Modern Slavery Bill — House of Lords, 2015-03-04
Topic: Law and Crime
Michael Bates (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I will be able to say something further on the record today, which I hope will go some way towards reassuring my noble friend and other noble Lords on this important matter It might be helpful for the House to reflect on where we have come on this particular part of the Bill’s journey, which relates to identification and support. We had Jeremy Oppenheim’s review of the NRM, which was widely welcomed and appreciated on all sides of the House. It is important to remember that Jeremy Oppenheim stopped short of suggesting that there ought to be a statutory footing for this. He said that he felt that would take away from the flexibility of tailoring support to the needs of potential victims. He argued that it would be better not to put it on a statutory footing. We had that debate in Committee, with the very helpful support of the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and my noble friend Lady Hamwee, as I recall We then came forward with this enabling clause to say that we could enable the Government to bring forward regulations under the Bill. We then said that we would ensure that the services are working as effectively as possible and that we would have two pilot schemes, which will be set up in the next few weeks. They will test out the recommendations that have been put forward on identification and care in the Oppenheim review, along with other recommendations that have been made. We then said that, following those pilots, the guidance that will be produced will be subject to a public consultation I am going to some length to spell this out because someone looking at this amendment in isolation might think that the subject matter we are talking about, namely what services and care we provide to the victims of these crimes and how, which is of fundamental importance, is not stated anywhere—that it is somehow in the ether. The point I made in the past, and which I will make again, is that Her Majesty’s Government currently comply with all our international obligations under the EU directives and the convention. All we are talking about in this clause is what more we will do to go even further than our obligations require us to do. The idea that we are somehow going to drop below that threshold is simply not there When it comes to the amendment, we have some very specific difficulties with one or two of its provisions. I say to my noble friend, who has played such a pivotal role in bringing this legislation forward, that this has not been passed off lightly. The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, talked about the words which I used at Report and then asked whether the Government would be bringing forward their own amendment in respect of this. We have gone through this painstakingly to see whether we can do this, but we feel that to do so would be effectively to prejudge all the very good stages of consultation, pilots and testing which we have put in place. That is the only reason why we are not in a position to support the amendment in its current form. However, I want to put some additional remarks on the record and to answer the very clear questions which were made by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, and the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, so I will seek to do that. The quality of identification and support for victims is a critical issue. As I have said before, the victim is at the heart of the Government’s approach to tackling modern slavery. Given the importance of ensuring appropriate assistance and support for victims, I entirely understand the sentiment behind this amendment and I believe I can put on the record some remarks today which will give the noble Lord and the House reassurance on this issue. The Government are fully committed to meeting our international obligations in respect of support for victims. In fact, we provide more than the minimum set out in our international obligations. I want to be clear about the intention of the new enabling power in respect of identifying and supporting victims which is that any regulations made under this clause will be fully in line with our international obligations The amendment also raises the important issue of the monitoring and auditing of standards of care, which the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, mentioned. Standards of care are integral to the victim care contract and the lead contractor—currently the Salvation Army—will ensure that it and any subcontractor comply with the requirements set out in the contract. These include safe accommodation, access to interpretation services, which the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, asked me to repeat, and all other international obligations relating to support provisions. All service providers must be registered with the Care Quality Commission, which monitors, inspects and regulates care services to ensure that they provide people with safe, effective and high-quality care based on their needs and encourages providers to make improvements We want to see further improvements in identification and support of victims. That is why we are piloting the transformational recommendations of the national referral mechanism review to ensure that we get it right. It is also why we have committed to a formal public consultation to develop statutory guidance, under Clause 49, on victim identification and support. This will ensure that non-governmental organisations and others with expertise can help the Government to further improve the identification and support of victims I have some specific concerns. Given the period of major change that the NRM is currently going through, I would caution against specifying what the regulations must contain before the results of the pilots and the consultation on the guidance have helped us to frame future regulations. I also have concerns about the potential implications of the wording of the amendment, which could, for example, arguably conflict with the UK’s current policy of providing discretionary leave to victims where they are supporting a police investigation under our international obligations The regulations will be subject to the affirmative procedure, so Parliament will have an opportunity to comment on them before they are passed. Given that we have already come a long way on the issue by including an enabling power in the Bill and given the assurances I have provided about our international obligations, I ask my noble friend to reflect further on his amendment I will just deal with a couple of other issues. The first one is the point made by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, who asked whether the regulations will include information about our international obligations. The answer is, yes, the regulations will include the international obligations we have discussed, including the type of victim support set out in the Council of Europe conventions. To distil this down to a fine point, which my noble friend was eager to ensure: when the guidance comes forward in statutory form, will it spell out what is going to be provided? I can say unequivocally that the answer to that is yes. That is reinforced on page 62 of the Modern Slavery Strategy document. It is further cross-referenced in the NRM review, which on page 38 makes many recommendations about the nature of the identification and support which should be given for this. The Government have stated categorically that we support in principle all the recommendations which have been made in the NRM review I am grateful to my noble friend for seeking those reassurances. I hope that he will see that we have been genuine in our desire to find a way in which we can address his concerns. We have not been able to do it by accepting this amendment, but I hope that the additional words which I have been able to put on the record from the Dispatch Box today will give him the reassurance he seeks and enable him to withdraw his amendment.