My Lords, the Government are to be congratulated on putting Clause 51 down. It is a very important clause and a huge relief to see it here after the Select Committee of which I was a member made considerable noise about it in its report. So it is very good. As the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, says, having said something is good, we always want a bit more. I follow on from what she is saying.
The amendments of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, in particular, are those that I would support. There are two points that I am particularly concerned about. Who monitors the statements and to whom will the statements be given? What is being suggested—which might be a good idea—is providing a copy of the slavery and human trafficking statement to anyone who makes a written request for one. However, that requires someone to do it. It may be that in some relatively unknown company—which may not have a very good track record but may not have been exposed—no one would ask. I appreciate that there would be regulations, but my suggestion, as the Minister will remember, was that the commissioner should receive copies of the statement, and that the commissioner should monitor. He seems the most obvious person to do it.
The second point that worries me is the duties imposed. Clause 51(9) says:
“The duties imposed on commercial organisations by this section are enforceable by the Secretary of State brining civil proceedings in the High Court”.
So far, so good, but what is the purpose of an injunction? Just bring civil proceedings. It should be much broader. Generally, injunctions are to tell people not to do something. There are mandatory injunctions, but they are rather limited in their use. I just do not understand why the only duty imposed on a commercial organisation by the Secretary of State would be an injunction. That ought to be looked at with rather more care, because why on earth can you not impose penalties or seek damages?
There are all these various regulators, both in the United States and the United Kingdom, which regulate banks and organisations and impose enormous fines. Why on earth can the Secretary of State not do that if there is an obvious example of a company that is not only not producing statements, but is not checking whether, right down the line of its supply chain, there is a company supplying it with the goods that it is selling which is acting as a slave owner? A penalty seems the most obvious thing.
I really do think that subsection (9) is utterly inadequate and something in particular that should be looked at. The commissioner should have some powers at least to look at these statements, but the Secretary of State should have much stronger powers to deal with defaulters. I ask the Government to look at this again.