Well, it is the first time that I have heard repetition in this Chamber, so I thought that the noble Lord could not have been here. But it was a serious point, and it deserved to be made again, because we all agreed with it.
We support all the amendments in the group. I will speak specifically to Amendments 157 and 173. The other amendments have been spoken to very ably by the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and others, so I will not address those, in the interests of time. With respect to Amendment 157, it is intriguing that the statutory guidance says that
“a Conclusive Grounds decision will not be made until at least 45 days of the recovery period have passed”.
Why does the Bill reduce that to 30? That is my understanding, unless I have misread it. We talk about enhancing, but, as I say, 45 days is the period in the statutory guidance, while the Bill talks about 30 days.
Given that we are in Committee, it would be interesting to hear more on this. Am I wrong? Does the 30 days refer to something different? I cannot find references to 45 days in the Bill, but that is what is in the statutory guidance. Could the Minister respond to that? It would be helpful to the Committee to know what the 30-day period is vis-à-vis the 45 days set out in the statutory guidance, which is what the whole sector uses with respect to the recovery period and is, indeed, how I have understood it.
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As has been said, the recovery period gives the police time to gather evidence and build a relationship with the victims. It gives the victims time to access support, break the control of their traffickers and build relationships with agencies. All of this is beneficial to securing prosecutions, which are woefully low, whatever the efforts of the Government and the police. The crucial question is: how does this help? What is gained by reducing the recovery period? I just do not understand the logic of that.
Can the Minister inform the Committee—he may not be able to do so now, but this is worth asking before we get to Report—how many decisions are currently made at the 45-day mark? The anti-slavery commissioner has given figures that the average length of time it took for a conclusive grounds decision to be made in 2020 was 465 days. So why would the Government seek to shorten a timeframe that they are already substantially failing to meet? Have I profoundly misunderstood something—if that is the case, it would be helpful for the Committee for me to be corrected—or am I right and there is something here that we need to understand?
I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, although she is not in her place. On Amendment 173 on victim navigators, we can see the success that the pilot has had. It would be interesting to know what plans the Government have to roll this out. Clearly, they are looking at ways to try to increase the prosecution rate for people traffickers, which we would all support. However, there is currently nothing in the Bill about what is expected with victim navigators. What is happening? Is that just being rolled out as a matter of policy anyway and does not need to be in the Bill because it is going to happen? As the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, pointed out, where victim navigators are in place with police forces, working with the CPS and others, the prosecution rates have improved, as I understand it. That seems to suggest that it would be helpful if victim navigators were rolled out into all police force areas.
Amendments 157 and 173 are probing amendments to understand the operation of the Bill. We also support the amendments that the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and others have put before the Committee.