My Lords, I thought that I would have to find about seven minutes’ worth of response so that we did not get on to the next group of amendments before 4.45 pm. However, I will take possibly more than one minute to respond. I am grateful to noble Lords for their comments.
As regards the 12 months, I had it in mind that a review should have taken place within 12 months, not that one should postpone it, but that is in a sense a detail as against the principle of whether there should be an offence that is less than slavery. The Minister said that the Government have been looking to see whether anything has slipped through the gaps, and he talked about—as I understood it; obviously I will read what he said—not criminalising lesser actions. My point is that we should look to see what lesser actions should be criminalised, and seek to consider a new offence.
On the Minister’s answer on “may” or “shall”—some noble Lords will go to their graves with “may”, “shall” and “must” written on their hearts, will they not?—am I therefore to understand that the court must consider the person before considering whether an offence has been committed? His answer seemed to indicate that, although again, one must read it properly. However, if that is so, and if the resilience of some people is such that the behaviour meted out to them could be considered not to be slavery, forced labour or servitude,
is that consistent with the convention? I said that the Bill raises a lot of technical issues, and that is one of them.
On my smaller, and certainly shorter, amendments to Clause 1, and in reply to the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, my term “experiences” aimed to cover exactly the sort of experience he mentioned. However, of all those amendments, I would be concerned not to lose the one on “characteristics”, and if I had to pick one to come back to in order to pursue it further between now and Report, and possibly on Report, it would be that one. We will of course look at the question of an offence of exploitation later in our debate today as well. Whatever we end up with, I would certainly not wish to lose sight of that one. However, I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 2.