Coroners and Justice Bill

I very much support the amendment standing in the name of my noble friend Lady Young of Hornsey. I have signed the amendment and was able to accompany her to our extremely helpful meeting with the noble Lord, Lord Bach, who went out of his way—as did his officials—to try to meet the very reasonable points that my noble friend has made today, which have been endorsed by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss. The two organisations referred to by my noble friend—Anti-Slavery International and Liberty, whose policy officer Anita Coles joined us at our meeting with the Minister—provided excellent briefing material. As the Minister himself pointed out during our meeting, organisations such as Liberty do not usually campaign for additions to be made to the law; they spend a lot of their time campaigning about things that the law does that they do not approve of. Indeed, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, regularly says to us that we overlegislate. On an occasion such as this, the Committee should, therefore, listen very carefully when she says that there is a gap in the criminal law, and it is the criminal law that needs to be used. In answer to the intervention that was properly made by the noble Lord, Lord Lester of Herne Hill, it is precisely because the police have been unable to intervene in the kind of cases that my noble friend referred to that there is a gap which is required to be filled for the police to be properly empowered to take the action that is needed. The purpose of my noble friend’s amendment is to target with new offences those involved in enticing or keeping migrants in forced labour or in servitude. No doubt many people will greet with incredulity the claim that servitude can be imposed in the United Kingdom without prosecution. However, the claims are as true as the impunity gaps in our law. Although international jurisprudence outlaws slavery and forced labour, it is estimated that worldwide some 12.3 million people are in forced labour. Most notoriously, in countries like Burma and North Korea, vast numbers of people are used as industrial conscripts. However, even in industrial countries and democracies such as our own, many people—often migrants—are forced into economic servitude, often wholly unremunerated or paid paltry wages. It is thought that in industrialised nations some 360,000 people work in such exploitative conditions. Although trafficking and outright slavery are outwith the law, there is no clear stand-alone statutory offence under United Kingdom law of holding a person in servitude or subjecting a person to forced or compulsory labour. By failing to place such an offence into statute, we are in breach of our obligations under international treaties to which we are a signatory—especially our obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights. Although legal redress may be possible via the common law, that is a route which the police will rarely use and, in any event, the offence of false imprisonment does not accurately reflect the nature of economic servitude—which is why my noble friend Lady Young is trying to amend this Bill. Although this matter is not on a par with the transatlantic slave trade, Anti-Slavery International and Liberty point out that the Slavery Abolition Act 1833 officially abolished the slave trade throughout the British Empire, and trading in slaves remains an offence under the provisions of the Slave Trade Acts of 1824, 1843 and 1873. The only other statutory offence which specifically criminalises an aspect of modern-day slavery is contained in Section 4 of the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants etc.) Act 2004. The section, as my noble and learned friend said, creates an offence of "Trafficking people for exploitation" and provides that a person commits an offence if he or she, ""arranges or facilitates the arrival in the United Kingdom of an individual"," or subsequent travel within the UK of an individual, and intends to exploit the individual or believes that another person is likely to do so. Exploitation is defined as including behaviour which contravenes Article 4 of the European Convention on Human Rights, as well as subjecting someone to force, or using threats or deception designed to induce him or her to provide or acquire services or benefits of any kind. However, while persons who subject others to slavery or forced labour are likely to be in breach of a number of different criminal offences—a point made to us by the Minister—and perhaps of licensing or employment laws, there is no free-standing statutory offence of subjecting a person to forced or compulsory labour, despite recent court rulings requiring criminalisation. In 2005, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the case of a Togolese girl forced to work as an unpaid servant in France—a case to which my noble friend referred—required France and other member states to criminalise such acts. France was said to be in breach of Article 4 as it had failed to provide specific and effective protection to the victim. UK criminal law is vulnerable to the same criticism. That point was made in counsel’s opinion and was referred to by my two noble friends. Liberty also recently highlighted the case of a woman whose passport had been confiscated by her employer. She became a virtual prisoner and was physically abused. It required the instigation of a judicial review before the police accepted that there was a breach of Article 4 and that charges should be brought against her employer. Anti-Slavery International says that it knows of United Kingdom cases where persons were subject to forced labour, many of them in domestic servitude, including children. The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe gives further weight to these claims, making the point that this is not therefore an isolated example but that such servitude is systematic and taking place all over Europe in many developed nations. That is why there is no sense of criticism that the Government have failed to act; this is something quite new on our radar screens which now requires us to take this issue seriously. The Council of Europe said: ""In the last few years a new form of slavery has appeared in Europe, namely domestic slavery"." It set out the common features of domestic slavery as including the confiscation of passports, blackmail concerning immigration status, and virtual imprisonment. One particularly shocking case, to which my noble friend referred, involved Zari, a woman from east Africa who came to the United Kingdom as a domestic worker. I shall not repeat the details of the case but the most significant thing is that, after running away, she went to the police but, again, they failed to carry out an investigation. Zari is one of many in the UK. I was particularly struck by some questions asked by a London charity which I drew to the Minister’s attention during our meeting. It questioned men and women caught up in domestic servitude and discovered that 26 per cent had been physically abused, 72 per cent had suffered psychological abuse, 70 per cent had no time off and 62 per cent were not permitted to leave the house. The agencies campaigning on these issues say they also have evidence of servitude in other sectors, including agriculture, factory work, food processing, cleaning and hospitality. The evidence clearly points to a glaring hole in our law and to the need to create a statutory offence criminalising the holding of a person in servitude and subjecting a person to forced or compulsory labour. Closing this hole would also remove the immunity from punishment that too many currently believe they enjoy. The Minister has told us that existing law provides adequate opportunity for the police to act. This is an issue on which we now have counsel’s opinion. A copy was sent to the Minister yesterday, so it will not have taken him by surprise. I have also placed a copy in the Library. It was delivered by Sir Ken Macdonald QC, the former Director of Public Prosecutions, and Helen Mountfield, both of Matrix Chambers. Perhaps I may place their opinion on the record. At paragraph 3, they say: ""In our view, the existing criminal law offences pertaining to trafficking, the slave trade, false imprisonment and kidnapping are not apt to cover all offences of servitude. In order for the United Kingdom to comply with its obligations under Article 4 ECHR and the ILO, … dissuasive and directly applicable statutory criminal offences of forced labour and servitude are needed which penalise and permit effective prosecution of those who subject others to abuse and oppression. Without them, the United Kingdom is vulnerable to successful challenges in the European Court of Human Rights. We are aware of two such challenges in the pipeline"." The opinion goes on to look at a number of detailed questions. For example, paragraph 18 of the judgment says: ""These technical problems make it particularly difficult to prosecute all perpetrators of servitude or forced labour, in circumstances where long sub-contracting chains and informal economic sectors are structural factors which play a ‘major role in the exploitative employment relationship’. They also make the offence almost impossible to prove"." On pages 3 and 4 of the opinion the question is asked: ""Does English law contain criminal offences which penalise enforced labour or servitude? … In our view, there is no offence known to English law of subjecting another to servitude or forced labour which: a. clearly criminalises imposition of forced labour or servitude, in all the circumstances in which Article 4 requires signatory states to provide a remedy; or b. is sufficiently clear and robust to have dissuasive effect"." Without wearying the Committee—I am conscious of the time—let me end by quoting the conclusion from counsel’s opinion: ""We do not imagine that any politician, of any party, would consider it unnecessary to have in place penal legislation which complies with the United Kingdom’s obligations under Article 4 ECHR, and which provides redress to victims, and penalties for perpetrators of so grave a crime of abuse and oppression. The issue is only whether it is necessary for such an offence to be specifically created, or whether existing provisions of the criminal law already cover all circumstances of servitude and forced labour.""For the reasons set out above, we do not consider that the existing provisions of the English criminal law provide effective protection and penalties for servitude and forced labour. The introduction of such offences is necessary, both to protect the victims of serious abusive crime, and in order to avoid findings by the ECtHR against the United Kingdom of violations of Article 4 ECHR"." My noble friend’s admirable amendment seeks to plug that gap. I hope that the Minister will feel able to respond positively to the persuasive arguments which he has already heard and which no doubt other noble Lords will wish to add to.