My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendments 72D, 73B, 74AA, 74CA and 74DA in my name. These amendments are all designed to give the anti-slavery commissioner greater freedom of manoeuvre in dealing with the Home Office and to prevent endless procrastination over the release of reports submitted to the Home Secretary and the Home Office, particularly if they contain what I would call “unacceptable messages”. We have been over this ground in both sets of amendments at some length. This are all of a piece with some of our earlier discussions. We have certainly seen in real life how reports of other independent sources of inspection or advice can—how can I put it?—languish in government department in-trays. Some of these amendments attempt to address real issues.
I accept that my amendments are pale imitations of the more radical amendments moved and discussed by the noble Lord, Lord Patel, in the previous group. I would certainly withdraw some of mine if the Government were moved to accept many of his. That is not bargaining across the Table but a statement of fact; the noble Lord has some very powerful amendments which deliver more effectively than my amendments. I do not always travel hopefully about whether Home Office Ministers in this place are able to deliver changes, so I shall press on with my more limited amendments.
Amendment 72ZZA requires the commissioner to produce a three-year plan, not just a one-year plan. That enables him—sensibly, I think—to plan ahead for a reasonable period of time. Amendment 72B
removes the detailed control of the Home Office over the plan, as prescribed in Clause 42(4), (5) and (6). These seem totally superfluous, given that Clause 42(1) already gives the Home Secretary the power of approval over the strategic plan. Why do we need these extra, more detailed control methods, other than to demonstrate what we have said for some time about the Bill: that it too often finds ways of controlling the room for manoeuvre of the anti-slavery commissioner?
Amendment 73B removes the detailed Home Office control over the nature of the commissioner’s annual report by removing Clause 42(9). It is another attempt to loosen the shackles, in the phrase I used earlier. Amendments 74AA, 74CA and 74DA are designed to ensure that Ministers do not delay in laying the commissioner’s annual report before Parliament, the Scottish Parliament and the Northern Ireland Assembly. They all require the annual report to be laid within a month of receipt by the particular Ministers.
These amendments are in the best interest of the commissioner’s independence and safeguard the position of Parliament and the Northern Ireland Assembly. We have to remove some of these controls in order to give the commissioner more freedom of manoeuvre and to ensure that important reports are not delayed in reaching Parliament and public scrutiny. I beg to move.