Date: 2023-04-26
Iain Duncan Smith: I rise to speak to amendment 4, in my name and those of my right hon. and hon. Friends. It is essentially about clause 21. Since tabling it, I have realised that the Government have a new amendment--amendment 95--which I am afraid makes quite a lot of what we are trying to achieve with our amendment 4 almost impossible to deliver. However, I will go through the purpose of our amendment and then deal with the new Government amendment. First, a lot of this is foreshadowed by the already existing Nationality and Borders Act 2022, and we still wait to see what its impact is on a lot of this. There is some clear evidence already that it is tightening up the areas that the Government want to tighten up when it comes to those suffering from modern slavery. Therefore, first and foremost, I question the necessity of these provisions about modern slavery in the Bill at all. Frankly, I do not want to be too broad; I want to focus on this problem quite carefully. I think, and I hope, that the Government may recognise--my right hon. Friend the Minister mentioned that that is the general direction of his thinking at the moment, and I really hope that is the case--that there are unintended consequences of what they have to tried to do with the changes they are making in clause 21, and that the clause would be damaged without our amendment. It is interesting that my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) intervened with some very new evidence that the police are now saying that the effect of this, even though it is not in the Bill, is to concern people who might well give evidence that would lead to the prosecution and conviction of those guilty of trafficking. Can I just say that I think the whole purpose of this is to get the traffickers, prosecute them and put them inside? That is one of the deterrents against other traffickers doing such business, and I understand that the purpose of the Bill is to stop the business model of the traffickers, so this fits with that. The problem, as a counterpoint to that, is that clause 21 seems to move in the opposite direction and is actually now beginning to discourage people from the idea of giving evidence. It is very important to remind everybody, because they get confused, that human trafficking is distinct from people smuggling. We tend to blur the edges of this, but human trafficking is about people who, against their will--when brought to this location or while in the UK--are themselves abused. All the issues were talked about earlier, but the reality is that this is against their will. They do not wish to do it, and we need categorical evidence of that. It is because this is dealing with the trafficking side rather than the people smuggling side that I am really concerned about it. Remember that a majority of the potential victims referred through the national referral mechanism are exploited in the UK in full or in part. Mostly, those are  non-UK nationals, but UK nationals are caught up in it as well. The majority of these cases are not relevant to those coming across on the boats; they are here. They have been trafficked, they are here and they are now involved in modern slavery, and they are possibly prepared to give evidence to the police in that regard. It could be sexual exploitation, or it could be criminal exploitation. When I was the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, we saw evidence of that with people brought over to stake their claims to benefits, and then they would disappear off, trafficked into brothels and various other places. I want to say that it is important that we distinguish between that and the issue of the boats. Many of those people are likely to have arrived in the UK illegally under the terms of this Bill, whether by small boat or lorry, or with leave obtained through deception such as false documents, including deception by their exploiter. Instead of being given temporary protection in the UK, these victims--under clause 21, as now amended by amendment 95--will be subjected to removal and detention under this Bill and denied access to the statutory 30-day recovery period of support for modern slavery victims. Victims will be driven even further underground--this is our fear and the fear of those who deal with them--by the fear of deportation and trapped in the arms of their abusers. Why would that be the case? The answer is simple. If one looks at the wording of clause 21, we see straightaway a clear shift in balance: it is left to the Secretary of State to judge whether victims are going to give evidence or are giving evidence that is relevant. Then there is Government amendment 95, which I am really concerned about. It shifts the whole rationale in the opposite direction. Instead of there being a judgment about that, under clause 21, it is clear that the premise of the Secretary of State's decision making is now reversed: "The Secretary of State must assume for the purposes of subsection 3(b) that it is not necessary for the person to be present in the United Kingdom to provide the cooperation in question unless the Secretary of State considers that there are compelling circumstances which require the person to be present in the United Kingdom for that purpose." I raised this point earlier. In doing that, "the Secretary of State must have regard to guidance issued by the Secretary of State." That looks to me like a bit of a closed advice section, which will come up with the same decision at the end of the day. Government amendment 95 amends clause 21, which we already had concerns about. Our amendment 4 gives protections. It exempts an individual from the Home Secretary's decision if the "relevant exploitation took place in the United Kingdom". That is critical, but even that now, it seems, becomes a problem because the reality is that the Secretary of State "must assume" it is not necessary for the person to be present in the UK to co-operate, which makes it even more difficult to exempt an individual in that position. I raised that point with the Minister for Immigration. It is very important that we look at this issue carefully. It may well be necessary for the other place to rectify that because it sends a terrible signal to anybody who is being exploited. They will be told by the traffickers, "Don't worry, they're going to kick you out regardless.  What's the point of even helping to give evidence, because we'll get you on the other side if you finger us?" That is what will happen.