My Lords, first, I would like to thank Klara Skrivankova from Anti-Slavery International for her work on this issue. The proposed new clause requires the Secretary of State to bring forward measures along the lines set out in EU directive 2011/36/EU on preventing trafficking in human beings, which I mentioned at Second Reading a couple of weeks ago. The amendment is designed to penalise those individuals and companies that benefit from the use of slave labour in their business dealings. The amendment will make clear in the Bill that those businesses that benefit from slavery are legally liable and deemed to have committed an offence if a third party has acted for their benefit and that the third party’s offence was made possible due to a lack of control or supervision on the part of the person.
I shall give an example of what is meant here. In November 2012, the management of Carestel—a former motorway and airport caterer—was condemned by a Belgian court as accessory to the crimes of human trafficking and organised fraud. There were two defendants in the case. One was Charalampos who, as anticipated, did not appear in court. He had been awarded the contract to clean the petrol stations and directly employed the women involved. The other defendant was Carestel, which at the time was a substantial operator of motorway and airport services where the women were working. The conditions under which
these Eastern European women were employed as lavatory cleaners at petrol stations were all too shockingly familiar. They worked up to 17 hours a day, in appalling conditions and were paid well below the minimum wage at €3 an hour, all of which added up to what the court described as constituting modern slavery. Charalampos was accused of recruiting women on deficient contracts that allowed his company to circumvent Belgian employment laws but, importantly in the context of this amendment, according to the prosecution he could not have continued his operation without the active co-operation of Carestel. So not only the subcontractor but also the main company was condemned, in spite of the latter’s defence of ignorance and in spite of it claiming not to have had any idea that its cleaners were trafficked and abused.
Of course we have Part 6 of the Bill and the transparency provisions are a good starting point, but without other provisions that would ensure penalties for non-compliance or for continually reporting that a company has made no improvement in its monitoring, it is hard to see how progressive change can be achieved in some businesses. There are no incentives for companies to work to improve conditions in the supply chain and, perhaps more tellingly, no deterrents or any actions that would discourage persistent attempts to thwart the intentions of Part 6. There is an absence of an enforcement mechanism in the transparency clauses too. This provision would reinforce the potential impact of the transparency provision, as would the civil liability clause to which we will come later.
In his letter to noble Lords responding to the issues raised about the Bill at Second Reading, the Minister stated:
“We expect compliance with this measure—
the transparency measure—
“to be driven mainly by consumer, investor and campaigner pressure. If businesses do not provide disclosures which demonstrate real action, it will be evident to both customers and shareholders who will apply pressure to the company to comply or do more”.
That is a fair question to ask of investors, shareholders and campaigners, who are categories of activists, but I am not sure that it is fair or realistic to expect hard-pressed consumers to track down the statements of all the companies that provide them with their goods and services. It would be a particularly onerous task for those who are enduring financial hardship, where their priority is to buy whatever is cheapest. When company executives begin to worry about being held liable, a real shift in attitudes and behaviour will occur.
At Second Reading, many noble Lords referred to the need to strengthen Part 6, which relates to transparency in the supply chain. This amendment would also be a safeguard for businesses that are trying to operate ethically and would give assurance that those that undercut them by drawing unfair advantage through using forced labour can be held liable. It is a measure designed to improve the ways in which we can, to appropriate the words of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation,
“disrupt the business of forced labour”,
and constitutes an effective step towards regulating slavery and forced labour out of the EU. I beg to move.