My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, for speaking to the amendment and, as is so often the case, expressing sentiments and views which are shared on all sides of the Committee. It is perhaps not unusual that we are rehearsing some of the general principles discussed on previous groups of amendments. It is interesting to note that paragraph 2.3 at page 15 of the Modern Slavery Strategy document underscores the point made by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss. It states:
“However, we also know that a high number of victims are UK nationals, including children. Not all victims of modern slavery are trafficked across the border. We know that the internal trafficking of victims to other parts of the country takes place, and other forms of modern slavery take place that involve no movement of the victim at all”.
My noble friend Lord Deben made a very interesting point. We want to see the Palermo Protocol used as a basis for harmonisation. The Palermo Protocol sets out an international definition of trafficking in persons as,
“the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation”.
That definition is relevant to the point made by my noble friend Lady Hamwee. She asked about a particular set of circumstances. I will look at that case study. Case studies are extremely helpful in this world, because they provide us with an opportunity to explore the options. All case studies will be matters for the police, the Crown Prosecution Service and ultimately the courts to adjudicate on. I would certainly have thought that the individual to whom she referred would, at minimum, be caught by Clause 4, “Committing offence with intent to commit offence under section 2”. It states:
“A person commits an offence under this section if the person commits any offence with the intention of committing an offence under section 2 (including an offence committed by aiding, abetting, counselling or procuring an offence under that section)”.
I will be happy to come back to this and look further at it, but that is my initial thought in relation to that question.
I turn to the specifics of the amendment and some of the questions which were raised. The alternative trafficking offence set out in Amendment 23 also removes the reference to travel. I fully appreciate the intention behind the amendments. However, I am confident that the language used in Clause 2 is already entirely consistent with the EU directive—the point made by my noble friend Lord Deben. The offence of arranging or facilitating the travel of another person with a view to exploitation includes all the ways through which human trafficking may be committed, as set out in the Palermo Protocol and EU directive, to which I have already referred. Those international instruments are explicitly concerned with human trafficking. The serious evil they rightly identify is trafficking and clearly trafficking involves some element of movement or travel of the victim.
The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, referred to Clause 2. I must pay tribute to her incredible sharpness of mind, despite her having flown in from sub-Saharan Africa and arrived at something like
5.30 this morning. I just got the train down from Newcastle and I have to say that I am feeling a little bit groggy. I think that probably reflects the difference in mental capacity between the two of us, but we will carry on. In Clause 2, we have already responded to concerns during pre-legislative scrutiny and made clear on the face of the Bill that a person may arrange or facilitate travel by recruiting, transporting, transferring, harbouring or receiving, or transferring or exchanging control over a person—words which are used in the protocol.
The noble Baroness, Lady Royall, asked specifically whether we needed a general exploitation offence, because forced begging is not covered in the offences of the Bill. Forced begging is an offence under Clause 1 as it amounts to forced or compulsory labour and therefore our view is that it would be caught by that.
My noble friend Lady Hamwee asked whether the trafficking offence covers incitement of the victim to travel to a particular location, which was the example that was given. The trafficking offence can cover inciting a victim to travel somewhere with a view to exploiting them—for example, the perpetrator telling a victim to meet them at a particular time and in a particular place with a view to exploiting the victim. There is no requirement that the perpetrator physically moves the victim. Any kind of arranging or facilitating their travel is enough.
In the case of grooming a victim for use in prostitution or for rape, as in my noble friend’s example, then telling the victim to meet them at a hotel—to hang out, as she asked—would certainly be covered by the trafficking offence. Inciting a victim for prostitution is a form of exploitation under Clause 3 and such conduct is an offence under Part 1 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003. As I referred to from the strategy document, any arranging or facilitating a victim’s travel, including travel within the UK, for that purpose will amount to an offence under Clause 2.
My noble friend also asked whether the trafficking offence covers all the acts proscribed in Article 2.1 of the EU trafficking directive. The UK is fully compliant with all our international obligations in relation to human trafficking, including in relation to the EU directive. It is not inconsistent with the international instruments to retain the concept of travel in the offence. Our offences, ever since they were created, have had that element. The international instruments are explicitly concerned with human trafficking. The evil that we are trying to tackle is trafficking and clearly trafficking involves some element of movement and travel of the victim. Following pre-legislative scrutiny, we took the opportunity to make clear in Clause 2(3) that a person may,
“arrange or facilitate V’s travel by recruiting V, transporting or transferring V, harbouring or receiving V, or transferring or exchanging control over V”.
The words reflect those used in Article 2.1 of the EU directive. Therefore, we do not think that there is a need for a specific reference to Article 2, as suggested by the noble Baroness.
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The alternative offence set out in Amendment 23 provides no definition of exploitation and suggests removing the clause that defines exploitation. We have
real concerns about failing to define a key part of a very serious offence which, if the Bill is passed, could result in a life sentence. The offence would be unclear and potentially extremely wide. The public rightly expect clarity on what conduct Parliament has decided should be potentially punishable with life imprisonment.
Amendment 27, proposed by my noble friend Lady Hamwee, seeks to ensure that the definition of exploitation in relation to trafficking includes where the offender is contemplating or planning to commit the forms of exploitation set out in Clause 3. This is an important point to raise and I welcome the chance to provide reassurance to the House. If we catch traffickers in the act of moving victims and we have evidence that they are planning to exploit those victims, we can prosecute and convict those perpetrators for human trafficking under the offence in this Bill. A human trafficking offence simply requires that someone arranges or facilitates the travel of another person with a view to exploiting them. There is no need to wait for the exploitation to actually occur.
I turn to the question of whether we should consider new criminal offences around exploitation. I have listened carefully to the debate and I want to explain the Government’s approach to exploitation, where there is no trafficking. We have touched on these points already in relation to child offences. I believe that the Bill should target really serious wrongdoing. Where the exploitation hits the seriousness thresholds required by the slavery, servitude and forced or compulsory labour offence, it is already covered by the Bill under Clause 1.
The criminal law also provides for a series of other offences to deal with forms of exploitation which should rightly be criminal. Some are very serious offences indeed, such as offences around sexual exploitation. A very wide range of other offences can be used to tackle benefit fraud, begging, petty theft, and in cases where the Clause 1 offence is not clearly made out.
Amendment 25 proposes an alternative approach including a general exploitation offence. The offence would be potentially too broad in scope, as I have already pointed out, if Parliament does not explicitly say what it should cover. After cases have gone through the courts, we might well find that it captures behaviour that would not be the behaviour that we are aiming at today, and which would certainly never justify a life sentence.
I am also concerned that introducing a potentially vague new offence would create more uncertainty and confusion for law enforcement agencies and prosecutors. The noble Baroness, Lady Royall, has already referred to the importance of training for agencies to understand fully the warning signs of when an offence has taken place and to ensure that those prosecutions come forward. In this regard the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, drawn from his experience in courts, were particularly valuable, because they highlighted at what point responsible agencies have an opportunity to identify potential victims and intervene. Training magistrates will be a very important part of that.
I am drawing to the end of my remarks. The Director of Public Prosecutions has been clear in Parliament that additional offences, such as this one, would not be
helpful to prosecutors and that existing offences are clearer and more workable. I take that advice seriously—as I am sure do all noble Lords. Given this explanation I ask noble Lords not to move their amendments.