Indeed. The Bill is extraordinary because, when I first came to the House, I would have thought that if anyone was going to push, mould and lead public opinion and galvanise the numbers who have come to lobby us, it would be the trade unions. I remember a day quite early in my parliamentary career when the Churches had their first lobby on overseas aid. I went down St Stephen’s steps with a new Conservative Member, and before us was a mass of people who not only filled the area in front of St Stephen’s entrance but went along the road, over Lambeth bridge and back towards the hospital. I saw that younger Conservative Member thinking, “Wow! If the Churches can turn out in these numbers, they are clearly able to fight and punch way beyond the weight of Sunday attendance.” I willingly pay tribute to the role the Churches have played in helping to push this issue up the political agenda.
There are two issues on which I thought we would have to wait for decisive action in the other place, but I now think that we might get that action in this House. I am sure the Whips have taken back the message that the membership of the Committee now has to be even more controlled than normal; otherwise, the Government will lose control of the Bill in Committee. We might be able to take action on Report, when the results of the Committee’s deliberations come back to the Floor of the House.
Two areas of concern have been expressed. On children, the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes) did not say it, but when push comes to shove it is clear where his vote will be on this golden opportunity we are being offered to make not a really good Bill but a world -leading Bill—his colleagues might be with him on that. Similarly, the hon. Members for Cambridge (Dr Huppert)
and for Central Devon mentioned supply chains, which is the second issue. Of course we will be clever and not rub the Prime Minister’s nose in it. We want merely to make a small addition to the Companies Act 2006, under which companies have to report on human rights. Would it not clarify matters if we said that companies also have to report on modern slavery?
Indeed, as the Bill proceeds and more owners of industry in this country realise the risk to which they are exposed through their supply chains, they will be the ones who say to the Prime Minister, “We want the protection of the criminal law. We do not wish, by inaction on our part, to be indicted for this most heinous crime of not paying the attention we should have paid, so far as possible, to clearing our supply chains of human slavery. We want to be able to stand up in court and say that we have fulfilled, in both the letter and the spirit of the law, what the British Parliament has laid down as our responsibility. We stand bravely in the accuser’s box to make our plea.”
The main point I wish to make is that although progress has been made very quickly—the Centre for Social Justice published its report only last Easter and already we have a Bill that is well on its parliamentary way, and well on its way to being improved still further—the truth is that much of the heavy lifting will have to be accomplished later. I am talking about the victims. We have a victim-centred Bill, but none of us should underestimate how big the job will be to try to repair some of the damage that victims have suffered as a result of by being enslaved, either in this country or elsewhere.
The all-party group on hunger and food poverty heard evidence on Monday from Jack Monroe, and it was immensely moving. She has a huge talent for the English language, yet even she had difficulty telling us how broken she had felt when having to feed her child from a food bank. Even now when she hears an unexpected rap at the door, she fears that it is the bailiff or a man coming to cut off her electricity or evict her from her home, even though she is now in calmer territory. If that can happen to someone in this country as a result of being subjected to hunger, it will take more than 45 days to make amends to people who have been broken and humiliated by the experience of being enslaved.
Therefore, we should go joyfully to the task of strengthening the Home Secretary’s hand and fulfilling her wish that this should be a world-leading Bill. As has been said, this could be one of the greatest issues for the Commonwealth since the fight against apartheid, giving it real purpose and the opportunity to change the world. However, let us not kid ourselves. Once the Bill is through and the Home Secretary has got her way, we will face the huge task of not only rescuing enslaved people, as the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate said, but trying to put them back together again after being so abused by the wicked slave owners who until now have operated all too freely in our country.
4.2 pm