I accept that I cannot mention the great man in the Box, at whom we are now all looking. Convention prevents me from drawing attention to his presence there or even to the fact that elsewhere, outside the Box, he is known as Anthony Steen. For it is he who ignited my interest in this area. Several hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Central Devon (Mel Stride), made that point very effectively. In many ways, when he left this House he took out to the wider world the candle that he lit in this Chamber. To all intents and purposes, it is his Bill that we are debating today: no Anthony Steen, no Bill.
However, Anthony Steen is not the only person who ought to be thanked on the record. The hon. Member for Central Devon drew attention to how quickly the debate has progressed here. It has done so because of
three women, the first of whom is Philippa Stroud. I can mention her because she is not in the Box, Mr Deputy Speaker. When she was at the Centre for Social Justice she decided that this topic ought to be investigated and initiated the inquiry that led to the report “It Happens Here”. She is a parent of the Bill. She convinced Fiona Cunningham, who was then the Home Secretary’s political adviser, that this was an important topic in its own right and one for which the Home Secretary ought to win time from her colleagues for a new Bill. Anybody who knows how Parliaments progress knows that, as a Parliament reaches its conclusion, parliamentary time becomes not easier but more difficult to command. We therefore naturally applaud the Home Secretary’s decision —for she is of course the third person. Philippa’s work, Fiona’s work, the work of the all-party group and the work of the person we cannot mention in this Chamber would have come to naught had the Home Secretary not made the crucial decision that there should be a Modern Slavery Bill. Although she has had to go to other meetings, she will take great heart from the fact that in two areas on which she has not been totally happy with the Bill as introduced—I think it is reasonable to say that—she will probably get her way.