. All these things are being introduced together with two elements, the first of which is the clarification which we have introduced through Amendment 4. I was very grateful for the support of my noble friend Lord McColl on that. That is very significant given that I refer to him as the father of the Bill. I very much appreciated his support on that amendment. Therefore, we have included a provision on exploitation and given a commitment and clarification in the letter which I wrote to the noble Baroness, Lady Royall. We have given a further absolute commitment that training and collaboration need to be provided and that your Lordships and the Government expect to see a significant increase in the number of successful prosecutions being brought, particularly as regards child exploitation. We have increased the sentences and tariffs available to the courts and we expect them to be used.

With those reassurances that I offer to my noble friend—I again acknowledge the commitment and tenacity that she has shown in highlighting this issue—I hope that there is sufficient on the record here and elsewhere to enable her to say that for the moment she is content to see how this issue progresses. We will keep an eagle eye on it as it goes forward to make sure that the arguments which have been put forward by the DPP, the Crown Prosecution Service, the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner and the national policing lead are backed up in the number of successful prosecutions that are brought in future.

Baroness Doocey (Liberal Democrat)

My Lords, I am a bit disappointed that the Minister did not answer the question I asked him. I asked whether he was willing to put into guidance the words that he used in the letter to the noble Baroness, Lady Royall:

“Where a person deliberately targets a vulnerable person, such as a child, there is no requirement for any force, threats or deception to be used to induce the child into being exploited”.

That was the key concession that I was looking for, because talk is cheap but actions speak louder than words. I really wanted that to be in guidance so that the police in particular, and everyone else, were very clear about what was meant by “exploitation”. Can the Minister deal with just that point?

I thank everyone who has spoken. It has been an interesting debate. I take on board a lot of the comments made. I do not agree with all of them. The amendment is clear and would have made a significant difference to children who are being exploited on a daily basis

and to those children who are slipping through the net, which we know is happening despite what the police and the DPP say. All the organisations which work with such children on a daily basis are giving us evidence of children who are slipping through the net—and it does not just involve children who are sent out to beg by their parents.

However, I recognise that the Government have moved substantially on this issue. If they could include in guidance the words in the letter to the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, that would be very useful indeed. I shall continue to work with non-governmental organisations and charities on this issue. Does the Minister want to come back?

Lord Bates (Conservative)

I am happy to put some additional words on the record on this point while I await further inspiration on the specific issue of guidance, if that is a hint to those behind me.

I am happy to reassure my noble friend that there is no requirement in a Clause 1 offence to prove physical force, threats or deception, including where the victim is a child. Of course, where there is evidence of, for example, physical force having been used against a victim, it would be helpful evidence for the prosecution to use, but it is not needed to prove the offence of slavery, servitude or forced or compulsory labour. The Government have changed Clause 1 several times to ensure that the specific circumstances of vulnerable victims, including child victims, are fully considered. We have already made it clear that the consent of the victims does not prevent a conviction and that all forms of vulnerability can be taken into consideration by the court.

The guidance would be for the Director of Public Prosecutions to issue. We have said that the DPP and the Crown Prosecution Service will work together to ensure that there is a more effective—

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Labour)

My Lords, the Minister was crystal clear in his letter to me, for which I am very grateful. While I realise that it is for the Director of Public Prosecutions to issue the guidance, as the noble Lord said, it would be extremely helpful if he could tell the DPP that it is the will of Parliament that those words be included in guidance. I am sure that she will then take that into appropriate consideration.

Lord Bates (Conservative)

I am very happy to give that undertaking. It should be something of which the DPP is aware. She would be particularly aware of it because the level of consultation and soul-searching that we have had on this issue in the Ministry of Justice and the Home Office—it has sometimes been hidden from the debate—has been unprecedented in comparison with any of the other proposed amendments to the Bill that I have considered. However, I am very happy to report that back.

It should also be borne in mind that it is the principal responsibility of the chief constables and police and crime commissioners to take this matter, and the will of the House, forward to ensure the prosecution of those who are guilty of child exploitation, and to bring those prosecutions forward successfully so that the victims can be protected. The prosecutions

should serve as an example to stop this heinous activity in the future. I hope that that further inspiration might be helpful to my noble friend.

Baroness Doocey (Liberal Democrat)

That is very helpful. I thank the Minister very much. Nobody will be happier than me if all my worries are proved groundless. I will be absolutely ecstatic, as will all the non-governmental organisations and the charities that work with these poor children on a daily basis. I will continue to monitor. I pay tribute to all the charities and the NGOs, which have done so much excellent work in this field over so many years. It must have sometimes appeared to them that they were battling the elements and bashing their heads against a brick wall.

I also place on record my thanks to the Minister for his determination to get this legislation right and for his willingness at all times to listen and respond to concerns from everyone across the House and from all the people who work with children on a daily basis. I thank him very much and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 5 withdrawn.

Amendment 6

Tabled by Lord James of Blackheath

6: After Clause 4, insert the following new Clause—

“Forced child migration

(1) A person commits an offence if the person arranges or facilitates the travel of a child (“C”) with a view to transferring C’s permanent residence unless the person reasonably believes that—

(a) C’s parent or guardian consents,

(b) it is necessary for securing compliance with an order under section 8 of the Children Act 1989, or

(c) it is necessary for securing compliance with an order of a court in a foreign jurisdiction.

(2) For the purposes of subsection (1) “permanent residence” shall not include any detention under a sentence that is imposed by a court after a conviction for a criminal offence.

(3) A person may in particular arrange or facilitate C’s travel by transporting or transferring C, harbouring or receiving C, or transferring or exchanging control over C.

(4) A person arranges or facilitates C’s travel with a view to transferring C’s permanent residence only if the person knows or ought to know that C is travelling in order to live for a substantial or indeterminate period of time in a different location to the one in which C lived before the travel.

(5) “Travel” has the same meaning as in section 2.

(6) A person who is a UK national commits an offence under this section regardless of—

(a) where the arranging or facilitating takes place, or

(b) where the travel takes place.

(7) A person who is not a UK national commits an offence under this section if—

(a) any part of the arranging or facilitating takes place in the United Kingdom, or

(b) the travel consists of arrival in or entry into, departure from, or travel within, the United Kingdom.

(8) For the purposes of this section, a “person” shall include a public body.”

Lord James of Blackheath (Conservative)

I thank the Minister for his response to my points, but may I just put two questions to him? I will wholly understand if he chooses to answer in writing afterwards. First, will he give consideration to a comment that appears in the great book in the Library, attributed to Herbert Morrison from early 1945, to the effect that in any case where an orphanage or local council alone authorised a migration, it should require the countersignature of the Secretary of State?

Lord Bates (Conservative)

Has the question been put?

Lord James of Blackheath (Conservative)

I am sorry, that was my first of two questions to the Minister. He stood up, so I thought he was going to answer me. The second question—

Lord Bates (Conservative)

Let me just say to my noble friend that we will continue this dialogue. That is absolutely certain. In this context, a far stronger guarantee for children in future is the existing body of law that now comes into place and into effect through the Children Act and other pieces of legislation since the 1950s. Crucially, any person seeking to take a child out of the United Kingdom requires a court order to do so. That is a much stronger guarantee than anything that can be given by the Home Secretary or anyone else.

Lord James of Blackheath (Conservative)

I thank the noble Lord for that, but I must point out that they all had court orders last time. My second question is this—

Lord Williams of Elvel (Labour)

My Lords, one does have some respect for the Companion. Is there a question before the House? Has an amendment been moved? If not, why not? May we please have some order in the House?

Lord James of Blackheath (Conservative)

I apologise to the noble Lord if I caused offence, but I thought the situation was that you could reply to the answer you had had from a noble Lord.

Baroness Garden of Frognal (Liberal Democrat)

The Minister has already replied and the question has now been put to my noble friend. We are requesting him, please, to withdraw his amendment.

Amendment 6 not moved.

Amendment 7 not moved.

Report (1st Day) (Continued)

Baroness Garden of Frognal (Liberal Democrat)

My Lords, in moving Amendment 8, I shall speak also to Amendments 9 to 15, 18 to 25, 32 and 33, 100 and 101, and 103 to 105. This large group of amendments makes minor changes to ensure that the Bill works effectively in light of wider legislative change.

Amendments 21 and 22 remove the limit of £5,000 for fines imposed by magistrates on breach of a slavery and trafficking risk or prevention order. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, for raising the issue of removing the limit to this fine in Committee. I am also grateful to the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee for its analysis of the delegated power and suggestions for changes. The regulations needed to accompany Section 85 of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 have now been approved by Parliament. Commencing Section 85 will remove the cap on all fines in the magistrates’ courts of £5,000 or more.

These amendments assume that Section 85 will be commenced by the time this Bill reaches Royal Assent, removing the limit on fines in the magistrates’ court. If this is not the case, then transitional arrangements can be made by order. I hope that noble Lords will agree that these amendments give magistrates the ability to respond more flexibly when sentencing, given the particular nature of a breach of a slavery and trafficking risk or prevention order. In addition, the removal of the delegated power ensures that we have addressed the concern about the previous provision raised by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee.

Amendments 8 to 15, 18, and 103 to 105 relate to reparation orders. This Government believe that the criminal justice system must give greater priority to providing victims of modern slavery, who have been used as commodities, with reparation for the distress, abuse and suffering that they have been subjected to. That is why the Bill will introduce bespoke reparation orders, which will ensure that courts give appropriate priority to compensating victims of modern slavery and have the necessary tools to do so. Currently, confiscation orders may be made only in the Crown Court. Given that reparation orders can be made only where there is a confiscation order, the Bill currently makes provision for reparation orders to be made only in the Crown Court.

However, Section 97 of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 makes provision to enable magistrates’ courts to make a confiscation order in certain circumstances, and work is in hand to give magistrates’ courts these powers. We want to make sure that any court that has the power to make a confiscation order in relation to a modern slavery offence also has the power to make a reparation order in favour of any victim of that offence. Government Amendments 8 to 15, and 18, will ensure that magistrates’ courts that make a confiscation order will also have the power to make a reparation order.

Government Amendments 103 to 105 make minor amendments to the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 that are intended to clarify how certain sections of that Act are to apply in relation to a slavery and trafficking reparation order.

Finally, Amendments 19 and 20, 23 to 25, 32 and 33, 100 and 101 are technical amendments to reflect the introduction of new offences and civil orders in Northern Ireland through the Human Trafficking and Exploitation (Criminal Justice and Support for Victims) Act (Northern Ireland) 2015, which received Royal Assent on 13 January. The UK Government have

worked closely with the Northern Ireland Executive to ensure that our respective legislation creates a robust, joined-up response to modern slavery across the UK. This proposed group of amendments supports this effort by ensuring that the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner, the slavery and trafficking prevention and risk orders, and the maritime enforcement and transparency in supply chains provisions all work effectively in light of these recent legislative changes.

I hope that noble Lords will agree that this group of amendments makes minor, but necessary, changes to ensure that the Bill works effectively in light of wider legislative changes and will therefore support these amendments. I beg to move.

Amendment 8 agreed.

Amendments 9 to 12

Moved by Lord Bates

9: Clause 8, page 5, line 14, leave out “the Crown Court makes a confiscation order” and insert “a confiscation order is made”

10: Clause 8, page 5, line 16, leave out “Crown Court” and insert “court”

11: Clause 8, page 5, line 19, leave out “it has made a confiscation order” and insert “a confiscation order has been made”

12: Clause 8, page 5, line 42, at end insert—

“( ) “the court” means—

(i) the Crown Court, or

(ii) any magistrates’ court that has power to make a confiscation order by virtue of an order under section 97 of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 (confiscation orders by magistrates’ courts);”

Amendments 9 to 12 agreed.

Clause 10: Slavery and trafficking reparation orders: supplementary provision

Amendments 13 to 15

Moved by Lord Bates

13: Clause 10, page 6, line 43, leave out “Crown Court” and insert “court (within the meaning of section 8 above)”

14: Clause 10, page 7, line 4, leave out paragraph (e)

15: Clause 10, page 7, line 29, leave out from “order” to end of line 30 and insert “that could have been made under section 8 above by virtue of the confiscation order”

Amendments 13 to 15 agreed.

Amendment 16

Moved by Baroness Young of Hornsey

16: After Clause 10, insert the following new Clause—

“Civil remedies for modern slavery

(1) A victim of modern slavery may bring a civil action against any person who commits an offence against that victim under sections 1, 2 and 4 (or who knowingly benefits financially or by receiving anything of value from participation in a venture which that person knew or should have known has involved an offence under sections 1, 2 and 4) for the recovery of damages, injunctive relief, and any other appropriate relief.

(2) It is not a defence to liability under this section that a defendant has been acquitted or has not been investigated, prosecuted or convicted under sections 1, 2 or 4 or has been convicted of a different offence or of a different type or class of offence.

(3) An action under this section must be commenced no later than 6 years after the later of the date on which the victim—

(a) left the situation of modern slavery; or

(b) attained the age of 18.

(4) This limitation period may be extended where the civil court considers it just and equitable to do so.

(5) An action brought under this section may be stayed by the civil court either on its own volition or at the request of the prosecution until the resolution of any criminal proceedings against a defendant which arise from the same act in respect of which the victim has made the claim.

(6) Damages awarded under this section shall be offset by any compensation paid to the victim for the same act pursuant to section 8 (reparation order following a criminal conviction for a relevant offence) or an award paid to the victim for the same act by the Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme.

(7) This section does not preclude any other existing remedies available to the victim under the laws of England and Wales.

(8) There shall be the provision of legal aid to enable a civil claim under this section to be brought.

(9) In a successful action under this section, in addition to any award of damages or other relief, the victim’s costs shall be recoverable against the defendant.

(10) This section shall have the same extra-territorial effect as sections 1, 2 and 4 .”

Baroness Young of Hornsey (Crossbench)

This amendment is intended to close a gap in the law, which currently does not provide sufficient avenues for all victims of modern slavery to seek remedies for damages and the suffering that they have endured. Again, I have to thank Parosha Chandran and Klara Skrivankova for their contributions in working on this amendment. I would also like to say how much I appreciate the work of all the NGOs which have contributed to our work on the Bill. They have done a fantastic job.

Very few victims have been able to receive remedies and compensation so far. This civil remedies amendment would provide an effective means to reduce the financial profitability of slavery, create a further deterrent effect and enable victims to be adequately compensated for the harm done to them. This proposed new clause does not seek to replace the existing remedies, such as those provided in employment law, but to add a more effective route to remedies that has been absent in English law and that, as experience from elsewhere shows, can be an effective means to enabling victims to get redress.

Those victims who have suffered physical harm will still of course be able to use existing remedies, but Amendment 16 is targeted at those for whom such routes remain out of reach. These are, for example, cases where there is an absence of direct physical harm but that involve debt bondage, abuse of an individual’s position of vulnerability, psychological control, threats of denunciation to the authorities, extortionate recruitment fees, and the threat or carefully nurtured fear of violence. Such actions are recognised in international definitions of trafficking and seen as indicators of forced labour. These are the very circumstances experienced by many victims of modern slavery, especially those exploited for their labour. This provision would, for example, allow a civil claim for forced labour to be brought against businesses or a gangmaster which have used

and demeaned eastern European or British men for the purposes of slavery or forced labour, which have abused the men’s vulnerabilities to exploit them for profit and also imposed on them bonded debts via extortionate recruitment fees or accommodation charges for filthy living conditions, and which have failed to pay wages owed.

As I pointed out in Committee, when I brought forward an earlier iteration of this amendment, a further significant advantage of a civil remedy is that it is not dependent on criminal prosecution of offenders and can be brought where no criminal investigation has taken place. It was put to me during the debate in Committee that this proposed change in the law might not be necessary as the existing law is sufficient. I was grateful at that time for the helpful comments made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, my noble and learned friend Lady Butler-Sloss, who is supporting this amendment, and my noble and right reverend friend Lord Harries. I also thank the Minister for taking the time to write to me about this matter after the debate.

In his letter of 8 December 2014, the Minister took the view that there exist common law and statutory torts, which may be relied on in civil proceedings for damages. I have consulted a number of legal experts on this matter—experts on the issues of human trafficking and forced labour, as well as experts on civil and tort law outside these areas. The advice I have received was unanimous: that the existing remedies are inadequate as they do not provide appropriate routes to redress for all victims. The various examples from civil law described in the Minister’s letter are unable to give due weight to the factors and circumstances encountered in situations of trafficking and slavery. None reflects the elements of control and exploitation inherent in such situations or the subtle means of control assumed over victims by traffickers. One might consider that false imprisonment comes closest to reflecting the element of control over an individual’s life. However, the traditional focus in jurisprudence is on the restraint of physical liberty, and there is no guarantee that the more insidious and very common forms of restraint, such as the confiscation of a passport or the use of vulnerable immigration status to control victims, would be found to amount to false imprisonment. Similarly, the types of individual instances of assault, battery or harassment that can arise in a forced labour scenario may be inadequately represented by existing torts. The long-term nature of abuse and the elements of control of the vulnerable may be quite different from those that arise in other situations.

In the US, a civil remedy for victims was introduced in 2003 after the finding that the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act 2000, a federal law, criminalised human trafficking and contained numerous provisions for victim protection but did not include a civil liability offence. This important omission was soon recognised and was remedied by the introduction of a federal right of action for survivors of trafficking in 2003. Under the US Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act 2003, a victim may bring a civil action against the perpetrator in court and recover damages.

Having spoken to a number of experts here about this issue over the past few weeks, I have found a remarkable consensus on this issue. I have received advice and letters from some 12 legal practitioners, who all agree that existing remedies have been shown to be inadequate. All the lawyers have had clients in whose cases the absence of direct civil remedies against traffickers has prevented them from bringing civil damages claims owing to the uncertainty of the law and the lawyers’ unwillingness to subject already vulnerable and often traumatised clients to experimental litigation that has no clear outcomes for them.

To reiterate, some victims, especially those who are trafficked for sexual exportation or subject to physical violence, may be able to access some of the existing remedies. However, there are still too many of those affected by modern slavery in this country who cannot. The amendment offers a simple, streamlined, cost-effective and common-sense solution to the current gap in the law. However, we recognise that there is a huge amount of complexity around this issue, and that has been demonstrated by the assumptions that people have made about what is available and what can work. We recognise that it is not possible to change the law quickly. I am seeking confirmation from the Minister that he will be able to meet me, the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and a small number of practitioners from the field to discuss this matter further, because clearly something here is not working in the way that it should. I beg to move.

Baroness Hamwee (Liberal Democrat)

My Lords, I have added my name to this amendment, as I did to its predecessor amendment in Committee. Anticipating today’s debate, I had a quick word with the Minister, who helpfully—perhaps he seized on it as a way through today, at any rate—agreed that the noble Baroness, I and others may be let loose in the Home Office in discussions with officials. This is a complex issue. It is right to take considered steps, but steps do indeed have to be considered. The short point, as the noble Baroness said, is that people working in the field—I may say that those I have met are no slouches—argue forcefully for a specific course of action. Given the energy that they put into assisting victims by means of their legal work, I take very serious note of that. I am happy to support the amendment but, more importantly, because this is not something that is going to be solved in a 15-minute debate, to continue the discussion at the Home Office, and I am grateful to my noble friend for that.

I have tabled Amendment 17—I suppose it is allied to this one—about claims in the employment tribunal. Again, I am not seeking a solution today. My amendment, which really is adequate only for the purpose of raising the point, asks the Secretary of States to consult the appropriate people with regard to access to the tribunal by victims of modern slavery. I mention the national minimum wage in particular. If there is an employment contract, a claim must be brought within three months and is limited to two years’ arrears. I mentioned the two-year limit to a colleague in this House and said I was concerned that victims of slavery were prejudiced by it. He said, “Well, if we extended it beyond two years, other groups would want it to be opened up”. I thought that if it was not immediately obvious to

someone steeped in what the House is doing that a victim of slavery, servitude or forced labour was unlikely to have been able to have access to an employment tribunal until that situation had finished, then this was something that had to be dealt with in detail and very carefully.

There are new regulations, which have just come into force, providing that from July the two-year restriction will apply. I understand that the Deduction from Wages (Limitation) Regulations were introduced to answer concerns expressed by business over unexpected and unquantified holiday pay claims; they were not aimed at victims of trafficking. Clearly they will affect victims of trafficking, but those victims are not mentioned in the impact assessment that BIS provided for the regulations.

There are other issues, too: for example, there is the family worker exemption, where someone treated as a member of a family is not entitled to the national minimum wage or to any payment at all, but the Court of Appeal—I have had an example of this—has regarded someone who worked 14 hours a day and slept on the dining room floor as being treated as a member of the family. That would have been an overseas domestic worker, and of course I am aware of the review of overseas domestic worker visas, but there are particular issues around the national minimum wage that we must not lose when we are dealing with other parts of this jigsaw.

I appreciate that there are a lot of stakeholders with a great range of interests in employment rights and the danger of unintended consequences is high, which is why I framed my amendment as I did. However, the victims of modern slavery have themselves suffered unintended consequences. All the Minister needs to do to my Amendment 17 is to say yes.

Baroness Butler-Sloss (Crossbench)

My Lords, I have also put my name to this amendment—as with the two noble Baronesses who have spoken, for the purpose of further consideration, not for the purpose of being part of the Bill at the moment.

There are two points that I want to make. The first is that there is clearly a gap. The second is that this would give an opportunity to victims who cannot have the satisfaction of the trafficker prosecuted—or indeed if the trafficker or slave owner is actually acquitted—none the less to take civil proceedings under a different and less onerous standard of care. The criminal law, as I am sure everyone in this House knows, requires the jury or the magistrate to be satisfied so as to be sure, but in the civil courts—the High Court, the county courts or the small claims courts—it is sufficient to have the balance of probabilities. So it gives an added opportunity to those who have suffered to get some redress, even if it does not go through the criminal courts. It is for that reason that we seek the opportunity for the Government to have a look at this to see whether something can be done at a later stage.

Baroness Kennedy of Cradley (Labour)

My Lords, I add my voice in support of Amendment 16. I will be brief. There is no need for me to repeat the arguments for having a civil remedy in the Bill as this case has

been eloquently and well made by the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Hornsey. I just want to emphasise three points. First, we have a duty to give victims of slavery every type of support to help them rebuild their lives. That is why I support this amendment. Effective civil remedies for modern slavery are another tool that we can agree that will help victims gain access to the justice they so rightly deserve. Through our debates in this House we have been increasing and developing the right provisions to support victims of slavery, which has rightly moved up the agenda. Amendment 16 is an essential element of the package of support. Survivors must have the right to pursue civil compensation claims and to recover damages from their abusers for offences carried out against them.

Secondly, like others, I worry that the current civil law is inadequate for the victims of modern slavery. The criteria for existing civil claims which can be brought against perpetrators seem too narrow for slavery victims. Not all victims of modern slavery have been subjected to physical or sexual assault or false imprisonment. The law is highly complex, and the circumstances of each enslavement situation are highly complex. Increasingly there is no physical violence but there is extreme emotional and psychological manipulation. We therefore need civil law to cover all the complexities of a modern-day slavery situation.

Thirdly, and finally, we need to learn the lessons from the US and not repeat its mistakes. As the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Hornsey, mentioned, the US Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000 did not include a civil liability offence. That was soon recognised as a glaring omission, so in 2003 a federal right of action was introduced for survivors of trafficking. Let it not take us three years to recognise that more needs to be done. The amendment is before us here and now. I hope the Government will take the opportunity before them to respond favourably to this amendment now, or soon through discussions in future.

Lord Rosser (Labour)

My Lords, I will be brief. The noble Baroness, Lady Young of Hornsey, has once again made a powerful case in her amendment. We support the principle of a civil remedy for victims of modern slavery against a person who commits an offence against that victim or who benefits financially. As the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, said, civil proceedings are likely to be less of an ordeal for victims than the criminal courts and cases will be determined on the lower threshold of balance of probabilities rather than beyond reasonable doubt, which increases the prospect of a successful outcome for the victim.

In Committee, there was some discussion about whether there was already recourse to relevant and appropriate civil law remedies for all victims. There was clearly not unanimity of view on that point. The amendment would clear up any doubt by putting a clause in the Bill providing for civil action and remedies for victims of modern slavery, and if the Government are going to oppose this amendment all the way down the line, they will need to be rather more convincing than they were in Committee in persuading the House

that adequate civil remedies are already available and that that view is not open to serious doubt. I hope that the Minister will be able to respond in a helpful way.

Lord Bates (Conservative)

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Young, for moving this amendment and giving us the opportunity for a debate. As my noble friend Lady Hamwee said, we have agreed to continue dialogue on this issue with the Home Office and the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner, who has expressed an interest in this area. This is also an opportunity to put on the record some remarks on our position, which the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, invited us to do. In doing so, I do not want to detract from the fact that we agree that this is something at which we need to look carefully.

Since Committee stage, we have been looking very closely at civil remedies and modern slavery, and have been exchanging letters about the details with Peers, as the noble Baroness, Lady Young, said. Amendment 16 seeks to enhance civil remedies by creating new torts equivalent to the offences to be created under Clauses 1, 2 and 4. I assure the House that we believe that civil remedies in tort already exist for victims of trafficking and slavery to claim damages from perpetrators through ordinary civil law and the Human Rights Act. Damages can, for example, be recovered for loss or damage caused to victims under the torts of intimidation, harassment, assault, unlawful imprisonment, negligence and breach of duty. We have been unable to identify a modern slavery scenario that would not involve at least one of those torts. Given the serious nature of modern slavery, we consider that it is likely that a court would be able to establish that, on the balance of probabilities, at least one of those civil wrongs had taken place. Accordingly, we are currently of the view that the existing civil law already provides the necessary civil remedies for modern slavery cases.

Once a tort has been established, the court can award damages to the victim. Noble Lords previously expressed concern that such damages may be insufficient in light of the terrible experiences that the victim may have suffered. However, aggravated damages are available in relation to a number of civil torts, such as assault or wrongful imprisonment. This means that where the court, taking into account the defendant’s motives, conduct and manner of committing the tort against the victim, feels that the defendant has aggravated the victim’s damage by injuring his proper feelings of dignity and pride, aggravated damages may be awarded. Given the particular nature of modern slavery, we would expect most modern slavery cases to give rise to aggravated damages, which seem particularly apt for such situations, given their focus on the injurious and degrading effect on the victim, and consider that the availability of such additional damages will enable courts to ensure that victims receive an adequate remedy fully tailored to the particular effect on them.

The Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 retained civil legal aid for damages and employment law claims for trafficking victims to support them in making such claims, and an amendment

to the Bill will extend this legal aid provision to all modern slavery victims. I believe this amendment has been widely welcomed.

Amendment 17 would require the Secretary of State to complete a consultation on access by victims of modern slavery to the employment tribunal to make claims, including for payment of the national minimum wage. I assure noble Lords that all employees and workers in the United Kingdom are entitled to protection under our employment law, and those working legally in Great Britain will have access to the employment tribunal. In some circumstances this will include modern slavery victims. However, given the criminal nature of modern slavery, some victims will not have been in legal employment and therefore cannot benefit from all the same protections as those working under legal contracts. For example, access to an employment tribunal would be possible only in certain cases of discrimination. This is because, as a general principle, a court or tribunal will not enforce an illegal contract.

Where victims are eligible to make claims through the employment tribunal, there is a two-year restriction, which my noble friend Lady Hamwee referred to, which applies to most claims for unlawful deduction of wages, including underpayment of the national minimum wage. However, in practice, the majority of national minimum wage claims are handled by a separate enforcement route via Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. This route is not affected by our changes, and the national minimum wage can still be claimed for up to six years via HMRC enforcement. HMRC investigates every complaint made to the Pay and Work Rights Helpline. In addition, HMRC conducts risk-based enforcement in sectors or areas where there is perceived to be a higher risk of workers not getting paid the legal minimum wage.

An action founded on a civil tort to claim general damages would not be subject to a two-year limit and can usually be made up to six years after the cause of action accrued. In these cases, the amounts of the damages will be based on the individual circumstances of the case and may be higher than the level of wages that should have been paid, although this may be a factor considered by the court in assessing the amount of the victim’s loss. We are committed to doing as much as possible effectively to enhance support for and protection of victims of modern slavery, which includes ensuring that they receive compensation for the horrors that they have experienced.

While our current analysis is that the existing law provides sufficient access to civil remedies for victims of slavery and trafficking, these debates are providing very valuable information in exploring how civil remedies apply to modern slavery cases. We will continue to look carefully at the evidence put forward in the debates, including today’s Report stage debate, in future policy-making. Given the need to explore further the important points raised, I hope that noble Lords will agree that this is not an issue to address through the Bill at this stage. As I have given undertakings, which I mentioned at the outset, to continue the discussion but to put on the record these additional remarks, which represent the Government’s latest position on this issue, I hope that that will provide reassurance for

my noble friend and for the noble Baroness, Lady Young, to consider withdrawing her amendment at this stage.

Baroness Young of Hornsey (Crossbench)

I thank the Minister for his reply, and for agreeing to meet us. However, it is interesting that there clearly is some kind of a problem here if all these practitioners, who are very diligent and very committed to the people with whom they work, cannot seem to find their way through what already exists. That takes me back to 2009, when we were looking at what became Section 71—which we often refer to now—of the Coroners and Justice Act. At that time, a number of arguments were put forward against doing anything about criminalising forced labour and servitude. It now seems impossible to think that anyone would argue against that, but the Government of the time felt that there was sufficient recourse through the civil courts, and we now know better than that. I reiterate part of what the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, was saying: we do not want to wait another three years before we get round to thinking, “Oh yes, there is something else—we can do a little bit better”. I therefore hope that we will come to some sort of agreement about a more productive way forward. In that context, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 16 withdrawn.

Amendment 17 not moved.

Clause 13: Interpretation of Part 1

Amendment 18

Moved by Lord Bates

18: Clause 13, page 9, line 43, at end insert—

“( ) In sections 8 and 10, references to provisions of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 include references to those provisions as amended or otherwise modified by virtue of an order (whenever made) under section 97 of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 (confiscation orders by magistrates’ courts).”

Amendment 18 agreed.

Schedule 1: Slavery and human trafficking offences

Amendment 19

Moved by Lord Bates

19: Schedule 1, page 44, line 27, at end insert—

“Human Trafficking and Exploitation (Criminal Justice and Support for Victims) Act (Northern Ireland) 2015 (c. 2 (N.I.))

7A An offence under section 1, 2 or 4 of the Human Trafficking and Exploitation (Criminal Justice and Support for Victims) Act (Northern Ireland) 2015 (slavery, servitude and forced or compulsory labour; human trafficking).”

Amendment 19 agreed.

Clause 30: Offences

Amendments 20 to 22

Moved by Lord Bates

20: Clause 30, page 22, line 20, at end insert—

“(e) a slavery and trafficking prevention order under Schedule 3 to the Human Trafficking and Exploitation (Criminal Justice and Support for Victims) Act (Northern Ireland) 2015 (c. 2 (N.I.)), or

(f) an interim slavery and trafficking prevention order under that Schedule to that Act,”

21: Clause 30, page 22, line 31, leave out “not exceeding £5,000”

22: Clause 30, page 22, line 35, leave out subsection (5)

Amendments 20 to 22 agreed.

Clause 34: Interpretation of Part 2

Amendments 23 and 24

Moved by Lord Bates

23: Clause 34, page 23, line 36, at end insert “(except in section 30(1)(f))”

24: Clause 34, page 23, line 42, at end insert “(except in section 30(1)(e))”

Amendments 23 and 24 agreed.

Clause 37: Enforcement powers in relation to ships: Northern Ireland

Amendment 25

Moved by Lord Bates

25: Clause 37, page 27, line 26, leave out paragraphs (a) to (c) and insert—

“(a) section 1 of the Human Trafficking and Exploitation (Criminal Justice and Support for Victims) Act (Northern Ireland) 2015 (c. 2 (N.I.)) (slavery, servitude and forced or compulsory labour);

(b) section 2 of that Act (human trafficking).”

Amendment 25 agreed.

Amendment 26

Moved by Baroness Garden of Frognal

26: After Schedule 2, insert the following new Schedule—

SchedulePublic authorities under a duty to co-operate with the CommissionerLaw enforcement and border security

A chief officer of police for a police area in England and Wales.

The chief constable of the British Transport Police Force.

The National Crime Agency.

An immigration officer or other official of the Secretary of State exercising functions in relation to immigration or asylum.

A designated customs official (within the meaning of Part 1 of the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009).

Local government

A county council in England or Wales.

A county borough council in Wales.

A district council in England.

A London borough council.

The Greater London Authority.

The Common Council of the City of London.

The Council of the Isles of Scilly.

Health bodies

A National Health Service trust established under section 25 of the National Health Service Act 2006 or section 18 of the National Health Service (Wales) Act 2006.

An NHS foundation trust within the meaning given by section 30 of the National Health Service Act 2006.

A Local Health Board established under section 11 of the National Health Service (Wales) Act 2006.

Regulators

The Gangmasters Licensing Authority.”

Baroness Garden of Frognal (Liberal Democrat)

My Lords, I will speak also to government Amendments 42 to 45, 106, 107 and 110 to 113. Amendments 108 and 109 should more logically be taken at a later stage, as they refer to later provisions.

I pay tribute to the work of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. Its excellent report has suggested a number of improvements to the Bill, and the Government have responded positively. This group of amendments relates to the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee’s recommendations on the duty to co-operate with the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner. The committee recommended that public authorities to whom this duty would apply should be listed in the Bill, that additions should be made to this list via regulations subject to the negative procedure, and that public authorities should be removed from the duty only where regulations have been made via the affirmative procedure.

Accordingly, the amendments set out the list of public authorities, which operate either across the UK or in England and Wales only, and which will be under a duty to co-operate with the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner as soon as the provision is commenced. Those include all the first responders under the national referral mechanism: the police, the National Crime Agency, the Gangmasters Licensing Authority, relevant front-line staff in the Home Office, and local authorities. We have also included National Health Service trusts, which are also highly relevant to identifying victims. Where relevant we have consulted the Welsh Government to ensure that they are content with that list. To ensure that health professionals are not under conflicting duties regarding confidentiality to patients, these amendments specify that they are not required to supply patient information to the commissioner.

Noble Lords will note that the list relates only to authorities that can be specified by the UK Government without breaching the Sewel convention. We have consulted the Scottish Government and Northern Ireland Executive on the committee’s recommendations, but they wish to add public authorities through regulations to ensure that the Scottish Parliament and Northern Ireland Assembly are appropriately consulted. I stress that this is an initial list; I am sure that noble Lords can identify other bodies which might prove relevant in future. I am happy to commit to keeping this list under review and looking carefully at points made in debate. We will be able to add to the list through regulations subject to the negative procedure.

On the second element of the committee’s recommendations, that group of amendments also specifies that a public authority can be removed from the duty only via regulations subject to the affirmative procedure, except where the amendment is in consequence of the authority having ceased to exist. This is an important safeguard as it means the scope of the duty to co-operate with the commissioner cannot be narrowed without careful parliamentary scrutiny. Additions to

the duty can be made through regulations subject to the negative procedure. Scotland and Northern Ireland have agreed to follow the same process, and that is also reflected in the amendments. I beg to move.

Baroness Butler-Sloss (Crossbench)

My Lords, perhaps I might add two names. I am very happy with these amendments, but I wonder why neither the Crown Prosecution Service nor the College of Policing is included in the proposed new schedule. I suggest that that should be looked at.

Baroness Garden of Frognal (Liberal Democrat)

I thank the noble and learned Baroness. Yes; we have identified public authorities that we consider have a key role to play in supporting the commissioner in delivering his functions. However, I stress that this is an initial list, and we are more than prepared to look at additions to it. We will keep it under review, and will possibly consider ahead of Third Reading whether we should have greater ability to tailor the duty to the particular functions or legislative framework of a future public authority, as we have done with National Health Service trusts and patient confidentiality. The noble and learned Baroness raises two other possibilities, which we will look at ahead of Third Reading, and I thank her.

Amendment 26 agreed.

Clause 40: The Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner

Amendment 27

Moved by Lord Warner

27: Clause 40, page 30, line 40, at end insert “and may bring any matter to the attention of either House of Parliament irrespective of other provisions in this Act”

Lord Warner (Labour)

My Lords, Amendment 27 is in my name and in those of the noble Lords, Lord Patel and Lord Alton, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby. I shall also speak briefly to Amendment 29 in this group, which is in the same names.

I begin by acknowledging the efforts made by the Minister to respond positively to the many points raised in Committee by Members of this House from across the Benches. The House will recall that in Committee there was great concern that the Bill did not go far enough to ensure the independence of the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner. Simply to call the commissioner “independent” was not sufficient if the Bill did not fully reflect that description. The Government have eventually, after a struggle, recognised those concerns to some extent in their Amendment 28. However, I gently draw the Minister’s attention to the fact that it does not even go as far as the rather modest collective amendment we have put down as Amendment 29.

Unfortunately, there is a somewhat grudging flavour to Amendment 28, which makes me retain my concern about the extent to which the commissioner remains clearly on a leash—even if, admittedly, on a slightly longer one—from the Home Office. That is why I

have tried to provide an override provision in Amendment 27, which would enable the commissioner to,

“bring any matter to the attention of either House of Parliament irrespective of other provisions in this Act”.

That means exactly what it says. If the commissioner at any time considers that he or she is being thwarted or nudged away from airing publicly any significant concern that he or she has, he or she can draw upon the provisions in Amendment 27 to access either House of Parliament to ensure that the issue is brought into the public domain.

The amendment is not directed at any particular Home Secretary but is a provision based on what some of us have observed in Governments of all or any political make-up as reluctance to have difficult or embarrassing issues surface publicly. My colleagues want to ensure a stronger legal bulwark against any such temptation.

It is clear that Parliament has used such a bulwark elsewhere in relation to the Children’s Commissioner, whose functions are set out in the new Section 2 of the Children Act 2004 brought forward last year in the Children and Families Act 2014. New Section 2(3)(e) gave the Children’s Commissioner exactly the same access to either House of Parliament at any time he or she considered it necessary when discharging his or her functions. It states that the commissioner may,

“bring any matter to the attention of either House of Parliament”.

Therefore, not that long ago, this Parliament gave a commissioner with responsibilities for very vulnerable people—in that case, children—an absolute guarantee of access to Parliament should the need arise. Paragraph 436 of the Explanatory Notes to the 2014 Act makes it absolutely clear that the Children’s Commissioner can do this either through his annual report or by other means, such as writing to the chair of a relevant Select Committee. To put it graphically, if I may, if a Minister tries to gag the Children’s Commissioner or censor his utterances, the commissioner can go straight to Parliament.

We should also remember that other countries with equivalents to the anti-slavery commissioner give the person direct access to Parliament. The rapporteur from the Netherlands made clear to the Joint Select Committee on the Bill her ability to do this. She saw it as an important way of giving confidence to people outside that they could bring their concerns to the rapporteur.

As we discussed in Committee, the commissioner needs the trust and confidence of a wide range of agencies and interests if he or she is to be successful. That trust and confidence will be damaged, as the Joint Committee said, if there remain doubts or perceptions that the person’s independence is shackled by the Executive. No amount of warm words from Ministers can remove those doubts and perceptions. A statutory guarantee is required and Amendment 27 gives that guarantee. Having accepted that position in relation to the Children’s Commissioner as recently as last year, I hope that the Minister can do the same for the anti-slavery commissioner by accepting my

amendment, which is framed in exactly the same way as the Children and Families Act 2014. If the Government are prepared to agree to Amendment 27, I will be strongly inclined not to press my Amendment 29. I beg to move.

Lord Alton of Liverpool (Crossbench)

My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Warner, indicated, I am one of those who put my name to the amendment, and I am very happy to add my support to it in a short intervention this evening. Before doing so, I endorse what the noble Lord, Lord Warner, said about the thoughtfulness and thoroughness of both the noble Lord, Lord Bates, and the noble Baroness, Lady Garden of Frognal, in dealing with Members from all sides of the House during the passage of this legislation, whether in the series of meetings organised in your Lordships’ House or in the face-to-face meetings with some of us who participated at the Home Office. We are all grateful to them for that. It is exemplary and it should recommend itself to other Ministers who are keen to facilitate their legislation through Parliament. This, of course, does not mean that we have always been of one mind or that we are necessarily going to agree about Amendment 27 to Clause 40.

The issue is the accountability of the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner. I suspect that it may be one of those issues where we will not find agreement because it cuts right into lines of accountability through the Home Office. Departmental issues may take precedence over what I think may well be the private views of members of the Government but which they may not be able to voice here this evening.

The amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Warner, is commendable for its clarity. However, as he also indicated, it is a shrewd amendment, not least because it is based on the Children and Families Act 2014. If what we did a year ago was right in that context, surely it is right to follow exactly that precedent here again this evening.

It seems to me that one of the most important things is to recognise that, however good the nature or good will of individual Ministers, they, and even Home Secretaries, come and go. We are in a period where we face a general election. There may be a different set of Ministers—perhaps from the same party or maybe from other parties—in the very near future, so assurances given on the Floor of your Lordships’ House in the course of debate, even though they are given in good faith, cannot carry over in the same way that legislation carries over. Parliament does not come and go, unlike individual Ministers, and that is why it is so important that we place these words on the face of the Bill.

There have been plenty of precedents where uncomfortable, inconvenient and untimely issues have arisen, and departments have endeavoured to shelve them or kick them into the long grass, to suppress them or simply to ignore them. This amendment would prevent that. If we deemed such a provision to be necessary to protect children, surely it is necessary to protect victims of slavery, many of whom will in any case be children.

In a letter to me just a couple of days ago, on 20 February, the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner, Mr Kevin Hyland, said:

“My independence will be unwavering, whether that be toward law enforcement, government, the private sector or indeed any organisation”.

I repeat:

“My independence will be unwavering”,

in the direction of government, as he specifically states. Either he is independent or he is not, and this amendment gives him the parliamentary access which will guarantee him that unwavering independence. I hope that this evening the Government will indicate either that they will take this matter away and look at it between now and Third Reading or that they will recognise the spirit in which the amendment is being moved by the noble Lord, Lord Warner, and give some guarantees to the effect that he is seeking.

Lord Rosser (Labour)

While the government amendment is welcome in extending the remit of the anti-slavery commissioner and allowing the commissioner to appoint his or her own staff, there are other areas where there still appear to be constraints on the commissioner's independence.

The commissioner must still seek prior approval of strategic plans from the Home Secretary on his or her activities and areas of focus, and annual reports may also be subject to redaction before they are laid before Parliament and published. Apart from the impact on the commissioner’s independence, it is not clear within what timeframe this checking and seeking clearance has to be undertaken in order to avoid the prospect of delays, for example, in the publication of a report or the approval of a plan or programme. The delaying of the publication of reports by the Home Office is an experience apparently not unknown to Mr Vine, the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration.

Annual reports from the anti-slavery commissioner may be redacted on the grounds that material may jeopardise the safety of an individual, prejudice an investigation or, in the view of the Secretary of State, be against the interests of national security. Perhaps the Minister could say how frequently it has been necessary to redact reports where the same conditions and criteria as it is proposed to place on the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner’s reports already apply in relation to comparable commissioners or bodies.

As has been said, following the passing of the Children and Families Act 2014, the Children’s Commissioner can bring any matter to the attention of Parliament. And again, as has already been said, the Explanatory Notes to the 2014 Act state that the commissioner might do this, for example, through annual reports to Parliament or by writing to the chair of a relevant Select Committee. Under the 2014 Act, the Children’s Commissioner must as soon as possible lay a copy of his or her annual report before each House of Parliament.

In his letter of 16 February, the Minister said that,

“the Government’s intention has always been that the Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner will be independent”.

But it appears that there are varying degrees of independence—or lack of independence, depending on which way one wants to look at it. Perhaps the noble Lord could say whether the Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner will be in the same position

when laying his annual report before each House of Parliament or writing to the chair of a relevant Select Committee as is the Children’s Commissioner under the Children and Families Act 2014—and, if the answer is no, why that should be the case.

Lord Bates (Conservative)

The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, put a direct question to me that other noble Lords have asked. It is because the nature of the information often involves serious crime and young children, and there are matters that may not be appropriate. That is something that is applied to other organisations—for example, with Borders and Immigration, with which the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner shares an office.

I shall make some contextual remarks and thank the noble Lord, Lord Warner, for returning to this issue. He acknowledged that we have been on a journey with this Bill. The word “independent” was not in the Bill when it was in the other place. That was added and then, rightly, your Lordships asked what it actually meant in precise terms and whether the person has the right to appoint their own staff, or whether they should be able to draw them just from within the pool of the Home Office. Then we found out and were able to confirm that he had already been appointing staff from outside in his designate position, and that he had brought in people from NGOs working in this area to assist in this role.

One point that was helpful in the discussion when Kevin Hyland, the designate commissioner, came to speak to Peers, was that, from his own role, he wanted to be closely aligned to the Home Office because he felt that it gave him a certain amount of authority in dealing with modern slavery—not just within the Home Office but across government. We now have a cross-government strategy, which we have published. He felt that that was very important and that the fact of reporting to the Secretary of State at the Home Office would strengthen his ability to get the changes he wanted in engaging with police officers and other agencies. From his own point of view, he saw no contradiction—to pick up the point of the noble Lord, Lord Alton—and he wanted to be unwavering in how he put forward his case and reacted to his role, as he put it in his letter. I emphasise that that came out on 20 February; I do not think that anybody in the Home Office was consulted about it—and, of course, it was absolutely welcome. He wants to build a strong relationship with parliamentarians and to engage in that process.

The idea of any of us who have had the privilege of meeting Kevin Hyland thinking that he would be anybody’s poodle, let alone on a leash, is something that we do not accept. We want to make sure that he has a very serious statutory role to perform, charged by and answerable to the Secretary of State. His task is to ensure that victims are protected and perpetrators prosecuted. Under previous groups, we talked about how that might be done. This is a very good example of how that might be moved forward.

I know that there are concerns that reports are reviewed by the Secretary of State, but there is another element here, which I want the noble Lord

to be cognisant of in pursuing his amendment. Amendment 27 would effectively allow the commissioner to report to Parliament about anything without the important necessary safeguards which would avoid inadvertently jeopardising national security, putting victims’ lives at risk or undermining an ongoing prosecution. Moreover—I ask the noble Lord to think very carefully about this point—Amendment 27 would legislate outside the legislative consent Motions passed by the Scottish Parliament and Northern Ireland Assembly, which were agreed specifically on the basis of the current powers to safeguard matters of important public interest. The amendment would leave a Bill that, if passed, would breach the Sewel convention, and put this critical UK-wide part of the Bill at risk. That is a very serious point for the noble Lord, Lord Warner, to consider.

I have tried to make the point to the noble Lord that, in welcoming his amendment, we have introduced our own amendment, which guarantees the commissioner’s independence of role over his budgets and recruitment of staff and also ensures that it is open to any committee to request the commissioner to come and speak to it. It is entirely within its ability to do that, and any Member of Parliament is entirely at liberty to communicate directly or to meet him, as has already been the case on many occasions. We simply underscore the importance of that role, and have this hesitation only in accepting the noble Lord’s amendment at this stage—it could put at risk some of the prosecutions being brought forward, if information should be inadvertently released. Given that we are dealing with matters of organised crime, that would be a very serious matter, which I know will weigh heavily on the noble Lord, Lord Warner. I ask him to keep that in mind.

Amendment 29 would entirely negate the effect of these essential provisions by allowing the commissioner to report to Parliament about any matter and override existing statutory information safeguards and restrictions on disclosure, such as those in the Data Protection Act 1998 or the Official Secrets Act 1989. I urge noble Lords not to effectively remove the critical and proportionate safeguards set out in the redaction provisions. I must also bring an important issue to the noble Lord’s attention, in the Sewel convention. That is very important to bear in mind. He is aware that the Government cannot support amendments in breach of the Sewel convention. To raise such a controversial constitutional issue at this stage in the life of a Parliament would put at risk important provisions for a UK-wide commissioner.

Given these serious risks, and my assurance that the commissioner will already have his annual reports laid before Parliament and be able to appear before parliamentary committees, I hope that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment and support the government amendment to strengthen the independence of the commissioner.

Lord Warner (Labour)

My Lords, that was all very interesting. I thought that there was a certain amount of scrabbling around by the Minister at the end when he went into the Sewel convention and letters of consent. He seemed to be struggling to put the old arguments together—and

I can see that there has been some burning of the midnight oil in the Home Office to try to scratch together some of these arguments. It was interesting to hear the Minister talk of us going on a journey. It certainly has been a journey; it has been a rather hard slog through a lot of mud to try to get a bit more independence into this person’s role. I agree with him that this has been a journey. However, I have considerable doubts about whether it has been successfully completed.

I am genuinely grateful for all the work that the Minister has put in since the Bill came to the House, and I very much share the views expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Alton. However, that does not alter the fact that we are legislating for the future, not just for now. I have heard nothing in the Minister’s arguments which convinces me that this House should not include in the Bill an ability for this commissioner that is the same as that of the Children’s Commissioner to have direct access to Parliament when the need arises. I say to the Minister—

Lord Bates (Conservative)

The noble Lord claims that he heard nothing, but what does he say to the point about the Sewel convention? It is a serious constitutional point about how this proposal would affect the Scottish Parliament and the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Lord Warner (Labour)

My Lords, if I may be allowed to finish what I was going to say, it would probably be helpful to the Minister. I am not one simply to reject out of hand some of these constitutional issues. However, we are also concerned about the position in this country—England—as well as the position in Scotland and other parts of the United Kingdom. We have the largest population and we are probably dealing with the largest number of enslaved, exploited and trafficked children. If the Government consider that this amendment needs to be amended between now and Third Reading, they could do so and have negotiations with the Scottish Parliament, the Northern Ireland Assembly and so forth. People have these discussions with other government departments when there is a reasonable period of time in which to do so.

In conclusion, on the basis of what I have heard, I see no reason for not testing the opinion of the House.

Lord McColl of Dulwich (Conservative)

My Lords, I support Amendment 28. Before I set out why I think the independence of the commissioner is of central importance, I want to place on record my thanks to the Minister for hosting so many meetings between Committee and Report to hear the views of Peers and to help to update us with the latest thinking from the Home Office. In relation to the clauses that we are discussing, I thank the Minister for arranging a helpful meeting with the commissioner-designate.

I welcome the amendment, because it will provide a solid foundation for the independence of the commissioner, not only in fact but in appearance. I commend the Minister for listening and responding to concerns expressed by your Lordships during the debate and for taking on board the recommendation of our Joint Committee on the draft Bill with regard to this central issue of the statutory safeguards for the commissioner’s independence. Indeed, I believe that I recognise the text of the amendment from our committee’s alternative Bill. I was pleased to hear from the commissioner himself about his vigorous determination to be an independent voice and to challenge, on the basis of evidence, those who were not meeting the necessary standards of action. I am also pleased to know that he had been involved in appointing his staff team.

The amendment will protect the independence of the commissioner for the long term, beyond the tenure of the present commissioner or the present Home Secretary. The amendment establishes clearly that although the commissioner, his office and activities are funded by the Home Office, that funding is through a budget allocation which the commissioner can apportion as he sees fit. The original text creates a dependency for the commissioner on the Secretary of State for the

most basic equipment, and suggests that his office is embedded in the Home Office. That is no different from any other unit within that department, and it gives the Secretary of State the power to determine what office accommodation, equipment and facilities he or she considers necessary for the commissioner’s functions, with the only requirement being to consult the commissioner. This creates the possibility for pressure to be applied to the commissioner, influencing what he is able to do through providing or not providing certain resources. The amendment removes this possibility by empowering the commissioner himself to determine how his budget is allocated within limits set by the Secretary of State.

When the Joint Committee on the draft Bill considered these questions, we were particularly concerned not only about actual undue influence on the commissioner’s activities but about the need for the commissioner to have credibility with the many different groups, agencies and partners that he will have to engage with in his work. A degree of financial independence is key to establishing a clear separation between the commissioner and the Home Office, which the amendment accomplishes.

The amendment also gives the commissioner the power to appoint his own staff. This power is also central to establishing the independence vital to the commissioner’s reputation and effectiveness. It ensures that the commissioner will be able to gather a team with the requisite skills to fulfil his plans and objectives, rather than depending only on staff available from within the Home Office. The ability to appoint staff will also strengthen the credibility of the commissioner’s team as there will be less concern about the ability of staff members with loyalty to the Home Office to offer critical analysis of the Government’s policy.

If the commissioner is not able to demonstrate clear distance between his office and the Home Office policy machinery, the resulting damage to his credibility, and by extension to his reports and recommendations, could be paralysing. Amendment 28 will ensure that this will not be the case by creating a statutory framework that creates and protects that independence. Vis-à-vis the plea made by the noble Lord, Lord Warner, that the commissioner should have access to Parliament, the commissioner—he is a very strong man indeed—can readily ask MPs or Members of this House to ask questions in the House and to initiate appropriate debates.

To protect the independence of the commissioner for the long term, we must ensure that the statute that creates the post lives up to our aspirations of independence. Amendment 28 does this. I offer the Minister my wholehearted support for this amendment.

Lord Bates (Conservative)

I am tempted to say very briefly that I of course agree with every word that my noble friend has said. He comes to this with great authority and respect, having been, as I said before, one of the people who generated the whole idea for the Bill. I know he is passionate about getting this right. I think that Amendment 28 goes a long way to address and meet some of the concerns that were legitimately raised by the noble Lord, Lord Warner, in the previous debate and which I understand.

I am glad that Amendment 28 will be made, because it is vital that everyone out there in the NGO community, and police officers, law enforcement and everyone else involved in this work, recognises that the commissioner’s independence is unwavering, as the noble Lord, Lord Alton, put it—and, as Kevin Hyland himself put it, that he has absolute credibility in his background, having been a police officer leading on the prosecution of these areas. None the less, he wants to have a very strong working relationship with the many parliamentarians in both Houses who care passionately about this subject. Amendment 28 will ensure that that happens.

Amendment 28 agreed.

Amendment 29

Tabled by Lord Warner

29: Clause 40, page 30, line 43, leave out subsection (4) and insert—

“(4) The Secretary of State shall, within the approved budget—

(a) allow the Commissioner to appoint any staff he considers necessary for assisting him in the exercise of his functions; and

(b) ensure that he has such accommodation equipment and facilities as he considers necessary for the exercise of his functions.”

Lord Warner (Labour)

Briefly, as I am slightly provoked by the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord McColl, on Amendment 28, I was well aware that the commissioner could put people up to ask questions. I did not doubt that. However, it seemed to me that the issue—this is still a shortcoming of Amendment 28—was that Parliament should put beyond peradventure the commissioner’s independence. I am not going to move Amendment 29, but I suggest that it gives the commissioner more independence than the wording of Amendment 28. I am not going to progress this argument any further, but I want to put on record that I am not convinced that we have gone as far as we could have done. In the mean time, I will not move Amendment 29.

Amendment 29 not moved.

Consideration on Report adjourned until not before 8.45 pm.

Lord Alton of Liverpool (Crossbench)

My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendments 38, 39, 41 and 46. These amendments are to Clauses 41, 42 and 43. I put on record my thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of Cradley, the noble Lord, Lord Judd, and my noble friend Lord Sandwich, who are all signatories to these amendments.

In moving the amendment, it is my privilege to take up—rather inadequately, I suspect—the cause so passionately espoused by my noble friend Lady Cox, who is unable to speak to this amendment due to a prearranged visit overseas. These amendments relate to an aspect of modern slavery that we are in danger of overlooking despite the efforts of my noble friend—who, while we are meeting, I might add, is currently in the war-torn areas of Sudan that she has frequented so often, where she will no doubt be seeing first hand some of the ravages of modern slavery that have been so familiar in that country. This was an issue that she highlighted at Second Reading and again in Committee. I know that, while grateful to the Minister for the meetings that he has arranged and for the letter that he kindly sent to Peers, she was nevertheless disappointed that that letter omitted any mention of this issue of the global nature of slavery, which had been raised by Members on all sides of your Lordships’ House.

I recognise that the Bill focuses on modern slavery in the United Kingdom, and that is right and proper. Yet modern slavery is by its very nature a global phenomenon; it cannot be tackled by one Government

alone but requires a global solution. With the exception of the section on company supply chains, which we will come to on Wednesday, and which can address the issue only in a limited way—albeit a vital and necessary one—there is no mention of the global dimension of modern slavery at all in the Bill, let alone any measures requiring the UK to play its role on the world stage. These amendments therefore seek to address that omission. For every person trafficked in the UK there are dozens of children in forced labour in Uzbekistan’s cotton mills, hundreds of women and girls trafficked into Thailand’s brothels and thousands of men, women and children exploited in bonded labour in India and Pakistan.

The scope and scale have been rehearsed often enough during debates on the Bill and I will not repeat them all again here. Suffice it to say that far more people are affected today than throughout the era of the transatlantic slave trade, which is even more reason for us to take up the cause of Wilberforce, Clarkson, Equiano, Roscoe and the other abolitionists celebrated by one of the banners in Westminster Hall marking memorable parliamentary achievements. The Bill should deserve to be celebrated in the same way as those achievements, but it risks falling short if it does not address the global dimension of modern slavery.

The irony is that the Bill was announced amid a cacophony of claims that the UK was, or wanted to be, leading the world in the fight against modern slavery. That is of course a noble aspiration, but we can never make any realistic claim to be world leaders unless we tackle the problem globally and recognise that every country and sector of society has to play its part—business, the public, the Government and non-governmental organisations have to contribute. However, this will not happen until and unless countries move beyond the parochial and recognise that they face common issues; that there are often international links as well as the cross-border movement of people; and that there are groundbreaking approaches in one part of the world that could be used elsewhere, whether in legislation, enforcement, prevention and protection or the rehabilitation and reintegration of survivors.

In recent times there has been a change in language from government departments acknowledging that we are dealing with a global issue, and I welcome that. In particular, I welcome the stepping up of our international response within the Modern Slavery Strategy published last autumn by the Home Office. It is significant that the intention is to identify priority countries, not just those that are the source for significant numbers of victims trafficked into the UK but also countries suffering disproportionately from a high incidence of modern slavery. Moreover, the strategy includes the prioritisation of activity to tackle modern slavery in those countries by working with foreign Governments and civil society organisations. The Government are to be congratulated on this aspect of the strategy. However, as your Lordships well know, a strategy can be discontinued or changed at the drop of a hat. That is why it is essential to undergird this and to ensure continuing prioritisation by making annual reporting on global modern slavery a legislative requirement.

On the previous group of amendments, I mentioned that Kevin Hyland wrote to me and other Members of your Lordships’ House on 20 February. On page 4 of his letter he said something which relates directly to these amendments:

“British Embassies and High Commissions will develop Modern Slavery Priority Country Plans, working with both international and locally based partners, including the UN, faith leaders and local NGOs. I want to see an increased focus on preventing modern slavery from happening in the first place.

I will support and challenge the development and implementation of these plans and will push to ensure a fully coordinated response when the crime does occur”.

In essence, these amendments place those responsibilities outlined by the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner in that letter of 20 February in the Bill, and require the commissioner to monitor trends in slavery and human trafficking around the world and the measures taken to address them in order to gain a better understanding of the problem, its causes and solutions and to identify best practice, as well as opportunities for co-operation and collaboration.

Amendment 39 requires each embassy and high commission of the United Kingdom to submit an annual report on slavery and human trafficking in its area of operation to the commissioner. Amendment 41 sets out aspects to be included in these reports. Requiring embassies and high commissions to report will ensure that the workload is not too heavy for the commissioner. I know that there will be some concern about adding to the duties of the commissioner, but he does not seem to be unduly concerned about that, certainly reading the letter I have just mentioned. This approach is a significant improvement on the Modern Slavery Strategy, which puts the inter-departmental ministerial group on modern slavery in the role that I am advocating. I am convinced that that is not appropriate. It requires an independent assessment, which is surely an appropriate task for the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner.

These measures are important because they set out a mechanism for gathering vital information to help build a comprehensive picture of modern slavery across the world and how it is being tackled. This is essential for developing a strategy that will address the issue effectively, hence the requirement in Amendment 38 for the reports to cover not only the extent and nature of modern slavery but legislative and enforcement measures and details of the care, rehabilitation and reintegration of survivors. This section also requires reporting to include any relevant initiatives supported by the UK Government, so that effectiveness can be monitored, and any relevant activities of international bodies or non-governmental bodies, so that we can learn from effective approaches and in the right circumstances support such activity to increase effectiveness. These requirements are deliberately not prescriptive in order to allow the precise format, coverage and emphasis to be developed according to the needs of the moment.

The amendments set out what the commissioner will do with the information reported to him. These reports from embassies and high commissions will inform and shape his strategic plan. They will also enable him to include in his report a statement of the nature and extent of slavery and human trafficking in these areas as well as in the United Kingdom.

My final amendment to Clause 43 ensures that, for the purposes of this section, “specified public authority” shall also include all embassies and high commissions of the United Kingdom. If, as the Home Office strategy indicates, tackling modern slavery around the world is our intent, it should be in the Bill. These amendments ensure that. They will also encourage joined-up thinking between the Home Office, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and DfID, something I know that the Minister of State at the FCO, the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, wishes to see. I know that efforts to achieve that have already begun. However, in many ways one of the strongest arguments for adopting these amendments is that they will certainly encourage the addressing of these conditions that are conducive to modern slavery, and will therefore support the work of the Home Office, the FCO and DfID.

Poverty, displacement and conflict are common root causes. Modern slavery is as much a gross abuse of human rights and dignity as it is a crime. It is all too common to discover that lack of access to education, healthcare and employment opportunities all play their part. A desperate need for medicine or treatment is all too often the push factor in driving individuals to succumb to apparent job offers that promise financial reward but deliver only despair and exploitation; for example, in the many forms of bonded labour found particularly in south Asia, the nexus of modern slavery.

We would be well advised to take note of Dr Aidan McQuade, CEO of Anti-Slavery International, when he reminded us in a recent Guardian article:

“How the UK and other governments comport themselves in the coming weeks will be a critical test of how serious they are”.

The rest of the world is looking on to see how serious we are; we really can lead the world, if we are bold enough to address the global issue. In her foreword to the Government’s strategy the Home Secretary wrote:

“The time has come for concerted, coordinated action. Working with a wide range of partners, we must step up the fight against modern slavery in this country, and internationally, to put an end to the misery suffered by innocent people around the world. Together, we must send a powerful message to all traffickers and slave drivers that they will not get away with their crimes. And we must do all we can to protect, support and help victims, and ensure that they can be returned to freedom”.

I wholeheartedly agree. To that end, I reiterate my thanks to other noble Lords who have offered their support and I beg to move.

Lord Judd (Labour)

My Lords, I am very glad to support the amendment and I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for having introduced it.

This seems a particularly acute and disturbing example of how we live in a totally interdependent world. It is to live in a fool’s paradise to think that we can find the solutions by acting on our own within the confines of what we call the United Kingdom. This is an international issue—an international disease—and it has to be tackled internationally. Our credibility in building up the kind of international action that is necessary will relate very much, as the noble Lord has just emphasised, to how the world sees our serious commitment within the United Kingdom to putting muscle into our concern.

I will say also that I am one of those who welcomed the bishops’ letter last week. I was thinking about this earlier in our deliberations this afternoon when we were talking about how we tackled this issue in the United Kingdom in courts, and about whether there had been prosecutions, convictions and the rest. All that is crucially important, but it is happening in the context of a values crisis. We have to ask ourselves very seriously what the prevailing set of values is that established the context within which all these things happen.

I am not a doctrinaire socialist—or, at least, not a dogmatic socialist. I am pragmatic in my socialism; there is a place for the market. However if you build up a culture in which the market is supreme, and it is, to say the least, an amoral market, where is the authority and the ethos within which you can make a success of these things because of the conviction that is there? There have to be other absolutes besides price as regards the kind of society in which we want to live. If we really want to be effective in this, we must have international action and effective legal arrangements in Britain. However, we must work at developing a sense of decency and solidarity—internationally, as well as within our own society—in which these things are unthinkable. If they are just another extension of the market, where people say, “Well, I can make money this way. Why don’t I do it?”, where will we be?

I remind the House, as I have done before, that Adam Smith, who made such an important contribution to the context and concept of economic liberalism and capitalism as it operates, did not at first, as a young man, write about economics at all. He wrote about ethics. He was a very strong Scottish Presbyterian. He took the ethics and values of society for granted and then approached the market. I am afraid that we have bred a society in which the market as a driving force has been seen as something that does not have to take values into account, unless it is forced to do so, and that is what we have to tackle in all these issues if we are ultimately to be successful. However, I really do congratulate the noble Lord on having reminded the House about the indispensability of international solidarity in this campaign.

Earl of Sandwich (Crossbench)

My Lords, as a former council member of Anti-Slavery International and a former member of the Christian Aid board, I support my noble friend’s amendments because they link contemporary slavery in the UK with slavery in the rest of the world. We forget that it was not long ago that non-governmental organisations explained that there was slavery in this country—it was not something that was far away—so we are following that line. The amendments become obvious when you realise that so much slavery is indivisible and that traffickers, and indeed victims, of slavery respect no boundaries.

I was unable to be present on 8 December when my noble friend Lady Cox moved similar amendments in Committee, but I have read carefully her contribution and the Minister’s reply. That there is an international dimension to modern slavery almost goes without saying, except that it is not mentioned in the Bill. We are all aware of the direct overseas experience of slavery and trafficking that my noble friends Lady

Cox and Lord Alton and the noble Lord, Lord Judd, bring to the House. In Committee, the Minister, at col. 1638, acknowledges that experience and says that we need to go further. But I ask him again: how can we go further? I am not sure whether the Minister has yet stated how the Home Office can go further, apart from referring to passages in the strategy document. My noble friend referred to the letter that we have received from the commissioner, which is of high quality and points out the country plans that he will be following. It strengthens these amendments to read those passages in the letter.

I was most grateful to the Minister for inviting us to meet the new commissioner a fortnight ago. In that conversation, it became clear that the commissioner is already closely in touch with foreign and UK embassies, and he sees this as an important part of his job. He will of course need adequate resources to cover this, as we have touched on elsewhere.

In practice, I do not think that the amendments commit the Government to very much. Apart from close regular liaison between the commissioner and embassies in the course of his work, all that is needed is annual reporting of relevant incidents by embassies and high commissions, rather in the way that this is done annually by the Foreign Office in the case of human rights. It is not an unreasonable request, and my noble friend has already described the more detailed arrangements for this. However, it is important to make the connection in the Bill. The Government are rightly taking all these issues very seriously, and the Minister has, again and again, shown his personal commitment—some of it, I have no doubt, from his experience in China when he was doing his MBA. Sensible changes have been proposed during the passage of the Bill. I suggest that this is one of them and I look forward to his reply.

Baroness Kennedy of Cradley (Labour)

I support the series of amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, who seeks to insert a much-needed international perspective in this Bill. No one would dispute that modern slavery is a global problem and therefore no one should dispute that modern slavery needs an international as well as a national response. Our international response in this Bill is lacking, as other noble Lords have pointed out, and this is disappointing. That is why I support the noble Lord’s amendments. They would be effective in helping push the issue of slavery and trafficking up the world’s political agenda, especially Amendment 38. Having each embassy and high commission produce an annual report on government action to fight slavery and trafficking would mean more research into slavery across the world, more information collected and shared, and greater dialogue with a wide variety of the world’s government officials, NGOs, journalists, academics and, more importantly, survivors, monitoring, working together, and sharing and developing partnerships across the world. Learning what works best to tackle the causes of slavery and trafficking, to protect the victims and to prevent it happening in the first place is essential, and we can learn a lot from these annual reports. Through embassy engagement, we can create global solutions to eradicate this global problem.

Finally, as we discussed in Committee, involving embassies and high commissions in preparing an annual report about trafficking and slavery in their areas of operation is not new. America has been doing it for the past 14 years. Since 2001, they have produced a Trafficking in Persons Report. I cannot see why we in the UK should not do the same. Therefore, I hope that the Government will accept these amendments.

Baroness Butler-Sloss (Crossbench)

In the letter from Kevin Hyland, on page 4 on international collaboration, it is clear that the commissioner designate sees it as an essential part of his role to bring together the necessary partners, nationally and internationally. He talks about working with British embassies and high commissions and wanting a significant increase in bilateral, multilateral and joint investigations, some of them supported by EU funding. In the past there have been some excellent bilateral arrangements, particularly one with Romania called Operation Golf, and there were other very good arrangements that worked with Europol and so on. Do the Government think that the current powers of the commissioner are sufficient for him to carry out all the duties that he talks about on page 4—and, if so, is it necessary to have it in primary legislation?

Lord Warner (Labour)

My Lords, in speaking in support of the amendment I want to ask the Minister a question. We had a discussion earlier today about the Secretary of State fixing the budget for the commissioner and we had a debate about public bodies being required to co-operate with the commissioner. Is it the Minister’s understanding that the amendment on setting the budget for the commissioner embraces the whole area of overseas travel and maintaining those international relations? Why are embassies not included in the public bodies that are expected to co-operate with the commissioner? It would be helpful to have some clarification on those two issues.

Lord Rosser (Labour)

I wait with interest to hear the Government’s reply. They have an amendment down, which refers to Clause 41(3)(f) and to,

“things that the Commissioner may do in pursuance of subsection (1)”,

which is about encouraging good practice. As it stands, the paragraph says that it may include,

“co-operating with or working jointly with other persons, in the United Kingdom or elsewhere”.

The amendment would make it read, “or internationally”. I have no doubt that the Minister intends to do this, but it would be helpful if he could explain the extent to which he feels that his amendment differs in spirit and objective from the one moved by the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool.

Lord Bates (Conservative)

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for proposing these amendments and to all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate.

This is yet another area where we have seen considerable progress since Second Reading. The noble Lord, Lord Alton, referred to powerful speeches made by a number of noble Lords at Second Reading, particularly the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, who spoke passionately

and persuasively about this issue. That speech was very influential in shaping the

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. A particular element is involved here which I will come back to. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, that the strategy is helpful in that it is a cross-government strategy. Rather than being domestically focused—clearly, by definition, the Home Office is domestically focused—the strategy reaches across all government departments. Importantly, the

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complements the Bill as it says what the Government will do as a result of the legislation that is passed.

Page 10 of the Modern Slavery Strategy highlights the fact that, as part of Pursue, we will work internationally to,

“improve our own capabilities and cooperation with international partners”.

The work being done in the Santa Marta group is part of that. I pay tribute particularly to the work being done by the Vatican in that respect. On 9 and 10 April last year, the Home Secretary and international law enforcement representatives attended a historic event at the Vatican to discuss how the church and law enforcement could work together to combat modern slavery. At the conference, the Home Secretary announced the creation of the Santa Marta group—a group with senior law enforcement officers from around the world chaired by the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, who will work on joint practical measures to strengthen and co-ordinate our response to tackling modern slavery globally. The Santa Marta group met again in London on 5 and 6 December 2014 and has committed to meet again in Spain later this year. The meeting in December was very successful. I think that it was attended by all the 40 or so country representatives from around the world and reflected the two sides of the operation—the country plans undertaken by DfID and the FCO, which have already been referred to, and the crucial work undertaken by the National Crime Agency in tackling the organised crime dimensions by placing people overseas.

The Modern Slavery Strategy goes on to describe in some detail on page 54 the overseas Protect work in which we are engaged. That is not to suggest that this is a sentiment or gesture comprising words only. In the past 18 months, 14 modern slavery projects have been delivered in seven countries. Does more need to be done? Of course, much more needs to be done. I am trying to paint a picture to show that even when this issue was being subjected to pre-legislative scrutiny, the Santa Marta group was involved in it. We recognise that the international dimension is absolutely critical in tackling this heinous crime, as the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, and the noble Lord, Lord Judd, said. We cannot do it alone. We need to have the Pursue and Prevent programmes. The aims of the Prevent programme will clearly be international.

The designate Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner, Kevin Hyland, wrote that he saw international collaboration as being a key part of his operation. I know that he is just about to visit Nigeria and he has been to Spain. All his visits have been facilitated, as one would expect, by the missions in the respective countries. That work is therefore being undertaken.

We have the documents, the strategy and the work of the international commissioner. Clearly, the international travel dimension will be reflected in his budget. He is of course independent, and I cannot say what he should do but, as a result of the Bill, in addition to all that, he will have to prepare his report and strategy. Given his remit—which he has described so eloquently; he gave more column inches to the international dimension in his four or five-page letter than to any other topic, which suggests how important he sees it being—it would be surprising if that aspect did not feature strongly in the strategy he puts forward and in the annual report he lays before Parliament.

As regards where we are going with this, we have had conversations. I met the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, and the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and I know that there has been great interest in this subject. We looked carefully at where we could put in the Bill something that indicated its international dimension. It seemed to us that the logical fit, given that the commissioner was involved in that, was very much that we should look to amend Clause 41(3)(f), which, rather than containing just a generic “elsewhere”, specifically puts “internationally” into the Bill.

I say to my noble friend, or, rather, the noble Lord—he is a friend—that I can see him grimacing, as if to say, “Is that it?”. I can totally hear him say that but, if that were it, I would have given a very weak response to a very serious problem. What I have tried to outline ahead of that is that we have serious international co-operation, which was commenced by the Home Secretary before this legislation started moving through the Houses of Parliament. We also have the clear commitment that this is a personal passion and belief of the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner-designate. Most crucially as far as we are concerned, the Government have clearly set out what they expect to do in terms of delivering on this in their cross-government strategy being worked on by the interdepartmental group.

I am conscious that the noble Lord will push further because he is a champion—in many ways in the model of Wilberforce—who has to keep going. It took Wilberforce 30 years to get his legislation through; at least we have some legislation heading towards the statute book. It may not be everything but it is a significant step forward, and it is vital that we do not leave NGOs or any other organisations—and, most crucially, victims in the wider community—in any doubt that we see the international dimension as absolutely central to tackling this crime. However, as we remove the plank from our eye, we might be able to see a little more clearly where we might operate better internationally. We have a major problem in our own country and it is critical that our first priority is to tackle that. Then, as we are successful in doing so, I believe that our efforts will be more recognised internationally. On that basis, I ask my noble friend to consider withdrawing his amendment.

Lord Alton of Liverpool (Crossbench)

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Bates. He certainly was reading my mind when he referred to Amendment 36 and the replacement of “elsewhere” with “internationally”. If

that is all that the Government can offer, it is not just that I do not find that a very comforting or acceptable approach; it is more about what my noble friend Lady Cox will make of this when she returns from Sudan. I would not want to be in the Minister’s shoes when my noble friend comes back from those troubled parts of the world. I do not think that it will satisfy her either.

The noble Lord referred to William Wilberforce. I was thinking as he said that that Henry Thornton, one of Wilberforce’s supporters, defended him when he was accused of being interested only in issues overseas. William Hazlitt had criticised Wilberforce for not also taking up the cudgels to deal with things such as children being sent down the mines and public health issues at home. In defending Wilberforce, Thornton said that it was rather like criticising Christopher Columbus for discovering America but not going on to discover Australia and New Zealand as well. In other words, there is only a certain amount that you can achieve at any one time.

I recognise that the noble Lord has made huge efforts during the course of this Bill, along with many Members of your Lordships’ House, to make great progress. He has used the metaphor of being on a journey on a number of occasions. He struck that same metaphor in the response to this debate in reminding us that there is a strategy that will affect all departments from the Santa Marta Group. I pay particular tribute to the British ambassador to the Holy See, Nigel Baker, who has played a very important part in facilitating the discussions begun by that group and which have helped to concentrate the minds of people elsewhere in the world on these questions. He was also right to remind us that the appointment of the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner will be an important contribution to highlighting these issues overseas.

The noble Lord, Lord Warner, was right to remind us of the question of the budget. We did not get an entirely satisfactory reply from the Minister on that point. I thought my noble and learned friend Lady Butler-Sloss put her finger on it, as always, when referring to the letters sent by the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner in saying, “Are these powers sufficient?”. We still do not really know the answer to that. I am not in a position to make that judgment this evening.

I recognise that the Minister has shown a lot of good will, in his usual manner, in dealing with the amendment. Again reverting to the imagery he conjured of Wilberforce and his companions, it took them 40 years to get from the beginning of what they wanted to achieve to the end. In the immediate aftermath of the passage of the anti-slavery legislation—Wilberforce was on his deathbed when word was brought from Parliament that it had been enacted—it was very significant that all over the world, not least in the American Congress, other legislatures followed the example that had been set in the United Kingdom. We should look back to that period and remind ourselves that what we do here will affect what goes on elsewhere. That is why it is important that we get this legislation absolutely right. Although I want to reserve the position of my noble friend Lady Cox, who will no doubt be in

touch with the Minister on her return—she may want to return to this at Third Reading—for the moment I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 30 withdrawn.

Amendment 31

Moved by Baroness Garden of Frognal

31: Clause 41, page 31, line 19, leave out “subsection (1)” and insert “this section”

Baroness Garden of Frognal (Liberal Democrat)

My Lords, in moving government Amendment 31, I will speak to government Amendments 34, 35 and 37. These amendments clarify the role of the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner in relation to victims’ services, working with voluntary organisations and with the Victims’ Commissioner.

We had an important debate in Committee about the anti-slavery commissioner’s remit. Through our debates, noble Lords have expressed concern about whether the commissioner’s role adequately covers victims’ issues and services. The Government have listened to these concerns carefully. We have been clear throughout the passage of the Bill that the commissioner can look at victims’ issues because they are crucial to his remit. For example, incredibly vulnerable victims will not be able to support prosecutions and make effective witnesses unless they are receiving the support and assistance they need to recover.

We are supportive of the approach the commissioner-designate has taken. He has set out how he proposes to work effectively with victims and NGOs working in this sector, and to look at victim services in support of his remit. Given the genuine concerns raised about whether the commissioner can look at victims’ issues, we want to put the position beyond doubt. I am therefore moving government Amendment 37 to make clear in the Bill that the commissioner can look at victim assistance services in support of his remit. I also want to ensure that there is no doubt that the commissioner can engage with those with most insight into victims of modern slavery. Therefore, I am moving government Amendments 34 and 35 to clarify that the commissioner may consult and co-operate with the Commissioner for Victims and Witnesses and with voluntary organisations.

The provision on the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner is a United Kingdom-wide provision, so I want to express our thanks to the Northern Ireland Executive and the Scottish Government for working with us to develop the government amendments, which are carefully designed to stay within the legislative consent of their legislatures. Given that the Government are proposing action to address the important concerns about the remit and victims’ issues raised in Committee, I hope that noble Lords will feel able to support these government amendments. I beg to move.

Baroness Howe of Idlicote (Crossbench)

My Lords, I rise very thankfully to support Amendment 37 in particular, which aims to include the “assistance and support” provided to victims among the subjects for the commissioner’s attention. As I said in Committee, it is essential that the commissioner engages with victims. I

know that Clause 41(1)(b) includes victim identification in the commissioner’s remit but I believe that he should take a leading role in promoting high standards in victim care as well as in law enforcement activities. Like others, I was heartened by the obvious concern for victims demonstrated by Mr Hyland, the commissioner-designate, during our meeting. I thank the Minister and the noble Baroness for arranging that meeting, as I believe that it has given many of us greater confidence in our new commissioner.

Supporting victims must be among our highest priorities when addressing modern slavery. As has been said before and was echoed by the commissioner in his presentation to Peers, we will never be able to gain a full picture of the extent of this crime if victims do not feel confident in coming forward. We will not achieve an increase in successful prosecutions if we do not ensure that victims have the necessary support and assistance to put them in a position physically and psychologically to engage with police investigations.

Reaching and maintaining high standards in victim care is a fundamental part of achieving the objectives set for the commissioner in the Bill to strengthen law enforcement efforts and improve identification of victims. Ensuring high-quality victim care is something that interacts with promoting good practice in prevention, detection and prosecution of those crimes, and in identifying victims. Thankfully, it seems that the commissioner-designate is keenly aware of this as he has made it one of his key priorities.

While I say that victim care intersects with the other functions, I am not sure that it should be properly viewed as implicit in those functions as the Bill is before us today. I am therefore pleased to welcome Amendment 37 in particular, and all the amendments in name of the Minister, which make that connection explicit and give express permission for the commissioner to consider these matters.

Baroness Hodgson of Abinger (Conservative)

My Lords, as many of us have made clear through the progress of the Bill, if the true impact of establishing an anti-slavery commissioner is to be realised, we must not shy away from awarding him the powers and autonomy he will need to make this role truly effective. I therefore congratulate the Government on these amendments. The role of the commissioner may include the provision of assistance and support to victims of slavery and human trafficking offences. I am heartened by the progress that has been made thus far in strengthening the commissioner’s remit.

We still have some way to go in providing the level of consistent and comprehensive support that victims truly need but I believe that the anti-slavery commissioner will now, through these amendments, be better placed to address this. I, too, had the pleasure of meeting Mr Hyland two weeks ago and I was most impressed by his approach and what he had to say. I am delighted to support these amendments, especially Amendment 37.

Lord McColl of Dulwich (Conservative)

My Lords, I support Amendments 34, 35 and 37.

It has been said by many during debates on this Bill—but it is worth repeating—that victims must be at the heart of all our actions to address modern slavery, whether in this Bill, in other policies and strategies or in the everyday front-line work of police officers, prosecutors, support workers, local authorities and so on. When a victim escapes from a situation of modern slavery they are likely to be interviewed by the police, they may enter the national referral mechanism process, or they may be placed in a specialist shelter through a victim care programme or cared for by other charities. They might apply for asylum and have to deal with immigration officers and the whole asylum process. As they move between all these scenarios victims do not change: they remain the same person. Their experience cannot be compartmentalised. For them it is a seamless whole.

The commissioner-designate has stated the importance of taking a victim-focused approach to this crime. Indeed, he told Peers during our informative meeting that he has made improving victim care one of his five priority areas of work. If the commissioner, a man of great experience in the front line of addressing modern slavery, believes that engagement and oversight of victim care and support is a vital function for his role, I am sure noble Lords will agree that we should be listening. I am pleased, therefore, that the Minister has introduced Amendment 37, which clarifies that the commissioner should have regard to the provision of assistance and support to victims in carrying out his functions.

I confess that I had some concerns following a meeting with the commissioner- designate that, without this amendment, bringing victim care into the concerns of the commissioner involves a creative interpretation of the current functions set out in Clause 41(1) which might not be endorsed by future Home Secretaries. During our debate in Committee the noble Lord, Lord Deben, highlighted the importance of getting the commissioner’s statutory mandate right. He said:

“Unless the commissioner can point to the Act and say, ‘I do this because …’, there will be those who will use every possible opportunity to try to trip him up and make the kind of legal arguments that hide the fact that what they are really about is stopping him being effective. That is why it is so important that we should be absolutely sure that we get it right”.—[Official Report, 8/12/14; col. 1629.]

I agree entirely. Amendment 37 will ensure that the text of the statute matches our intentions so that in a number of years, when the memories of our debates on the Bill have faded, the commissioner will still be able to look at all aspects of a victim’s experience and make recommendations to see victim care and support improve and develop, based on the letter of the law. I therefore firmly endorse Amendment 37 and commend it to your Lordships.

However, I have some questions of clarification that I would like to raise with the Minister about Amendments 34 and 35, which specifically suggest that the commissioner may consult, co-operate and work jointly with the noble Baroness the Victims’ Commissioner. I support the noble Lord’s proposal for co-operation and consultation between the anti-slavery commissioner and the Victims’ Commissioner. I believe this will ensure good oversight and joined-up thinking

on all issues in a far more effective way than trying to separate into silos matters which are, on the ground, interlocked and interdependent.

My concerns stem from the fact that specific reference is made to the Victims’ Commissioner for England and Wales only, and I am not sure whether the Minister dealt with this. I would have thought that similar co-operation and consultation would be needed with other commissioners such as the children’s commissioners—and those of all the four nations now that the role extends across the whole of the UK. I imagine that co-operation will also be required with other commissioners or inspectors such as the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration. I recognise that the amendment allows for a wider class of other persons, but I would be grateful if the Minister could indicate the reasoning for specifically mentioning the Victims’ Commissioner for England and Wales and how we can ensure consultation with bodies in Scotland and Northern Ireland which have responsibilities regarding victims. I would also be grateful if the Minister could explain what consideration had been given to including a reference in the clause to other commissioners or bodies.

Lord Morrow (DUP)

My Lords, I support government Amendments 34, 35 and 37 spoken to by the noble Baroness the Minister. I first make my apologies to your Lordships for not having been present during the earlier debates on this Bill. My absence on those occasions was however directly connected to the matters before us today, as I was engaged in debates on my human trafficking and exploitation Bill in the Northern Ireland Assembly on those days—a Bill which, I am pleased to say, received Royal Assent in January.

I have a particular perspective on the role of the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner since the role has now been extended to cover Northern Ireland. This means that the commissioner will need to work to promote good practice in the prosecution and investigation of offences and the identification of victims, all with regard to the legislation we have enacted in Northern Ireland, as well as to the Modern Slavery Bill.

I had the opportunity to meet the commissioner-designate during a visit he made to Northern Ireland and I was most impressed by his plans and his passion to tackle this terrible crime head on. I was encouraged by his commitment to visit Northern Ireland regularly and his awareness of the particular challenges and opportunities that arise from our land border with the Irish Republic. It seems likely that he will do an excellent job. I was also particularly impressed with his clear understanding that victims’ needs must be central to any strategy to deal with modern-day slavery and, moreover, with his determination to make sure that all our systems and agencies across the UK recognise this and reflect it in how they work.

I had some reservations that the ambitious victim-centred plans set out by the commissioner are not clearly reflected in the mandate provided by the Bill. It concerned me that if a new Home Secretary came into office, he or she may not approve a future strategic plan that extends as widely as that proposed by the present commissioner. Indeed, it is possible that an organisation receiving unwanted recommendations from the commissioner could argue that victim support is

outside the commissioner’s remit and reject his recommendations on that basis. I therefore welcome government Amendment 37, which expressly gives the commissioner the mandate to look into matters of victim support.

Modern slavery is the exploitation of individual human beings. Any effective anti-slavery commissioner will need to look at how we improve our systems to better protect and support those individuals, whether in investigations or other environments. The Bill must support and empower him to do that. I urge your Lordships to support Amendment 37 in the name of the Minister.

I referred earlier to my particular perspective in relation to the commissioner’s work in Northern Ireland. I have one area of concern about government Amendments 34 and 35 that stems from this perspective. I have no doubt that it will be important for the anti-slavery commissioner to consult and work together with a wide variety of groups and organisations, and I welcome the fact that these amendments specifically highlight the importance of the voluntary sector. The advice, constructive criticism and on-the-ground evidence from NGOs was of vital assistance to me as I prepared and refined my human trafficking Bill through its passage in the Northern Ireland Assembly. I dare say that the Minister would say the same about the contributions made in the development of this Bill from its draft form right up to the amendments proposed this evening.

I also echo what has been said in respect of the need for the anti-slavery commissioner to co-ordinate with the Victims’ Commissioner, as a way to maximise benefit and avoid duplication of work. I have some concerns, however, that victims in Northern Ireland, and indeed Scotland, will not benefit from this co-operation. I suggest to the Minister that we need to ensure that the commissioner is careful to take account of efforts to improve victim care and to work with bodies involved in supporting victims in other parts of the UK as well. I hope very much that she can assure me that reference to consultation with the Victims’ Commissioner will not create a hierarchy of victims, with victims in England and Wales receiving greater attention from the commissioner than victims in the rest of the UK.

Baroness Garden of Frognal (Liberal Democrat)

My Lords, I thank noble Lords for their comments and their broad support for the amendments which we have brought forward here: the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, and my noble friend Lady Hodgson, who were very enthusiastic, and the other two noble Lords who spoke. My noble friend Lord McColl expressed his concerns about co-operation with the Commissioner for Victims and Witnesses, but I stress that it is,

“public authorities (including the Commissioner for Victims and Witnesses)”.

He is not precluded from co-operating with other people as well. The Commissioner for Victims and Witnesses is one of the examples given, because the commissioner is one of the key players in the Bill.

The noble Lord, Lord Morrow, raised the point about Northern Ireland. The commissioner will work very closely with Northern Ireland and the Scottish

Government. These government amendments were developed with the co-operation of the Northern Ireland Executive and the Scottish Government, to ensure that the United Kingdom-wide remit which the commissioner has will apply as much to people in those parts of the United Kingdom as in England and Wales. With those reassurances, I hope that noble Lords will support these amendments, which will benefit those in all parts of the United Kingdom.

Amendment 31 agreed.

Amendments 32 to 37

Moved by Baroness Garden of Frognal

32: Clause 41, page 31, line 22, leave out paragraph (b) and insert—

“(b) section 1, 2 or 4 of the Human Trafficking and Exploitation (Criminal Justice and Support for Victims) Act (Northern Ireland) 2015 (c. 2 (N.I.)) (equivalent offences in Northern Ireland),”

33: Clause 41, page 31, line 28, leave out paragraph (e)

34: Clause 41, page 31, line 41, leave out “people” and insert “public authorities (including the Commissioner for Victims and Witnesses), voluntary organisations and other persons”

35: Clause 41, page 31, line 42, after second “with” insert “public authorities (including the Commissioner for Victims and Witnesses), voluntary organisations and”

36: Clause 41, page 31, line 43, leave out “elsewhere” and insert “internationally”

37: Clause 41, page 31, line 43, at end insert—

“( ) The matters to which the Commissioner may have regard in pursuance of subsection (1) include the provision of assistance and support to victims of slavery and human trafficking offences.”

Amendments 32 to 37 agreed.

Amendment 38 not moved.

Clause 42: Strategic plans and annual reports

Amendment 39 not moved.

Amendment 40

Moved by Baroness Garden of Frognal

40: Clause 42, page 33, line 18, leave out “calendar” and insert “financial”

Amendment 40 agreed.

Amendment 41 not moved.

Clause 43: Duty to co-operate with Commissioner

Amendments 42 to 45

Moved by Baroness Garden of Frognal

42: Clause 43, page 34, line 28, at end insert “in relation to that information; but this does not apply in relation to patient information.

( ) “Patient information” means information (however recorded) which—

(a) relates to the physical or mental health or condition of an individual, to the diagnosis of an individual’s condition or to an individual’s care or treatment, or is to any extent derived directly or indirectly from such information, and

(b) identifies the individual or enables the individual to be identified (either by itself or in combination with other information).”

43: Clause 43, page 34, line 29, leave out “But” and insert “Except as provided by subsection (3),”

44: Clause 43, page 34, line 30, leave out “any other” and insert “a”

45: Clause 43, page 34, line 32, leave out from second “authority” to end of line 41 and insert “listed in Schedule (Public authorities under a duty to co-operate with the Commissioner).

(6) The Scottish Ministers may by regulations amend that Schedule so as to—

(a) add or remove a public authority having only functions which are exercisable in or as regards Scotland (a “Scottish public authority”);

(b) amend an entry relating to a Scottish public authority.

(7) The Department of Justice in Northern Ireland may by regulations amend that Schedule so as to—

(a) add or remove a public authority having only functions which are exercisable in or as regards Northern Ireland (a “Northern Irish public authority”);

(b) amend an entry relating to a Northern Irish public authority.

(8) The Secretary of State may by regulations amend that Schedule so as to—

(a) add or remove a public authority which is not a Scottish public authority or a Northern Irish public authority;

(b) amend an entry relating to a public authority which is not a Scottish public authority or a Northern Irish public authority.”

Amendments 42 to 45 agreed.

Amendment 46 not moved.

Amendment 47

Moved by Lord Warner

47: Before Clause 45, insert the following new Clause—

“Establishment of the National Referral Mechanism

(1) The Secretary of State must as soon as practicable establish by order a National Referral Mechanism (“NRM”) to—

(a) identify trafficked, enslaved or exploited persons within the United Kingdom;

(b) provide assistance and support to a person who may have been trafficked, enslaved or exploited from the time at which that person is first referred into the NRM until such time as a final and conclusive determination is made that they are not such a person; and

(c) ensure that the rights of such persons are protected and promoted in a manner which discharges the Government’s obligations under the Trafficking Convention and the Trafficking Directive regarding the identification and protection of victims, including measures for assistance and support.

(2) The Secretary of State must, in regulations, specify the procedures to be followed to implement the NRM and the procedures to be applied by the NRM including to give effect to the right to a one-year renewable residence permit where a person (including a child) has been determined as having been trafficked, enslaved or exploited.

(3) The regulations must provide for a right of appeal by an individual in respect of a decision in the NRM process that they are not a trafficked, enslaved or exploited person.

(4) An adult must give their free and informed consent to being referred into the NRM before a referral is made on their behalf.”

Lord Warner (Labour)

My Lords, Amendment 47 is in my name and those of the noble Lord, Lord Patel, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby. The amendment is an amalgam of the amendments that I and my noble friend Lord Rosser moved in Committee. In essence, the amendment requires the Secretary of State to bring forward regulations to put the national referral mechanism on a proper statutory basis as soon as it is practicable to do so. I recognise that the Home Secretary needs time to redesign the NRM system following Jeremy Oppenheim’s excellent review report on it. I accept that that work needs to be completed, and possibly road tested, before regulations are made. There is nothing in my amendment to stop the Home Secretary giving proper consideration to the Oppenheim report and making sure that a redesigned NRM system is indeed fit for purpose.

I also welcome the Government’s movement in the direction I had hoped for in Committee with their Amendment 82. Where I slightly part company with the Government is over the fact that the amendment is a bit too unspecific for my taste about what areas will be covered in the regulations. When those regulations come forward to Parliament, Parliament has only two choices: acceptance or rejection. It cannot move amendments to the regulations. That is why in my earlier amendment I set out the topics to be covered in the regulations, which were drawn from the Oppenheim review’s report, so I assumed that they were reasonably comprehensive. However, after Committee a number of people suggested to me that the terms of my amendment needed to be more specific, otherwise there would be doubts over what Parliament considered should be included in regulations, and that Parliament should have had an opportunity to debate and consider the coverage of the regulations. That seemed quite an important point.

There are four very specific key items in my amendment that do not seem to be specifically provided for by the government amendment. These are: first, clarity about the duration of what I might describe as the care and support for a victim; secondly, ensuring that the provisions in the regulations meet the requirements of the trafficking convention and the trafficking directive; thirdly, that there is some kind of provision in the primary legislation to require the regulations to guarantee a right of appeal against a decision in the NRM process; and, fourthly, the right to a renewable one-year residence permit for a victim of trafficking, enslavement or exploitation. Some of these, I would suggest, are very much in the territory of potential disputes between government departments and the wider world about whether these provisions are adequately covered and funded. I cannot see that the Government’s amendment gives anything like the guarantees I was looking for, and they do not seem to be provided for at all in Amendment 48.

Is the Minister willing to at least give an assurance to the House that any regulations made under the Government’s amendment would indeed cover the topics I have identified? Even better, before Third Reading will he consider making the Government’s amendment more specific as to what the regulations

will cover, along the lines I have suggested? I hope that the Minister, having moved some way along this road in his journey, would like to take another few steps in this particular area. I beg to move.

Lord Rosser (Labour)

The Government have tabled amendments, to be debated on another day, enabling the Secretary of State to introduce regulations to provide assistance and protection for victims on top of the requirement on the Secretary of State to introduce guidance on identifying and supporting victims. However, as my noble friend Lord Warner has already said, these government amendments do not give any specific guarantees of support and assistance on basic principles of protection and assistance, which would provide appropriate consistency for victims in the way that they are treated within a firm framework; nor do they address the consequences of the national referral mechanism not being on a statutory basis since its introduction. That lack of a statutory basis has contributed to feelings of arbitrariness in the application of the national referral mechanism, which have been compounded by the absence of a formal right to appeal an NRM decision, making the system somewhat unaccountable and potentially unjust.

The Home Office’s NRM review, published late last year, to which my noble friend Lord Warner referred, recognised the issues related to the involvement of United Kingdom Visas and Immigration in the current system and recommended that UKVI be included in the future as a participant in the mechanism rather than as a lead agency. The Government have expressed their commitment to improving the identification of and support for victims of modern slavery and, in the light of their own review, recognised that final decisions about who is a victim cannot be left to UKVI, which has another remit to fulfil, and, whatever the reality, will struggle to be regarded as impartial and open-minded on this issue.

However, further changes are needed. What is being sought in the amendment that my noble friend has moved is not new within the United Kingdom. The Human Trafficking and Exploitation (Criminal Justice and Support for Victims) Act (Northern Ireland) 2015 and the Human Trafficking and Exploitation (Scotland) Bill both contain provisions for support of victims that go beyond what is contained in this Bill. The result could well be, if this Bill is not further amended, there that are significant differences in support and assistance provided to victims across the different nations within the United Kingdom, which is surely not the objective.

The amendment would place the framework of the national referral mechanism in statute, create a statutory duty on the Secretary of State to set out in regulations the arrangements for a system of victim identification and support and provide for a formal right of appeal against any decision made through the system. However, the Government appear to be saying that they are not prepared to go down this road. The argument in the Minister’s recent letter is that, because this is a time of major change in how we identify and support victims, putting the national referral mechanism on a statutory footing now would be unhelpful and mean a loss of flexibility to improve the system. Instead, the Government

have put down an amendment which would provide an enabling power for them to make regulations about identifying and supporting victims.

In his recent letter, the Minister said that the Government had tabled such an amendment to provide an enabling power to place the national referral mechanism into statute by regulations, albeit there does not appear to be any specific reference to the referral mechanism in the amendment. However, there is no reason why adopting the provisions of the amendment that has been moved by my noble friend would lead to potential inflexibility developing, although that is something on which the Minister may wish to comment. The argument that regulations are somehow better for establishing something in statute, such as the NRM, because they can be changed without the requirement for further primary legislation could be used in relation to any organisation or process that is being put on a statutory footing and, in so doing, avoid proper discussion and debate with the ability to amend proposals, which would be provided for by including the terms of this amendment in the Bill.

The amendment which my noble friend has moved, unlike the Government’s enabling power amendment, means that the NRM will be placed into statute on the basis set out in it. The current problems of feelings of arbitrariness in the application of the process of the referral mechanism would be addressed and some consistency achieved in improving the identification and support of victims of modern slavery, to which the Government have expressed their commitment. The Government’s amendment, which is still to be discussed, is simply an enabling power. It is not a guarantee and it is not a requirement. I hope that the Minister will be able to give a helpful response to Amendment 47.

Baroness Hamwee (Liberal Democrat)

My Lords, I had my name to an amendment moved in Committee by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss—I was about to say my noble and learned friend. That amendment is tabled again today and is much simpler: in order to avoid the need for primary legislation, it is for regulations to be made. Like others, I want the national referral mechanism to be on a statutory basis, and I welcome the government amendments which we will debate on Wednesday—although I have one or two questions about them.

I would be worried about including the new clause proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Warner. To establish it now or “as soon as practicable”—I am not sure what that means in a statutory context, but let us say that it is pretty soon; it is not waiting for the end of a trial, as I interpret it—must, as trials of the new procedures proposed by Jeremy Oppenheim are to be undertaken, risk establishing one statutory basis and then changing it by regulation. Some of the language in the amendment seems to me problematic. The noble Lord will correct me if I am wrong, but I do not think that the term,

“trafficked, enslaved or exploited persons”,

is defined in the same way as victims of ,

“slavery and human trafficking offences”,

which is what we have in Clause 41, where the general functions of the commissioner are set out.

I have confidence in what we are being told by the Government about moving to a statutory basis. Without trying to analyse every dot and comma, I would worry that there might be hostages to fortune in the new clause which would require primary legislation to change, rather than the opportunity to rely on regulations, which is what the Government propose.

Baroness Butler-Sloss (Crossbench)

As Amendment 48 is in my name, I have perhaps been a little slow in getting to my feet. I am content with what the Government propose in principle and therefore did not feel it necessary to propose my amendment with any particular enthusiasm, but I am concerned that at some stage there should be a statutory basis for the NRM. I do not believe that it is appropriate for the power to be other than to enable the Government to make such a statutory regime without going through primary legislation. I entirely support what the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, said. I share her concern about Amendment 47, moved by the noble Lord, Lord Warner, because it is so specific. If the trials are effective, the Government may well find that changes are necessary, and because of the way in which Amendment 47 is framed, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, said, they would probably require further primary legislation. The whole point of what she and I want is to have the statutory process in a way that can be produced by regulation, not further primary legislation. For that purpose, I support my amendment, as far as it goes, and I am not at all happy about Amendment 47.

Lord Bates (Conservative)

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Warner, for moving the amendment. This is another example of where we are moving towards a general principle of the statutory footing of the national referral mechanism, but not going as far as he would like in his amendment. The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and my noble friend Lady Hamwee have set out some of the reasons why his amendment would need further work in any event. I will respond to the issues briefly, being aware that we will of course come back to consider this in more detail in the second day on Report.

The quality of the identification and support for victims is an essential issue, as I have said before and said in my letter, and it is right that we had thorough debates on this. I entirely understand the sentiment behind the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Warner, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby and the noble Lord, Lord Patel, which would put the mechanism on a statutory footing immediately.

As noble Lords will be aware, we have some concerns about moving immediately to a statutory footing for the NRM. We have just had a review of the system. That review, carried out by Jeremy Oppenheim, was the subject of another of the meetings which we had in the period between Committee and Report. I think that there was general recognition that Jeremy Oppenheim carried out an excellent review. We were genuinely grateful to him for the quality of his work.

When considering that review, it is also important to remind ourselves that it did not recommend a statutory footing. Jeremy Oppenheim said in his review:

“Any process put on a statutory footing can become inflexible and unresponsive to changing demands and indeed improvements, due to the requirement to further legislate before making changes”.

That is a very important point to bear in mind. However, the Government have listened carefully to the debates on the issue. I listened particularly carefully to the imaginative and practical idea put forward in Committee by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and my noble friend Lady Hamwee. They have tabled Amendment 48 today, which takes a similar approach.

Given the changes being made currently, the idea of an enabling power which allows the Government to move to place the national referral mechanism on a statutory basis, once we have a more settled and effective system and when the pilot schemes have been considered and evaluated, seems a good one. That is why I have tabled government amendments to place an enabling power in the Bill to make regulations in relation to the support and assistance for victims of modern slavery. Given our progress, it is likely that I will formally move those amendments on Wednesday, which will allow for regulations to be made about accommodation, financial assistance, assistance in obtaining healthcare, provision of information and translation and interpretation services, where a person is a victim of modern slavery or there are reasonable grounds to believe that they are.

I turn specifically to Amendment 47, which seeks to place the national referral mechanism on a statutory footing through an immediate duty to make secondary legislation. It covers similar ground to the government amendment that I have tabled. However, Amendment 47 seeks for the regulations specifically to give effect to the right to a one-year residence permit, as well as providing for a right of appeal. Those who have been identified as potential victims of trafficking are helped and supported for a period of at least 45 days. During this reflection and recovery period, no action is taken to return the victim to their home country unless they specifically request support to return. Beyond this period, and in accordance with our international obligations, victims are already eligible for discretionary leave of one year and one day—renewable if appropriate—if their specific personal needs require this or if they are helping police with their investigations. This is in addition to any other leave that the person may be eligible for. I therefore do not believe that it is necessary to provide all victims of modern slavery with a residence permit for one year.

Amendment 47 includes a process to appeal against an NRM decision. I do not believe that it is necessary to provide for a right of appeal in legislation at this point. The purpose of the NRM review was to consider the end-to-end process for ensuring that victim identification is strengthened and that decision-making is prompt but also provides the right outcome for victims. In testing the recommendations through the pilots, we are planning to include a review process. Where a negative decision is made because the multidisciplinary panel believes that the person is not a victim, there will be an opportunity for an alternative panel chair to review the decision. This will put in

place a process to ensure that the right decision is made, based on the facts, and will avoid a costly and lengthy appeals process based on the court system.

I hope that noble Lords will feel able to welcome the Government’s approach in listening to the Committee debate and bringing forward a power to place the NRM on a statutory footing, and that the noble Lord will therefore feel able to withdraw his amendment at this stage.

Lord Warner (Labour)

My Lords, I do not want to delay the House at this time of night, but I want to register two points. The first is that the right of appeal is a key issue, and trying to duck out of that, and not being clear that it is actually going to be operated through a statutory system, is, frankly, not credible in this day and age for a sensible public administration.

Secondly, there is an issue, which was brought up in the Joint Select Committee’s report, about the duration of care and support for victims. The 45 days is clearly unsatisfactory, as shown by all the evidence that was given to the Joint Committee. We have to address the issue. I am willing to park the whole issue of residence permits, but we have to be clear about the issue of what is an acceptable level and duration of care and support for victims.

Continuing to duck those two issues—the appeal and the duration of care and support—does not seem to be a satisfactory position. I would like to think further about what the Minister has said. I still think that there may be some scope by looking again at this on Wednesday, if I can whack down an amendment fast enough to deal with those two issues. In the mean time, though, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 47 withdrawn.

Amendment 48 not moved.

Clause 45: Defence for slavery or trafficking victims who commit an offence

Amendment 48A

Moved by Baroness Kennedy of Cradley

48A: Clause 45, page 35, line 27, leave out paragraph (c)

Baroness Kennedy of Cradley (Labour)

My Lords, this amendment seeks to remove the inclusion of the reasonable person test before the non-prosecution defence applies to children.

I thank the Government, particularly the noble Lord, Lord Bates, and the noble Baroness, Lady Garden of Frognal, for the constructive way in which the debate on a statutory defence for children has been carried out; for listening to and engaging with noble Lords, NGOs and others on the issue; and for the welcome improvements in the statutory defence clause that the Government have made along the way, particularly in relation to children. But, and there is always a “but”, I am moving this amendment because I still believe that the addition of the reasonable person test for children, first, is another test of compulsion and

therefore not in line with international law, and, secondly, adds a further test that goes further than our current case law and CPS guidance.

I welcome the Government’s amendment to the statutory defence, Amendment 49, tabled on Report, which removes the need to prove that there was not a realistic alternative and shifts the burden on to the prosecution to prove beyond reasonable doubt that a reasonable person would not have committed the crime. However, the child still has an obligation, in raising the statutory defence, to set out the facts of their case. In persuading the jury to put themselves in their shoes, the child will have to show that they were forced to commit the offence for the jury properly to understand what the child was going through. The reasonable person test is therefore another test of compulsion, and is not in line with the rest of the Modern Slavery Bill or with the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, which in July 2014 urged the Government to establish,

“a clear obligation of non-prosecution in the criminal justice system”,

and ensure that children,

“are treated as victims rather than criminals by law enforcement and judicial authorities”.

That highlighted the need for the statutory defence to be suitable for children—for a child to be treated as a child. A child should never have to prove that illegal means have been used to coerce them into trafficking or slavery to achieve legal protection in the way that an adult may have to, which is why our colleagues in Northern Ireland, in the Northern Ireland Human Trafficking and Exploitation Act, which received Royal Assent in January this year, retained the reasonable person test for adults but removed it for children. They acknowledged in the memorandum to the Act that this was done so that their Act was compliant with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the child would not have to prove compulsion. They believed, as I believe, the reasonable person test to be a test of compulsion, and therefore removed it for children. If they do not need this extra test, why do we?

The reasonable person test is also not in line with current UK case law. As we have discussed in this Chamber, in the landmark case of R v L and others, the Lord Chief Justice and his colleagues pronounced that two questions must be addressed for the non-prosecution principle to apply to child victims: age and whether the criminal offence is,

“consequent on and integral to the exploitation”.

This is mirrored in the current CPS legal guidance on human trafficking and smuggling with regard to children where only two tests—age and direct consequence of—are necessary for a non-prosecution defence to apply. Adding a third test, a reasonable person test, therefore goes further than existing law. When the CPS guidance is rewritten following the passage of the Bill, it will be tougher than it is now. Why do we need to go further?

Can the Minister assure the House about non-legislative measures in the application of the statutory defence? Can he ensure that the CPS consults stakeholders and

NGOs, including UNICEF, on any new guidance to prosecutors and reviews other relevant guidance to ensure coherence and consistency across the board? Will he ensure that the CPS trains prosecutors on the implications of the new Act and seeks technical assistance from specialists in the trafficking field if required to develop and deliver training that will cover both adults and children? Will he liaise with all law-enforcement agencies, make them aware of the new legislation and ensure there are plans to adapt existing policy and guidance to comply? Having sought these assurances, I beg to move.

Lord Brougham and Vaux (Conservative)

My Lords, if this amendment is agreed to, I cannot call Amendment 49 because of pre-emption.

Baroness Hamwee (Liberal Democrat)

My Lords, when I read the Hansard of our first debate on this issue, I realised how much I agreed with the noble Baroness, and I agree with her tonight. I am also concerned about applying the reasonable person test to a child for the reasons she gave and because children develop at different stages. To ask a jury, as I suppose would have to be the case, not only to see what a reasonable adult person would do but to take account of the variables of a child’s development makes the test so complicated that it would be inappropriate. That is the sort of word one uses to be polite, is it not? I do not think we should be requiring this of a child. It adds to the complications and is not the direction in which we should be going.

I have been at meetings where I have heard the noble Baroness say to the Minister that we should not be constructing legislation that allows people to say, “I was trafficked, therefore I should be let off doing anything wrong”. She has been very upfront and quite blunt about that, and she is not trying to resile from that attitude here. I support her amendment.

Lord Rosser (Labour)

I shall be very brief. As has been said, the Government’s amendment removes the need for child victims of trafficking or slavery to prove that they did not have a realistic alternative and puts the onus on the prosecution to show that they acted unreasonably. However, as has been said by my noble friend Lady Kennedy, trafficked children will still need to pass a reasonable person test to benefit from the defence, which will, essentially, presumably require an adult juror to decide whether a similar child in similar circumstances would have acted in the same way.

I assume that the Minister will respond to this point anyway, but given the inherent restrictions of the defence in the Government’s amendment to Clause 45 and that it applies only to offences committed as a direct result of trafficking, slavery or servitude, do the Government maintain that it is necessary to ask a potentially traumatised and vulnerable child victim then to pass an additional test of reasonableness and, in effect, show that they have behaved reasonably to achieve legal protection? When the Minister responds, if he feels unable to give a helpful reply—which I hope he will feel able to do—is it the Government’s intention that it is necessary to ask a child victim, potentially traumatised and vulnerable, to have to pass this additional test of reasonableness, given that there is considerable

restriction of the defence in the Government’s amendment to Clause 45 in that it applies only to offences committed as a direct result of trafficking, slavery or servitude?

Baroness Butler-Sloss (Crossbench)

I have had considerable concerns about this requirement for someone under the age of 18, but I can see that there is a problem if a person who was under the age of 18 when the act that constitutes the offence was done does not raise that issue for a very long time, and then perhaps in middle age says, “The offence I committed was because of my situation at that time”. It crosses my mind, following what the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, said, that it might be possible to deal with this issue of not raising a defence until many years later by making slight changes to Clause 45(4)(b) to say that that defence has to be not only,

“as a direct consequence of the person being”,

but also within a reasonable time, so that it does not come 30 or 40 years later. If something of that sort was brought forward by the Government at Third Reading, it would protect a particular aspect that has been dealt with and considered in the past. I share the concerns of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and the noble Lord, Lord Rosser.

Lord Bates (Conservative)

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of Cradley, for bringing forward this amendment again and for again seeking to get more information on the record about what the Government’s intent is. I will come to the points that have been raised, but I acknowledge and thank the many noble Lords who have taken part in this discussion so far. The discussions have certainly caused us to think about whether further action was needed, and help explain why I tabled a government amendment to ensure that the defence would be easier for child victims to access.

It is vital that genuine victims, trapped by their circumstances in a world of crime, can feel confident to come forward and give evidence without the fear of being inappropriately prosecuted or convicted. We currently have measures in place to meet this objective, through the use of prosecutorial discretion by the CPS backed up by bespoke guidance. Ultimately, the courts can stop an inappropriate prosecution of a victim as an abuse of process. Clause 45 establishes a crucial additional safeguard: a statutory defence for slavery or trafficking victims.

As the House will recall, at Second Reading I brought forward amendments to make the defence for victims easier to access for child victims. Those amendments removed the test of compulsion for children who commit an offence as a direct consequence of their trafficking or slavery situation. We had another good debate in Committee on the detail of the defence. This was followed by further, very constructive, discussions outside the Chamber, which also focused on the needs of child victims. The Government have also engaged further with non-governmental organisations that are expert in this area. Genuine and important concerns were raised then, as they have been today, that the

reasonable person test, as currently phrased, could amount to an effective requirement for compulsion for child victims.

I have listened carefully to that concern. On reflection, I, too, see the risk that a test involving the words “no realistic alternative” could be interpreted by some courts and juries as requiring something akin to compulsion of the child victim. I therefore believe that we can go further to ensure that child victims are not unfairly criminalised and that there is no question of an effective requirement for compulsion. Therefore, government Amendment 49 changes the reasonable person test for child victims by removing the reference to the child having “no realistic alternative” to committing the offence.

I know that there remain concerns that somehow the revised test might still require some proof of compulsion. I want to be very clear: the effect of the amendment is that for the defence to apply, there will be no requirement whatever, either implicitly or explicitly, for compulsion of a child victim. If a case reaches court, they will simply need to evidence any source to raise the defence. The evidence need not be extensive. It could involve, for example, the child’s account in evidence, in which they explain in their own words what happened. It is then for the prosecution to prove beyond reasonable doubt either that the child was not the victim of trafficking or exploitation or that they acted unreasonably in committing the offence. If the prosecution cannot reach the very high threshold of showing beyond reasonable doubt that the child acted unreasonably, the test in the revised defence is met.

I know that there are concerns that at times the hypothetical situations which we debate in this House fail to match the realities on the front line. I want to ensure that the new defence informs Crown Prosecution Service decisions about whether to prosecute, rather than just having an impact when cases reach court. I am pleased that the Crown Prosecution Service has committed to ensuring that, once the Modern Slavery Bill is passed, the current CPS legal guidance for prosecutors will be updated to reflect the new legislation. This will include guidance for prosecutors regarding the application of the statutory defence, and specifically the different provisions relating to adult and child victims of modern slavery. This type of practical guidance for front-line professionals is essential to ensure that the defence acts as we intend—as an extra safeguard preventing victims, and particularly child victims, of modern slavery ever facing inappropriate prosecutions.

I have listened to the debate and I know that some noble Lords would like me to go even further down this line. However, I believe that it is appropriate that we retain some limited safeguards. I know and accept that, as my noble friend Lady Hamwee said, the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of Cradley, has never gone down that particular line, but I do not believe that it would be appropriate to give broad immunity from the criminal law so that a person could use this defence even when they have committed a crime in completely unreasonable circumstances.

Having proposed the amendment and given me the opportunity to build upon what has already been put on the record with additional assurances and wording—

which can of course be taken into consideration should these circumstances ever arise in a court—I hope that the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw her amendment, recognising that she has, again, moved the Government further along the road along which she wants us to travel.

Baroness Kennedy of Cradley (Labour)

I thank the Minister for that reply, and repeat that I am very grateful for the constructive way in which he and his staff have engaged with me and other noble Lords, and with NGOs that have worked tirelessly on this Bill and on this issue. I recognise that the Government have listened and rethought; I hoped that they might rethink a little further, so I am disappointed that the reasonable persons test will remain in place. I see it as another test of compulsion, and I see it going further than it goes now. I find it hard to imagine how other adults could place themselves in the shoes of an emotionally manipulated child.

I accept what the Minister says and welcome his comments. The final assurances that I asked for—CPS consultation with stakeholders, the new guidance that will be produced, the training for prosecutors and how the new statutory defence will be engaged in the field—are all crucial to make sure that we never see a child convicted for a trafficking offence that they have been forced to do. With those assurances given by the Minister, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 48A withdrawn.

Amendment 49

Moved by Lord Bates

49: Clause 45, page 35, line 28, leave out “have no realistic alternative to doing” and insert “do”

Amendment 49 agreed.

Clause 47: Civil legal aid for victims of slavery

Amendment 50

Moved by Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws

50: Clause 47, page 36, line 23, at end insert “or, where the services are provided before the competent authority has considered or determined that there are such grounds, the legal representative providing those services reasonably believes that the standardised indicators of slavery, servitude or forced or compulsory labour are met”

Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Labour)

My Lords, these amendments reflect my concern and that of the Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association that, unless legal aid is provided for trafficked and enslaved persons as soon as they are encountered, individuals will continue to fall through the cracks. Amendment 50 would ensure that legal aid could be provided to a person before an application has been made to the competent authority or before the competent authority has reached its decision that there are reasonable grounds to believe that a person is a victim of slavery, servitude or forced labour. The amendment’s proposal is that legal aid would be provided if the legal representative reasonably

believed that the standardised indicators of slavery, servitude or forced labour, as set out in the national referral mechanism form, were met in the particular case. The next amendment, Amendment 51, would create a new clause, which would follow Clause 47, which would have exactly the identical effect for trafficked persons.

I know that the Government have made a special effort in this regard, but legal aid is made available now too late for a number of these cases. It is not available for those who are trying to pluck up the courage to approach the authorities. We have heard time and again in this House of the circumstances in which people are so fearful that taking that step feels enormous to them. Legal aid is also not available to those who have been referred to the national mechanism but are trying to pluck up the courage to describe what has happened to them, finding it difficult to give voice to some of the horrors that they have been through. They are also fearful of providing supporting evidence from other people; they worry about naming others in case there are consequences for them and because they are afraid of those who have trafficked them. The concern is that those people have had experiences that make them fearful of authority—and, believe it or not, they are sometimes more prepared to tell a lawyer about their experiences than they would be to tell people whom they see as being part of the authority system.

Many in the House have spoken about the charity Kalayaan, which deals with domestic workers. A number of cases have been brought to our attention, which have come regularly before the courts. They are of people who have been assessed as trafficked by Kalayaan. However, their stories show the failure of the system, as they are afraid to approach the authorities and afraid of being referred to the national referral mechanism because they do not know what the outcome might be. They do not know whether they will be returned immediately or whether there will be reprisals from their employers or those who have trafficked them. They relate stories of people who have been subjected to terrible labour exploitation, and treated appallingly with many being beaten and bearing the scars of that. Some have tried to commit suicide. They say that often they are the sole providers for families back home in places such as India and they are worried about the consequences of putting themselves in the hands of the authorities. They need advice on whether they qualify for a residence permit, for example, such as they would receive if they were deemed victims of trafficking. These people are fearful about their situation and want to know what their options are, whether they will be able to stay, whether they will be safe or whether they will simply be returned to the countries from where they came. Sometimes, they prefer to stay with the devil they know and continue to be beaten and abused because they do not know what their rights are.

There are many such cases. Kalayaan and the immigration lawyers’ organisation can cite cases of people who have remained in immigration detention centres for 47 days. There is another case of someone

who spent 76 days in immigration detention and a young woman, Olivia, who spent 336 days in a detention centre and in prison before being firmly identified as having been trafficked. Sometimes this happens because the staff in detention centres say that they do not think these people were trafficked, so they do not refer them to the national referral mechanism. Therefore, to have legal aid available at that point is sometimes too late. I know that pilots have been run by government on making legal aid available from the point of referral to the national referral mechanism. I am asking the Government to go further and run the pilots on making it available from the moment that the legal representative identifies the standard indicators for slavery, servitude and trafficking.

I emphasise that this measure does not involve legal aid for all. I am mindful of the fact that there have been cuts and I know the attitude that government departments take towards legal aid, and that serious efforts are being made to reduce accessing it too readily. However, legal aid is subject to a merits test, so if the lawyers’ belief that the indicators were met is deemed unreasonable, then the payment would not be made. Therefore, there is that element of protection. If the Government want to look for further restrictions, they could look at the LASPO Act arrangements for asylum advice, where costs are limited to £100. If no claim for asylum is ultimately made, the lawyers receive no money whatever.

I can well imagine—and strongly suspect—that the Minister has been advised to resist at all costs any suggestion of further expenditure. However, I urge the Government to think about this measure. It is not expedient to cut costs if there is a bigger price to pay later in the process. We are concerned about trafficking and slavery and we have to make sure that good decisions are made early on. I seek the support of government for pilots to be initiated on making legal aid available at an earlier stage so that, if the legal representative feels that the standardisation tests are being met, legal aid can be applied for. Some form of legal aid should be available so long as the merits test is met. I would like the Minister to acknowledge that there is some benefit in this suggestion because this aid is being provided too late and some people are falling through the gap, which does exist. I beg to move.

Baroness Hamwee (Liberal Democrat)

My Lords, I wonder whether the Government have made any assessment of the number of people who would fall within the cohort identified by the noble Baroness. I have been looking through the review of the NRM to see whether I can work that out. I have not been able to do so but I have found the table, which shows that the proportion of potential victims referred to the NRM who received a positive, conclusive decision in 2013 in the UK was 88%. In other words, we are talking about 12% who did not receive the “conclusive grounds” decision. I do not know what that represents in numbers but the argument will go from there that, if the numbers are tiny, the amounts would not be great. As the noble Baroness said, the merits test means that the lawyer concerned is the one who bears the risk. In that connection, it has to be a lawyer who gives advice because of the provisions that make it a criminal offence to give legal advice on

immigration if one is not qualified or regulated by the Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner. The ask is, therefore, not very great.

Lord Bates (Conservative)

I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, for returning to move her amendment and giving us an opportunity to again look at this important area.

The Government are keen to ensure that we get right the legal support available to victims through the Bill. That is why we amended the Bill in Committee in this House to extend the existing legal aid provision for victims of trafficking to those who have experienced slavery, servitude or forced labour. This support will be provided once an individual has received a positive “reasonable grounds” decision in the NRM, which is generally made within five working days of an individual being referred to the NRM. I accept totally the point made by the noble Baroness about it being essential that good decisions are made early, and that might be done within that definition. I do not consider that this short period of time without legal aid should have a significant adverse impact on individuals. We want as many victims as possible to gain access to the safety and support provided by the national referral mechanism. Once referred to the NRM, individuals will have 45 days’ reflection and recovery in which to make informed decisions about their immigration choices in a safe environment and with access to legal aid.

I am concerned that providing access to legal aid without any link to the NRM may encourage some victims to not opt for the support available to them. Opening up legal aid to those not in the process would not only risk incorrect use of the system but would mean that individuals could bypass the safeguarding system in place for them, and risks individuals remaining in situations of exploitation. For this reason, I think it is right that legal aid is available only once individuals have entered the national referral mechanism.

However, we are open to changes from the existing system. We have committed to piloting a range of changes to the NRM in light of recommendations made by the recent review, which will include incorporating the “reasonable grounds” decision into the initial referral. In practice, this would have the effect of providing earlier access to legal aid because “reasonable grounds” is the trigger by which that would happen. Any changes to the NRM would be reflected in the provision of legal aid and could be made through secondary legislation.

I hope that the House will be reassured that, through the NRM pilots, we will be testing moving access to legal aid for victims of modern slavery to the point of referral, as was being suggested. Given the concern that this amendment could inadvertently discourage victims from leaving a situation of slavery, I hope that the noble Baroness will consider withdrawing or not moving her amendments.

I should just answer a couple of points raised by my noble friend Lady Hamwee and by the noble Baroness. I was asked about the NRM pilots. Those pilots will test the provision of legal aid at the point that a case enters the NRM. The NRM review did not recommend access to legal aid prior to this point. We do not currently intend to test this proposal.

A point was made about the comparable system for asylum seekers. Advice is available for potential asylum seekers to understand their rights under the refugee convention. There are limited funds available for more general immigration advice that a victim of modern slavery would seek. We need to ensure that advice is therefore appropriately targeted and best assists the victims. Asylum seekers come to the UK as a place of safety and may then seek advice on their next steps. This is not the same as a victim of modern slavery, who may still be in a situation of exploitation. We think that linking legal aid to the NRM process is the best way to ensure that such advice is received by the right people and that victims are encouraged to gain access to the protection and support available in the NRM mechanism.

For those reasons, I ask the noble Baroness to reflect on her amendment.

Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Labour)

I am grateful to the Minister for explaining how the pilot scheme will operate and that the whole intention is to direct people towards the national referral mechanism. The hope is that that mechanism will work much more effectively than it has been doing and that it will provide the kind of support that is needed. However, the concern that providing legal aid earlier might in some way direct people away from the national referral mechanism in many ways highlights the very problem that worries me and others who are directly involved in immigration cases. In fact, there is evidence that lots of people—I say “lots of people”; I am not sure that we know what the numbers are—are not leaving abusive circumstances and circumstances of slavery because they do not know what their legal position is. They do not seek legal advice to take the steps that we are hearing about. The suggestion was made that we limit it to the circumstances in which a lawyer would bear the burden of making the assessment that somebody meets all the tests, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, said. An application would then be made for legal aid. That lawyer would then know that the usual legal aid assessment would be made and that they would carry the financial can if their assessment was not accepted as reasonable.

That will gather up those people who are afraid of taking the big step of going to authorities when they do not know what the risk will be to them.

I know that the Government’s intention is that the authorities will act in a much more embracing and supportive way, but you cannot overcome people’s fear as easily as that. That is why having something available beforehand is being urged on the Government. I understand the automatic response that we have got to be very careful about not expanding the parameters of legal aid in this area because we are trying to cut it down but, by doing that, there will be a detriment to a category of people who are too afraid.

It is interesting that the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, raised the issue of numbers. It is not thought that the numbers here are considerable but they are often the most serious cases, where people are really suffering and afraid because they are in total ignorance of what their rights are. The point where they go to somewhere like Kalayaan and are referred to a lawyer is when they can be told what their rights are and understand that their case will fall into a category which will allow them the protections that they need through the processes of the national referral mechanism, which is being reformed in a way which will give people confidence.

I hear what the Minister is saying and I will withdraw my amendment at this stage. However, I ask the Government to consider piloting for this category of person, too, to see whether there is a way in which a kind of “green form” scheme can be created to provide that preliminary advice. Secondly, I ask the Minister to look at the numbers. I suspect, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, suggested, that the numbers are not very great. So we are not talking about a great cost but it will catch, perhaps, some of the most vulnerable. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 50 withdrawn.

Amendment 51 not moved.

Consideration on Report adjourned.