I speak to amendments to Clause 49. First, I have tabled Amendment 74 because I am keen to ensure that there is joined-up thinking between different sections of the Bill. Part 4 has created the position of the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner and has charged the commissioner with encouraging good practice in the identification of victims. It seems logical, therefore, that the commissioner be involved in the production of statutory guidance directly relevant to promoting good practice in the identifying of victims—namely, the indicators of trafficking and the process of deciding that a person is a victim of trafficking and entitled to receive assistance.
The commissioner will have a great deal of expertise and will gather a lot of information from front-line professionals about the challenges and good practice in identifying victims in the course of carrying out his work. That expertise and information will be key to determining what the guidance produced under Clause 49 needs to cover. We must ensure that the commissioner’s knowledge and findings are incorporated into the development process for the guidance. Amendment 74 would make that a requirement of the guidance provision. I urge the Minister to accept Amendment 74 to guarantee a role for the commissioner in drawing up the statutory guidance. Can the Minister also confirm that the guidance produced under Clause 49 will go through public consultation processes to enable NGOs and other groups with relevant expertise to make an input into the guidance?
I am pleased to introduce Amendment 74 in my name and in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, and the noble Lords, Lord Anderson of Swansea and Lord Morrow. I am extremely thankful to the Minister for the new measures that he introduced on Report to strengthen protection for child victims and bring victim support into the consideration of the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner. However, I feel that there is still a gap in the centre of the Bill: the lack of a guarantee of assistance and support for victims. Amendment 82 creates a power for the Secretary of State to introduce regulations about providing assistance and support to victims, which I welcome as far as it goes—but I do not believe it goes far enough. An enabling power provides no assurance to victims and makes no commitments about what victims are entitled to. Amendment 78 is a better way forward. My Amendments 75, 79 and 80 are consequential on Amendment 78.
It has been noted by the Minister and others that the Bill before us today has vastly more measures to address the needs of victims than the draft Bill. This is undoubtedly true, and I welcome all the improvements that have occurred here and in another place, but on the specific matter of victim support, the Modern Slavery Bill comes up very short when we compare it with the Human Trafficking and Exploitation (Criminal Justice and Support for Victims) Act (Northern Ireland) 2015, which was steered though the Assembly by the noble Lord, Lord Morrow, and the Human Trafficking and Exploitation Bill proposed by the Scottish Government. Amendment 78 would insert a new subsection (1A) which would require support to be provided and a new
subsection (1B) which would require the Secretary of State to provide guidance on the provision of support and assistance.
There are three key elements in Amendment 78 which echo the provisions of the Northern Ireland Act and the Scottish Bill but are missing from both Clause 49 and the amendments proposed by the Minister. The first is putting in statute a basic duty for the state to provide victims with,
“support and assistance for physical, psychological and social recovery”.
Setting out in the Bill that victims are entitled to a period of support and assistance will help give them confidence to come forward and seek help. It should also give them confidence to engage with police officers and talk about what has happened to them—and perhaps even to give testimony in court against the perpetrators of these horrible crimes.
During the very helpful meeting with Peers arranged by the Minister, the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner spoke about the many victims he had encountered in his time as a police officer who were too fearful to speak to officers. It was only after they had been brought to a place of safety in the care of people outside the law enforcement apparatus that they felt confident to speak. In Committee, the Minister drew attention to the assistance provided under the victim care contract, which is a very positive thing. However, unless we establish in law a duty to provide that assistance, I fear that the victim care programme will not be protected for the long term when budgets become squeezed or departmental priorities change. In Committee, I mentioned that GRETA, the Council of Europe’s group of experts, recommended in 2012 that the convention right to a recovery and reflection period for victims should be enshrined in British law, and my amendment would do exactly that.
Establishing victim support in law will also provide a basis for achieving a greater level of consistency in the support provided to victims across the care programme. Paragraph (d) of new subsection (1B) inserted by Amendment 78 additionally promotes this by requiring the establishment of minimum standards for victim support, while paragraph (g) of that new subsection requires the service to be audited, as recommended by the NRM review.
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A notable feature of the duty to provide support set out in my Amendment 78 is that the support should be provided from the moment a person’s case is referred to a competent authority to determine if they are a victim of trafficking—the approach implemented in the Northern Ireland legislation. It is very important that a victim should be able to immediately access support once they are discovered in a police raid or when they seek help. This is in contrast to Amendments 76, 77 and 82 proposed by the Minister. I am concerned by the change of terminology in these amendments, which refer to support for victims where there are “reasonable grounds” to believe that a person is a victim. This terminology suggests that, under the present national referral mechanism system, a person will need to receive a reasonable grounds decision before they can receive assistance. The Salvation Army stated
in evidence to a Home Office Select Committee in 2013 that the average time for a person to receive a reasonable grounds decision was 37 days. Although in 2014 the director of UK Visa and Immigration told the Joint Committee on the Draft Modern Slavery Bill that the UKVI—responsible for two-thirds of NRM decisions—was now delivering reasonable grounds decisions within the target of five days, five days is still far too long for a rescued victim to wait to receive support.
I was very interested to hear the proposals of the NRM review to simplify the process, making the current referral and reasonable grounds stages into one initial step. This sounds as though it could be of great benefit, but until that recommendation is implemented—if at all—the present process remains. This could be particularly problematic if a victim comes forward at a weekend or out of hours, when decision-making processes would not begin instantly. The Anti-Trafficking Monitoring Group has said:
“Members too often experience the sight of victims in waiting rooms and reception areas for hours while numerous telephone calls are made to secure accommodation”.
We need to do all that we can to avoid such situations and enable suitable assistance to be available immediately a victim is in contact with the authorities. I would be grateful if the Minister could give details of the current average waiting time for a reasonable grounds decision. Could he also indicate whether it is his intention that the assistance and support provided under the guidance in Clause 49 or the regulations in Amendment 82 would not be available until a reasonable grounds decision was received? If so, what mechanisms are in place to ensure that vulnerable people are provided with help in those initial days of most extreme need when they are first identified and await a reasonable grounds decision?
The second key element in Amendment 78 is that it states that assistance provided under the duty must cover the types of support set out in the EU directive and Council of Europe convention, which it then lists. Amendment 78 does not require anything more than provision of the types of assistance already required by our international obligations but, by bringing them into national law, it will help to ensure that all victims have access to the support they need and are entitled to. The evidence I heard when sitting on the Joint Committee on the draft Bill suggested that not all victims receive the support that they should. I believe we must do all we can to prevent these inconsistencies. The GRETA report to which I referred earlier also highlighted the need to improve consistency in provision of assistance and support for victims of trafficking. The report said the UK should,
“ensure that all potential and actual victims of trafficking are provided with adequate support and assistance from their identification through to their recovery”.
The evidence review chaired by Frank Field MP, which was commissioned by the Home Secretary prior to the publication of the draft Bill, made a similar recommendation. The review said:
“We believe the Bill should go further and detail the protections, entitlements and support that victims are entitled to. This should lead to a more consistent support regime for victims around the country, which in turn should give victims the confidence that their needs will be met”.
Amendment 78 would provide a basis for consistent provision of all forms of support and assistance required by the international obligations, and made available to all victims of trafficking across England and Wales. Neither Clause 49 nor the Minister’s Amendment 82 contains any detail about the type of support to be provided under those measures.
The third key element is the inclusion in paragraphs (b) to (f) of proposed new subsection (1B) of safeguards for the manner in which support and assistance is to be provided, based on EU directive and Council of Europe convention. For instance, to pick one of the safeguards, the law would make clear that assistance must not be conditional on a victim agreeing to act as a victim in court proceedings, making it clear that a victim is entitled to support because of what has happened to them, not for what they can offer the law enforcement machinery. Those safeguards are not set out in Clause 49 or Amendment 82, yet are essential to ensuring that victims are supported in an appropriate and safe way.
It has been said time and again that this is a landmark Bill, and it is certainly one of which we can be rightly proud. However, as regards the way it addresses the most basic needs of victims when they first come forward, it is now getting left behind other legislation in the UK. The Act introduced in Northern Ireland by the noble Lord, Lord Morrow, which received Royal Assent in January, includes a statutory duty to provide support and assistance to adult victims, includes full details of the types of support that should be provided, makes support available from the moment of referral, with the possibility of a discretionary extension, and includes the internationally required safeguards about how support should be provided. Since we debated this clause in Committee, the Scottish Government have introduced their Human Trafficking and Exploitation (Scotland) Bill to the Scottish Parliament. That Bill also contains a duty to provide support and assistance for adult victims, sets out the basic types of support which should be covered, and highlights some of the key safeguards about the delivery of care. I encourage the Minister, if he cannot accept my amendment today, to consider an amendment at Third Reading that will ensure that this flagship Bill, at the end of this Parliament, does not fall short of the comprehensive legislation being enacted in Belfast and Edinburgh.
Victims of human trafficking, wherever they are in the UK, need to have the same confidence and the same assurance of support. We owe it to them to ensure that we demonstrate our commitment to their well-being in the centre of our foundational legislation on modern slavery. I beg to move.