My Lords, in moving Amendment 94, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Royall of Blaisdon, and my noble friends Lord Alton of Liverpool and Lord Hylton for their support.
This amendment would provide vital protections for overseas domestic workers. The current lack of protection for these workers, far too many of whom are subjected to appalling conditions of domestic servitude, remains a serious omission from the Bill. Overseas domestic workers are predominantly women. They are currently bonded by Immigration Rules to their employer. In most cases, the employer’s name is written on the worker’s visa. The worker is totally dependent on their employer for their employment, accommodation and immigration status.
Both the Joint Committee on the Draft Modern Slavery Bill and the Joint Committee on Human Rights have expressed significant concern with this current bonded arrangement. The Joint Committee on the draft Bill claims that it,
“unintentionally strengthened the hand of the slave master against the victim of slavery”,
and concluded that,
“Tying migrant domestic workers to their employer institutionalises their abuse; it is slavery and is therefore incongruous with our aim to act decisively to protect the victims of modern slavery”.
The Joint Committee on Human Rights says that it regards,
“the removal of the right of an Overseas Domestic Worker to change employer as a backward step in the protection of migrant domestic workers, particularly as the pre-2012 regime had been cited internationally as good practice. We recommend that the Bill be amended to reverse the relevant changes to the Immigration Rules and to reinstate the pre-2012 protections in the Bill”.
However, the Government have remained strangely steadfast in refusing to make these recommended changes to the Immigration Rules to reinstate the pre-2012 protections for overseas domestic workers. We have therefore tabled this amendment, which would improve at least the minimum bargaining power of any employee—the freedom to resign their job. Without this opportunity, how can they challenge or question anything that their employers choose to do to them? I fail to understand why the current bonded arrangement for overseas domestic workers has remained in place for over two and a half years in spite of the widespread recognition of its disastrous impact.
It is true, as stated by the Minister in Committee in the other place, that abuse of these domestic workers took place prior to April 2012, a time when they had some protection in being able to change employer. However, this surely highlights the problem that workers employed in private households are particularly vulnerable to abuse and therefore need more protections, not fewer. The Home Secretary herself, in her foreword to the Modern Slavery Strategy, describes how:
“Domestic workers are imprisoned and made to work all hours of the day and night for little or no pay”.
This is indeed an apt description of the conditions found by Human Rights Watch in its report Hidden Away, published in March this year, documenting the conditions of domestic workers in the United Kingdom who had entered on the tied overseas domestic worker visa.
The excellent organisation Kalayaan, in its briefing Still Enslaved: The Migrant Domestic Workers who are Trapped by the Immigration Rules, gave statistics of the abuse reported to the organisation by 120 workers who were tied to their employers during the first two
years since the introduction of the tied visa. Their accounts of their experiences are shockingly deplorable. The bonding of workers to their employers not only limits options for escape and justice but worsens their treatment during employment. For example, Kalayaan’s figures show that 71% of those tied to their employer reported not being allowed out of the house unaccompanied compared with 43% of those not tied, and 65% of tied workers do not even have their own room, often sleeping on the kitchen floor or in the lounge, with no privacy or time to themselves, compared with 34% of those not tied.
The Centre for Social Justice, in its significant report on trafficking in the UK, It Happens Here, recommended that overseas domestic workers again be permitted to change employer. Andrew Boff, Conservative leader of the GLA, came to the same conclusion in his report, Shadow City. As long ago as 2009, the Home Affairs Select Committee, in its report on trafficking, warned against the proposed bonded arrangement, stating that retaining the visa allowing change of employer and renewal if in employment was,
“the single most important issue in preventing the forced labour and trafficking of such workers”.
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During the passage of the Bill through the other place, Members of all parties spoke in defence of overseas domestic workers. The vote was tied in Public Bill Committee, losing only to the chair. When Conservative MP and former Deputy Chief Whip, John Randall, explained at Report why he would vote for a Labour amendment to protect domestic workers, he said that he had,
“met too many victims to be able to say that it is a matter for another day”.—[Official Report, Commons, 4/11/14; col. 766.]
In your Lordships’ House at Second Reading, 13 Members raised deep concerns about the issue. On 20 November, I sponsored an event in this House at which three overseas domestic workers courageously described the horrendous treatment meted out to them in this country, which ultimately drove them to run away without a passport and despite having nowhere to go. To run away in a strange country without your passport or any money and with nowhere to sleep demonstrates how desperate those women were to escape. One woman spoke of how she never wanted to come to the UK from the Middle East, where she had been working, but her employer had not given her a choice, bringing her here to work for her son. She eventually escaped after the son threatened to kill her. Another spoke of how her male employer required her to massage him naked and subjected her to gross intimidation.
Under the current domestic worker visa scheme, when these women escape, they are breaching Immigration Rules. They should not have to make a choice between becoming criminalised or continuing to suffer abuse, which is what happens at the moment. Lawyers and charities working with those victims also spoke at the event I hosted. Very disturbingly, the message from those professionals, some of whom have supported domestic workers for a decade or more, is that since the rules changed in April 2012, there is little they can actually do to help. Many of those workers, including
those identified as trafficked, on being told that they are in breach of Immigration Rules in the UK if they run away, just disappear or return to their employers, as it is better to earn a pittance than to earn nothing. There are usually debt collectors waiting in their home countries, and their families cannot survive without their remittances.
I am grateful to the Government for acknowledging the problem of overseas domestic workers in the UK, and the commitments that they have made to introduce some protections against abuse. However, those measures will not provide adequate protection without basic rights. I would therefore be most grateful if the Minister would explain how the Government envisage ways in which overseas domestic workers on the tied visa can realistically access employment rights when they are either living in the employer’s house or have escaped and are destitute, putting themselves in breach of Immigration Rules and at risk of removal from the United Kingdom.
The Minister has also provided assurances regarding checks on the information provided at the point at which visas are issued overseas. That policy is not new, but correct procedures have not always been followed, as documented in the Human Rights Watch report, Hidden Away. For example, if a worker is in a Middle Eastern country with an exit visa requiring them to obtain the employer’s permission even to leave the country, they may be too vulnerable to disclose abuse. There is clearly a need to improve checks but, again, that must be in addition to workers being able to leave their employment in the UK. The requirement that employers be made fully aware of their responsibilities seems rather inadequate in view of the fact that many such overseas domestic workers are found to have been trafficked for domestic servitude. If an employer prepared to keep a worker in servitude knows that the worker is tied to them in law, they will use that as a threat, warning the worker that if they go to the authorities, they will be removed.
Another government commitment—to improve the law enforcement response—is highly problematic if victims are too frightened to come forward. The tied visa has driven many overseas domestic workers underground. Previously, they applied to renew their visas annually, providing an opportunity to scrutinise their conditions of employment. However, the tied visa has given the abusive employer a ready-made defence in the courts, which is to respond with the accusation that the worker has fabricated accusations of abuse in order to remain in the United Kingdom.
The Government have also explained that they are piloting a scheme whereby overseas domestic worker visa holders will be given information cards with details of public authorities in case they need help. This is a good idea in principle, but it is unclear how a card will help if it is immediately taken away from the worker by the employer, together with their passport. Moreover, many such workers have no means to contact their family. Some employers, especially those with information about the families of workers back home, use the long arm of intimidation to threaten harm to those families.
On 6 November I tabled a Written Question asking whether the Home Office maintains internal management information on confirmed cases of trafficking for domestic servitude of non-European Union nationals broken down by visa type and, if so, what are those figures for the years 2009-13. The Minister’s answer, on 20 November, indicated that there is, apparently, no breakdown by visas type. Therefore, beyond the information made available by Kalayaan and Human Rights Watch reports, there is no comprehensive information on the plight of workers on the tied overseas domestic worker visa. Such information as does exist shows that many overseas domestic workers suffer shocking abuse.
The original overseas domestic worker visa was introduced in 1988, in response to well documented exploitation of such workers, in order to improve basic and important protections. This amendment is a very straightforward attempt to insert a new clause to enable the Government to reinstate those pre-2012 Immigration Rules. In conclusion, I sincerely hope that the Minister will respond sympathetically, especially in view of the findings of Home Office research indicating the sheer scale of underreporting of modern slavery in this country, and given the express acknowledgement by the Home Secretary, in her foreword to the Modern Slavery Strategy, that domestic service is an area of particular concern—a point I made at the outset.
I hope that the Government will find this amendment helpful and worthy of a positive response. I beg to move.