My Lords, we have had a very good debate on this important area and I will respond to each of the amendments in turn. Effectively, they seem to be almost in grades. It was rather helpful to the House that we almost had revision-max from the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, in his amendment and it progressively got a little bit lighter to the mere enabling which was put forward by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss. The points were extremely well made and I will try to respond to them as best as I can.
The first point to make is that it is not quite the no-brainer that people have suggested. The national referral mechanism was set up in 2009 under the previous Government. It was not set up on a statutory footing. Therefore, it clearly was not an obvious omission at that point. We took the view that Clause 48 is adequate. I accept the comments that have been made about whether Clause 48, which refers to the issuing of guidance—by which is meant the national referral mechanism—is adequate. None the less, it is a point of discussion as to whether the flexibility of something not being on a statutory footing is balanced by the other side of having something in the Bill. We will come to that.
The second point to make is that much is rightly made of the good work of the Joint Committee which looked at this, took evidence and made recommendations. The very fact that the Home Secretary committed to a review and asked Jeremy Oppenheim to undertake it clearly reflects the fact that we were not satisfied with the way in which the national referral mechanism was working. That is why Jeremy Oppenheim was asked to undertake the review. A wide range of organisations and individuals were consulted. The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and the noble Lord, Lord Warner, were engaged in that process. Some 129 organisations were engaged in the review and their views were fed into the process.
My final point, before turning to the amendments, is that we have a substantial number of recommendations across the six categories as to where the system needs to be significantly improved. The review identifies the weaknesses and deficiencies that many noble Lords have referred to, particularly my noble friend Lady Hamwee.
I am grateful to noble Lords for tabling Amendments 86P, 93 and 96 and for allowing us to follow on from our excellent debate on Monday on the crucial issues of identification and support of victims. I reiterate that the Government share the desire of noble Lords to ensure that as many victims as possible are identified and properly supported. We are already taking decisive action to ensure that that is the case. Amendments 93, 96, and 86P each propose placing a referral mechanism for identifying and supporting victims on a statutory footing, but with slightly different approaches, as I have mentioned. For Amendment 93, this would be a replacement mechanism for the national referral
mechanism currently administered by the UK Human Trafficking Centre. Amendment 96 seeks to place an enabling power in the Bill for the Secretary of State to make regulations to establish a statutory referral mechanism. Amendment 86P seeks to place the national referral mechanism on a statutory footing, including providing for all confirmed victims of trafficking, enslavement or exploitation to be entitled to a one-year residence permit.
I believe that the most important thing is that these victims are spotted and rescued in the first place. The best referral and support systems in the world will work effectively only if we find victims, who are so often hidden in plain sight up and down this country. That is why the Home Secretary commissioned a review of the national referral mechanism to ensure that victims can be identified quickly and effectively and be given the right support and assistance. As noble Lords will be aware, the review was published on 11 November and made a number of important recommendations. I know that, in taking the review forward, Jeremy Oppenheim consulted more than 100 organisations and the recommendations from the review take into account their views.
The recommendations in particular concluded that putting the NRM onto a statutory footing,
“will not change the UK’s commitment and obligations to abide by the trafficking convention or methodology with which it is implemented. Any process put on a statutory footing can become inflexible and unresponsive to changing demands and indeed improvements, due to the requirement to further legislate before making changes”.
Furthermore, the review noted:
“Pinning the National Referral Mechanism down now would not be an effective methodology particularly when the National Referral Mechanism is going through a period of significant change”.
It is absolutely right that we should fully consider the vital mechanism used to refer and support these vulnerable victims. But I am not convinced that putting it on a statutory footing will achieve our aim of improving the service we offer to victims. We consider the recommendations made by the review to be transformational and believe that they will overhaul the way in which victims are identified and supported and how those organisations responsible for identifying and protecting victims prioritise and co-ordinate their activities.
The noble Lord, Lord Warner, talked about the difference between the UK trafficking centre giving 80% of cases a positive conclusive grounds decision while UKVI gives only 20% positive decisions. Those figures are not quite right, but it is true that a lower proportion of total referrals have received positive conclusive grounds decisions from the UKVI than from the UKHTC in the past. There is a good reason for the difference. In positive decision rates, UKVI deals with very different cases where corroborative evidence may be harder to obtain. Quality reviews to date indicate that UKVI has been making the right decisions in these difficult circumstances.
The NRM review recommendations include the recommendation to move to multidisciplinary panels to undertake decisions on all cases. This is one of the recommendations that will be widely welcomed.
Fundamentally changing the way in which potential victims are referred for support and the way in which decisions are made will ensure that good quality, timely decisions are at the heart of what we do. That is because the process will have a high level of independent scrutiny and will involve multidisciplinary panels, as suggested.
Our initial response to the review is set out in the modern slavery strategy, which was published on 29 November. Given the fundamental change in approach that is being recommended, we want to make sure that our approach is sound and enhances the experiences of potential victims who are referred for help and support. We will therefore establish two pilots as quickly as possible to test the core recommendations relating to the identification of victims and to the referral and decision-making processes. We want to make sure that we get these pilots right. Officials are meeting a number of NGO representatives later this week to discuss early proposals.
5 pm
Although I fully appreciate the purpose behind the amendments, I remain reluctant to make changes to the national referral mechanism or to set out its roles and functions in the Bill when we have wholeheartedly accepted the recommendations of the review which have been made in consultation with so many stakeholders. I can also reassure noble Lords that we either already provide, or facilitate access to, the types of support that are listed in the amendments. As noble Lords are aware, victims who are helping the police with an investigation already have access to discretionary leave of at least one year and one day. However, the Government also make provision for victims who are not assisting with an investigation. Where a victim requires a period of leave in the UK to recover from their ordeal, the point raised by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby, they will also have access to discretionary leave of at least one year and one day. Indeed, victims who require a longer period of leave—for example, due to ongoing medical treatment—can obtain discretionary leave for up to three years. I am sure noble Lords would agree that we would not wish to lose this flexibility to support victims by placing an arbitrary leave provision in the Bill.
We are aware of the key point made by my noble friend Lord James of Blackheath. He and I are in a detailed exchange of correspondence. Some of his points require quite a bit of research. I give my noble friend an undertaking that we will continue that research and revisit it on Report.
The noble Lord, Lord Warner, referred to a possible change in the name of the national referral mechanism. I can see some merit in that. We fully intend to review the name of the national referral mechanism in the light of the recent review of the referral process. The review recommendations already suggest changing the name of first responders to slavery safeguarding leads, which is rather in line with what the noble Lord said. That perhaps shows that his contribution to the review and engagement in it are feeding into some of the recommendations that we want to see.
All the way through this process we have always said that we are creating something quite new, quite
radical and quite significant to protect victims of modern day slavery. We have always been open to listening to your Lordships and to responding in due course. I have heard the points that noble Lords have made very clearly and with considerable evidence and I have made the case in response. Officials have not dreamt this up in an ivory tower—not that there are ivory towers in 2 Marsham Street of course—but in consultation with organisations representing victims. We are determined to make these changes and to get it right. We will keep this under review, we will keep talking and we will, as the right reverend Prelate invites us to do, reflect on this in the period between Committee stage and Report to see what evidence there is to go further.