Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill [HL]

My Lords, human trafficking is an appalling crime and the Government are committed to tackling it and protecting its victims. The amendment will help in our ongoing battle against trafficking. It widens the definition of the offence of human trafficking to capture the mischief usually referred to as ““trafficking of children for benefit fraud””. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, and other noble Lords for bringing this matter to our attention. For an act to be regarded as trafficking for non-sexual exploitation, our current legislation requires, among other things, for the trafficker or someone else he knows about, to intend to exploit a person. One definition of exploitation in the current offence requires a person to be ““requested or induced’”” to undertake any activity. As noble Lords have argued, very young children, including babies, cannot be requested or induced to do anything; nor would they be carrying out any activity themselves. Their passivity therefore means that they may not be regarded as having been exploited as currently defined in the context of trafficking, and therefore another person may not be liable for an offence of trafficking. That issue was highlighted in the case of Mrs Peace Sandberg, who purchased a baby from Nigeria to seek priority housing in the UK. In this case, the baby’s role was passive. Mrs Sandberg was convicted of facilitation, not trafficking, and jailed for 26 months in 2008. We believe that such conduct should rightly fall under the remit of trafficking. Our proposals will amend the definition of exploitation to enable that by removing the requirement for the child to be requested or induced to undertake any activity. Accordingly, if someone uses or attempts to use another person, including a small child, to obtain a benefit or gain of any kind, he or she would be capable of committing the offence. The related amendments are designed to allow for the new offence to apply to England, Wales and Northern Ireland but not to Scotland. Human trafficking is a devolved matter in Scotland and it is normal procedure that the Scottish Parliament legislates for Scotland where there is a suitable Scottish legislative vehicle available. The Scottish Government have indicated that they will look to bring forward similar amendments for Scotland through their Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Bill, which already contains provisions on trafficking, to ensure consistency of the law across the UK. I commend the amendments to the House.