My Lords, the amendment is in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Patel. My concern here is to make a greater reality of the independence of the anti-slavery commissioner by giving the postholder control over choice of staff and accommodation and suchlike within an agreed budget.
I believe that subsections (3) and (4) of Clause 40 give the Secretary of State too much detailed control over the commissioner that will in practice jeopardise their independence and will certainly jeopardise the perception of their independence, which is just as important.
I recognise that on Report in the other place the Government tried to respond to criticism by placing “independent” in front of “anti-slavery commissioner” in the Bill. That is certainly an advance, but it does not go far enough and does not meet the criticisms and recommendations in the report of the Joint Committee on the draft Bill, which are summarised in paragraphs 154 and 155 of that report.
As a member of the Joint Committee, let me briefly remind the Committee of a key passage in those paragraphs, which states:
“The draft Bill does not offer sufficient protection for the Commissioner’s independence in the long term. Failure to do will undermine the Commissioner’s credibility and capacity to establish relationships based on trust with NGOs and other stakeholder groups whose role in combating modern slavery is well-recognised”.
That is the central purpose of my amendment: to strengthen trust in the independence of the commissioner, with some specific ways of giving the postholder greater independence.
As the Joint Committee’s report went on to say, the anti-slavery commissioner is being treated less favourably in terms of independence than other comparable commissioners appointed by the Home Secretary: namely, the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation and the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration. A critical part of independence in these posts is the clear right to appoint your own staff, to which I would add the symbolism of not being located in the same building as the government department that appoints you.
Those two issues—independence in selection of staff and premises—are in my amendment. I regard them as critical to conveying to the outside world the independence of the commissioner. That is even more the case if the commissioner’s remit is to be widened beyond the scope of the Home Office—a subject that we shall turn to in the next group of amendments.
My amendment is based on personal experience as a battle-hardened Whitehall warrior; it is not just a theoretical fancy. Let me briefly share with your Lordships my experience as the first chairman of the Youth Justice Board back in 1999, when I had to set it up with a chief executive and a secretary. The board was, in statute, clearly an independent body. However, that did not stop the Home Office encouraging our location within the Home Office, kindly offering us staff and, when we refused that, pushing on with endless reporting and meetings over our independent activities.
Control is in the Home Office DNA—whoever is the Home Secretary and whatever individual Home Secretaries may say. The default setting for the average Home Office civil servant—with due respect to those in the Box—is to protect the Home Secretary, irrespective of whether the Home Secretary needs or even wants protecting. Staff seconded to the commissioner will return to their department, and they will not be welcomed
back with open arms if they are deemed to have allowed the commissioner endlessly to flourish attitudes independent of the Home Office on any specific issue. In any case, we put those staff in an impossible position by sending them to a commissioner’s office. They are conflicted: do they look after their future career or do they do what the commissioner wants if he or she wants to strike out independently?
It is this experience that has convinced me to run my own show as Birmingham’s children’s commissioner and politely decline friendly offers of support from DfE officials. I suspect that the newly appointed commissioner will run into trouble at some stage over the staffing issue if we do not give him more freedom to manoeuvre with an amendment similar to mine.
I am very supportive of the other similar amendments in the group. All I would like the Minister to do today is to accept that we have a considerable point and agree to consider with us an amendment which meets the concerns I have expressed. I regard the independent commissioner’s right to appoint their own staff as absolutely crucial to their success. I beg to move.