Modern Slavery Bill

Baroness Young of Hornsey Excerpts

Monday 1st December 2014 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Young of Hornsey]

30: After Clause 4, insert the following new Clause—
“Legal liability for the beneficiaries of slavery
(1) The Secretary of State shall within six months of the coming into force of this Act make regulations to ensure that a person benefiting from an offence under section 1 or 2 of this Act committed by a third party shall have committed an offence where—
(a) the third party acted for that person’s benefit, and(b) that person’s lack of supervision or control made possible the committing of the offence by the third party.(2) Regulations under subsection (1) shall be made by statutory instrument and shall not be made unless a draft has been laid before and approved by each House of Parliament.”

[Baroness Young of Hornsey (CB)]

My Lords, first, I would like to thank Klara Skrivankova from Anti-Slavery International for her work on this issue. The proposed new clause requires the Secretary of State to bring forward measures along the lines set out in EU directive 2011/36/EU on preventing trafficking in human beings, which I mentioned at Second Reading a couple of weeks ago. The amendment is designed to penalise those individuals and companies that benefit from the use of slave labour in their business dealings. The amendment will make clear in the Bill that those businesses that benefit from slavery are legally liable and deemed to have committed an offence if a third party has acted for their benefit and that the third party’s offence was made possible due to a lack of control or supervision on the part of the person.

I shall give an example of what is meant here. In November 2012, the management of Carestel—a former motorway and airport caterer—was condemned by a Belgian court as accessory to the crimes of human trafficking and organised fraud. There were two defendants in the case. One was Charalampos who, as anticipated, did not appear in court. He has been awarded the contract to clean the petrol stations and directly employed the women involved. The other defendant was Carestel, which at the time was a substantial operator of motorway and airport services where the women were working. The conditions under which these eastern European women were employed as lavatory cleaners at petrol stations were all too shockingly familiar. They worked up to 17 hours a day, in appalling conditions and were paid well below the minimum wage at €3 an hour, all of which added up to what the court described as constituting modern slavery. Charalampos was accused of recruiting women on deficient contracts that allowed his company to circumvent Belgian employment laws, but, importantly in the context of this amendment, according to the prosecution he could not have continued his operation without the active co-operation of Carestel. So not only the subcontractor but also the main company was condemned, in spite of the latter’s defence of ignorance and in spite of it claiming not to have had any idea that its cleaners were trafficked and abused.

Of course we have Part 6 of the Bill and the transparency provisions are a good starting point, but without other provisions that would ensure penalties for non-compliance or for continually reporting that a company has made no improvement in its monitoring, it is hard to see how progressive change can be achieved in some businesses. There are no incentives for companies to work to improve conditions in the supply chain and, perhaps more tellingly, no deterrents or any actions that would discourage persistent attempts to thwart the intentions of Part 6. There is an absence of an enforcement mechanism in the transparency clauses too. This provision would reinforce the potential impact of the transparency provision, as would the civil liability clause to which we will come later.

In his letter to noble Lords responding to the issues raised about the Bill at Second Reading, the Minister stated:

“We expect compliance with this measure—

the transparency measure—

“to be driven mainly by consumer, investor and campaigner pressure. If businesses do not provide disclosures which demonstrate real action, it will be evident to both customers and shareholders who will apply pressure to the company to comply or do more”.

That is a fair question to ask of investors, shareholders and campaigners, who are categories of activists, but I am not sure that it is fair or realistic to expect hard-pressed consumers to track down the statements of all the companies that provide them with their goods and services. It would be a particularly onerous task for those who are enduring financial hardship, where their priority is to buy whatever is cheapest. When company executives begin to worry about being held liable, a real shift in attitudes and behaviour will occur.

At Second Reading, many noble Lords referred to the need to strengthen Part 6, which relates to transparency in the supply chain. This amendment would also be a safeguard for businesses that are trying to operate ethically and would give assurance that those that undercut them by drawing unfair advantage through using forced labour can be held liable. It is a measure designed to improve the ways in which we can, to appropriate the words of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation,

“disrupt the business of forced labour”,

and constitutes an effective step towards regulating slavery and forced labour out of the EU. I beg to move.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Bates) (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome this amendment as an opportunity to look at the financial proceeds of this wicked crime. We will deal with this in subsequent groups and amendments, and I have no doubt that we will return to it at various stages on the way through. Amendment 30 allows us to debate how the Modern Slavery Bill will ensure that committing modern slavery offences does not benefit the offenders or third parties who either benefit or look the other way when these crimes are committed. It would place a duty on the Secretary of State to make regulations to ensure that legal persons benefiting from modern slavery offences or whose lack of supervision makes them possible will have committed an offence.

I greatly welcome the opportunity presented by the amendment to debate the role of legal persons, such as companies, in modern slavery. We will return to that subject in more detail—in particular, as the noble Baroness referred to, when we come to the section on supply chains. It is absolutely right that companies who profit from modern slavery can be held responsible, so it is right that the offences in the Bill can be committed by all persons, including legal persons. That means they can be committed by companies provided that the usual legal principles of corporate criminal liability apply. As the noble Baroness mentioned, companies can also be held liable under the civil law —such as negligence and proceeds of crime legislation—where they benefit from modern slavery committed for their benefit. Therefore, companies that make money as a result of modern slavery committed for their benefit can be deprived of those profits and pursued for damages by the victims. Article 5.2 of the EU trafficking directive does not require legal persons to be criminally liable; liability for the commission of offences by third parties that occur as a result of lack of supervision can be criminal, civil or administrative.

We are confident that currently—and under the Modern Slavery Bill—we are fully compliant with the requirements of the trafficking directive around the liability of legal persons. We want to make sure that we recover the ill gotten gains of slave-masters and traffickers. That is why Clause 7 subjects those convicted of slavery and trafficking to the most robust available asset recovery regime. That element of recovery of assets was also a provision of the Serious Crime Bill, part of the Proceeds of Crime Act, and all those provisions will of course apply in the case of modern slavery. It is absolutely vital that modern slavery should be viewed as no different from any other organised criminal activity in that where we can obtain the proceeds of that—so that criminals do not see the profits—and use it to help the victims of these evil crimes, that is what the Government want to do. We are satisfied at this stage that the law provides for that, as currently drafted in the Bill, but we have listened very carefully to what the noble Baroness has said and we will continue to review this in the light of that. Perhaps, therefore, the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Young of Hornsey]

I thank the Minister for his reply and I am glad that he also said that this is still open to review. I agree with him that it complies to some extent with what we have to do and with all the other bits of legislation to which he has referred. However, it is a question that goes a bit wider than that and links it to the issue of transparency in the supply chain, which many people feel does not have any teeth—there are no sanctions and no real deterrence embedded in it. So to have something else in the Bill that would make a real statement about that would be very useful. None the less, I am happy to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 30 withdrawn.

Modern Slavery Bill

Baroness Young of Hornsey Excerpts

Monday 1st December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Butler-Sloss]

My Lords, I support Amendments 4, 7 and 101, which are government amendments. I am very happy to see Amendment 7 at the bottom of Clause 1, as it seems to make entirely clear the situation of consent in relation to children as well as to adults. I am also very pleased that under Amendments 4 and 101 it is made clear what a child is; that is, someone under the age of 18. That is a very useful bit of interpretation, so I strongly support the amendments. I think that I prefer Amendment 7 to Amendment 8, because Amendment 7 sets it out in rather more detail and therefore is preferable.

[Baroness Young of Hornsey (CB)]

I shall speak to Amendment 100, which is also in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee. As both she and the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, were speaking, it struck me that this is something to do with the inadequacy of language, which may be stopping us getting across what we mean in that amendment. When we refer to exploitation it is about this idea of the continuum so, for me, the key phrase is in subsection (1)(c) of its proposed new clause. It says,

“and in particular whether there should be an offence of exploitation which does not amount to slavery, servitude or forced or compulsory labour within section 1”.

Although I hesitate to use such a term, we have really been talking about slightly lower level criminal offences. Organisations such as FLEX, which the noble Baroness mentioned, say that those offences tend to slip through the gaps a bit because they are seen as being not quite serious enough to go the whole way with the kind of sentences that are being proposed, and so on. That is really where the amendment sits.

I take the point about the one year. That is fair enough, were we to institute the proposed new clause, although it is obviously a probing amendment. There is a specific set of problems around the continuum of the seriousness of offences. I am not aware whether evidence exists about the extent to which persistent perpetrators of the offences we are talking about then escalate their criminality into much more serious offences; it would be useful to know whether it does. If so, it would be worth concentrating some effort on trying to root out these slightly lower level crimes. I support the amendment mainly to get some response from the Government, so as to get a sense of where they think some of these other types of offences might sit in relation to the Bill as a whole.

Modern Slavery Bill

Baroness Young of Hornsey Excerpts

Monday 17th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Young of Hornsey (CB)]

My Lords, I hope that the Minister is as gratified as I am by the extent to which noble Lords have greeted the Bill. I very much welcome it, too. I hope that this bodes well, as we all want to work hard to do our best to improve it. It represents a major step forward through the consolidation of existing legislation and it is clear that it has so much support, not only within the House but in the other place and outside. It is very heartening to hear of such a strong consensus across so many organisations and individuals.

Both here and in the other place, the name of William Wilberforce is inevitably invoked in this context. There is an implied link between his work and the Government’s desire to establish the UK as world leaders in combating modern forms of slavery in all its ugly manifestations. But it is as well to reiterate that the abolition of the slave trade was not brought about by Wilberforce alone but by a broad-based, campaigning coalition of people across Britain and internationally. I imagine that the likes of Olaudah Equiano, Hannah More, Thomas Clarkson and William Wilberforce, as well as Mary Prince and the working people of Manchester who petitioned Parliament to abolish the trade in humans, would be rather disappointed that some 200 years later there are even more people subjected to the horrors of enslavement and so on than there were during those brutal centuries of the transatlantic trade. Likewise, I hope that we can recognise today the efforts and sacrifices made by all those who struggle daily against the horrible conditions which we are talking about and those individuals, organisations, companies and so on that stand beside them.

I hope your Lordships will forgive me if I repeat some of the points made earlier by other noble Lords. At this stage in the programme, it is hard to bring something original to the table but I will focus on two main areas where we could make some real improvements to the Bill and which other noble Lords have mentioned repeatedly.

First, on the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner, like several others I query whether the insertion of “Independent” into the title has made any difference to the way that the role will function. The recent report from the Joint Committee on Human Rights states that,

“there remain several provisions in or omissions from the Bill which mean that the Commissioner cannot be described as ‘independent’ in any meaningful sense”.

Paragraph 1.51 of its report lists six key indicators of the lack of independence in the role as it stands which, by and large, refer in one way or another to the relationship of the commissioner to the Secretary of State. They cover such things as: the lack of specificity with regard to the duration and conditions of the terms of employment; the commissioner’s lack of power to recruit his own staff; the fact that the commissioner may report only on what the Secretary of States wishes him to report on; the Secretary of State having to approve the commissioner’s strategic plans; the fact that the commissioner may be directed by the Secretary of State to redact or omit any part of his report deemed against the national interest before it is laid before Parliament; and the Secretary of State having the power to state which public bodies have a,

“duty to co-operate with the Commissioner”.

In conclusion, the JCHR locates the problem of the commissioner’s status in being “an adjunct” of the Home Office rather than part of the human rights machinery, which is a fair point.

Other critiques of the commissioner’s role include the lack of adequate monitoring. To echo the comments of several other noble Lords, particularly the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, and my noble friend Lord Patel, these concerns are about the remit of the commissioner being primarily focused on law enforcement but with little to say about how the interests of victims will be served by him other than through that route. Of course law enforcement is crucial but it needs to go hand in hand with the protection and support of victims, holding government and other bodies accountable for their performance and ensuring that policies are effective.

The commissioner should, then, be truly independent of the Government and free to decide the focus of their annual plan of activities and hire their own staff. They should: have the power to monitor the implementation of all policies relevant to modern forms of slavery; have statutory powers to collect and request data from a wide range of government and non-government agencies; be empowered to hold inquiries; and report directly to Parliament. These amendments to the role would then complement the models developed in Finland and the Netherlands, which are considered to be leaders in the field.

The second area I want to examine is Part 6, on reporting transparency in supply chains. Here, I declare my interest as chair of the APPG on Ethics and Sustainability in Fashion. I am also a patron of Anti-Slavery International and on the board of Cotton Made in Africa. The Government have listened to Members in the other place, as well as business and NGOs, and introduced Part 6 on transparency and mandatory disclosure of efforts of private and public companies to address the risks of modern slavery in supply chains. This is a really important step forward and, again, it is gratifying that the Government have listened and tried to do something about this issue. However, as other noble Lords have said, it really does not quite go far enough. For example, it still does not incorporate requirements provided for in EU directive 2011/36/EU,

“on preventing and combating trafficking in human beings and protecting its victims”.

The directive includes a requirement for each member state to establish jurisdiction for trafficking offences committed by one of its nationals and provides for the criminal liability of those who benefit from human trafficking in Article 5. This provision is already binding for the UK and its inclusion in the Bill would reinforce the transparency and supply chain provisions, and ensure that a mechanism is available to sanction those companies that choose modern forms of slavery as their business model.

As businesses’ supply chains extend into parts of the world with high levels of corruption and poor rule of law, so the probability increases that these supply chains will be rife with forced labour of one kind or another. This has been demonstrated by a number of organisations, including Anti-Slavery International, in relation to the forced labour of young women and girls in southern Indian textile manufacture. I am sure that many noble Lords will also be aware of how the Government of Uzbekistan derive an unfair advantage by the use of forced labour, forcing their citizens to abandon their jobs every year during harvest season and go to the fields to pick cotton. Thanks to international pressure there are fewer children involved in that forced labour, but there has been an unprecedented mobilisation of public sector workers in Uzbekistan. The UK needs to send a clear message to such countries that it is not acceptable to force their citizens to work in this way.

It has been said that consumers have a responsibility to pressure business to improve the situation in their supply chains. This is so, to some extent, but it is highly likely that the cotton in the clothes of many of us in the Chamber today will have been picked by forced labour. Who can tell? We do not know and have no real way of knowing. Such is the nature of supply chains that we can hardly ever be sure.

We can make Part 6 more effective, and the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of Cradley, and my noble friend Lady Cox have both made several suggestions on this issue with which I broadly agree. There needs to be more detail in the Bill, mainly to support business to adapt to this new legislation. A threshold of global turnover above which companies have to comply with Part 6 should be specified so that there is little room for pleas of ignorance or ambiguity. That is how the California Act works. There also need to be strong guidelines and the company’s reporting statement should be in a prominent place on the company’s website, not tucked away at the back, and in the company’s annual report.

Will the Minister clarify what, if any, consequences will arise from a company failing to produce a report, or consistently producing a report basically stating that the company has not sought to discover whether human rights abuses, in the form of forced labour, take place in its supply chain? Will he also clarify whether a person or individual can be prosecuted under any other section of the Bill for failure to address slavery or forced labour in their supply chain?

In conclusion, given the widespread support for the general principles of the Bill from all parts of your Lordships’ House, I hope that we will see the strongest possible legislation enacted. Virtually everybody who has spoken today has urged the Government to go further, not to pull back. I hope that, when amendments are tabled, the Government are open to listening and to strengthening this. Then, perhaps, we could start to think about claiming to be world leaders in the field.

Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Young of Hornsey Excerpts

Monday 2nd December 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee]

Part 5 of the Bill is about recovery of possession of dwelling-houses on grounds of anti-social behaviour. This amendment—and others in this group in my name—proposes that the court’s response should be proportionate and that this should be written into the legislation. I very much support the thrust of the amendments in this group in the name of the noble Baronesses, Lady O’Loan and Lady Young, which are more oppositionist than mine.

The draft guidance on the purpose of the new absolute—I emphasise that word—ground for possession says that it is,

“intended for the most serious cases of anti-social behaviour and landlords should ensure that the ground is used selectively.”

So it is an absolute ground but is to be used selectively. I am very uncomfortable with that. If it is to be used selectively, the legislation should make it clear that the absolute ground is not an absolute ground to be applied in every instance. The Joint Committee on Human Rights, which made this point in relation to exclusion from dwelling houses under other clauses, takes the view that reliance on the Human Rights Act, which the Government have prayed in aid, is not satisfactory when Parliament has the opportunity, as we do here, to define the test in the legislation.

Another group of amendments seeks to leave out the term “visiting” so that possession could not be sought on the basis of behaviour by someone who is visiting premises. Can the Minister be specific as to what may or may not be proportionate to fulfil the conditions in the grounds for possession of properties under various tenures—that is, possession of somebody else’s home—when the visitor may not even be a regular and frequent visitor but an occasional one? I would not be persuaded that the fact that someone was a regular and frequent visitor and behaved badly should be grounds for possession.

Amendment 56AE is a small amendment on the regulations about reviewing the requirements. Sometimes whether something “may” or “shall” be provided seems to be a matter of how you feel on the day and how the wind is blowing. I have always had a problem with understanding the term “may in particular” if it means that you must do something. Frankly, some of the Bill is hard enough without it being elliptical.

My noble friend Lord Greaves has tabled a number of amendments to these provisions, to which I will speak briefly. He seeks to change the term “locality” to “vicinity” and asks whether the term “locality” means the same as where it is used elsewhere in the legislation—for instance, with public spaces protection orders—and whether it is wider or narrower than “neighbourhood”. Of course, in any event, how appropriate is it here? His Amendments 56ACA and 56ABA on Clause 86 deal with conditions surrounding a breach of an IPNA which is not in the dwelling house or its locality, but which is capable of causing nuisance or annoyance to a resident or occupant of housing in the locality or to the landlord or manager. Therefore, as my noble friend says, something that could annoy outside the locality would fulfil the condition and allow possession to be obtained, and a person on his own with nobody else in sight might fulfil the words in the Bill. There would be considerable evidential problems if the person was on his own and nobody else could see it, but in terms of the strict wording he may be right.

Finally—as far as I am concerned—Amendment 56ADD would leave out Clause 87(8), which directs the tenant who needs help or advice about possession notice to,

“take it immediately to a Citizens’ Advice Bureau, a housing aid centre, a law centre or a solicitor”.

My noble friend queries whether it is appropriate to include a reference to the citizens advice bureaux in legislation. Of course, the very obvious questions here are about willing the ends by suggesting that a tenant should go there to seek help, but not willing the means to do so. I beg to move.

[Baroness Young of Hornsey (CB)]

My Lords, Amendments 56ADC and 56AL are in my name and that of my noble friend Lady O’Loan. As something urgent has come up, I am afraid that my noble friend cannot be here today. Essentially, I tabled these amendments in order to find out a bit more about what the Government see as the implications of Clauses 86 and 89. My understanding of the Government’s case is that they want to speed up the process of evictions from social housing in order to,

“better protect victims in the most serious cases of anti-social behaviour and criminality”.

I am sure that we would all support that.

The DCLG consultation described the proposed new measure on possession as limited to cases of proven,

“serious housing-related anti-social behaviour”,

which suggests that there would be limited application of these clauses rather than using them as a way of increasing the number of evictions. It would be helpful if the Minister could clarify this point because only one of the triggers for mandatory possession in this section relates to a conviction for seriously violent crime. The other triggers relate to breaches of injunctions or criminal behaviour orders.

Given the high rate of breaching of ASBOs over the years of approaching 58%—of that figure, another 43% of all ASBOs issued have been breached more than once—there does not seem to be proportionality in these sanctions. Where is the discretion to allow for different circumstances and for the fact that approximately seven in 10 children breach their ASBO, often due to lack of support or organisation rather than calculated non-compliance? It seems that this proposed new power must inevitably lead to a rise in evictions. If this is not the Government’s intention, will the Minister tell the Committee how the Government will prevent such a rise? These clauses could have very severe implications for under-18s. It will affect children who have done nothing wrong but who have had the bad luck to share a dwelling with somebody who has. The clauses could also be deemed detrimental to the children and young people who do breach or offend.

I am concerned in particular that children will suffer. There do not appear to be many, or any, safeguards. Therefore children will suffer due to the impact of, potentially, one person’s behaviour, especially as a family evicted on these grounds may be deemed to have made themselves intentionally homeless—that is, of course, what the amendment seeks to address—and are thus unlikely to be rehoused in comparable accommodation in their neighbourhood. How does this sanction address the underlying causes of anti-social behaviour? Surely making a whole family homeless due to the behaviour of one family member, or indeed a visitor, is both a both a double punishment and counterproductive. My understanding is that even if mandatory eviction would not amount to a breach of the human rights convention, it is still a public policy proposal that doubly punishes the most vulnerable families in our society. A mandatory requirement for the judge to order possession removes all but the bare minimum of judicial discretion in deciding whether or not an individual or a family is to be evicted.

Can the Minister explain how it is desirable that by the simple act of having a visitor in a dwelling place, a family might be made homeless? How is someone supposed to know that a visitor has breached an ASBO? How will these clauses be policed and monitored? I am particularly concerned that care leavers, who may be helped through the allocation of a local authority flat when they leave care, often find it difficult to prevent local drug dealers or other undesirable elements subject to ASBOs entering their property and sometimes settling in for a long stay. What would the consequences be for a young person in this position who felt bullied into providing accommodation for someone in breach of an ASBO?

[Lord Deben]

My Lords, I hope that my noble friend will be very careful about not accepting the amendment for a very important reason. The noble Baroness talked about the most vulnerable people in society. From my experience as a Member of Parliament, the most vulnerable people I ever came across were decent families whose whole lives had been made totally unacceptable by their neighbours. I am afraid it is one of the facts of life that up till now no measures have been introduced that have dealt with this issue. Unless these measures are very serious, these people will go on suffering, not just for a year or two but very often for whole lifetime. The situation is remarkably regular; it is not one of those things that happens occasionally. Indeed, I fear that it has become more likely today than it was when I first started being a Member of Parliament 40 years ago.

Slavery

Baroness Young of Hornsey Excerpts

Thursday 18th October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

I heard a voice say, “A good question”, and it is indeed a good question. It is an abuse that is a form of slavery, which this Government cannot tolerate. Let us be clear; this is not an easy area. Those involved in trafficking can be cunning and deceitful, and there is widespread use of false documents and fraudulent job offers. We need to be clever in the way in which we handle the issue, which is why we are using information and intelligence to catch these people and why cross-agency interaction is so important.

[Baroness Young of Hornsey]

My Lords, can the Minister tell the House whether his department has any intention of introducing independent monitoring to make sure that the cutting of red tape in small businesses and commercial organisations does not impact on the progress that we have made so far in cutting down trafficking and slavery?

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

I am the Minister in the Home Office responsible for the red tape challenge, so I will bear that point in mind. It is a challenge within the Home Office because, in essence, we are a regulatory department. We would want to do nothing that made the risk of human trafficking the greater.

Queen’s Speech

Baroness Young of Hornsey Excerpts

Tuesday 15th May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Young of Hornsey]

My Lords, I am glad to follow the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Hudnall, this afternoon, as she laid out some key concerns of the arts and cultural sector which I share. In particular, I share her disappointment at an apparent lack of interest or understanding of arts and culture. I am particularly disappointed by the sense of a lack of a strategic approach; of any sense of what is expected of the sector, where it is meant to be going and what lies in store for us. However, in my contribution to the debate on the gracious Speech, I want to draw attention to the role of culture in relation to the concept of well-being, with specific reference to older people.

I would like to thank Mark O’Neill, the director of policy and research at Culture and Sport Glasgow, and Janis Grant, project manager for the Mental Health Foundation’s Age Well project, for their help in providing information for my comments. The Mental Health Foundation established a panel of inquiry in 2010, which I have had the pleasure and privilege of chairing, to investigate the challenges to mental well-being that people born between 1945 and 1955 are likely to face as they age; and to explore what can be done to protect and enhance mental well-being for that cohort.

State funding of culture began on the basis of a Victorian intuition that new institutions were needed to replace earlier forms of community life which had been undermined by industrialisation, migration to cities and rapid population growth. There is now significant medical evidence that the institutions they created have had the intended effect. Cultural participation makes a positive and measurable contribution to human well-being. These studies conclude that public investment in cultural services is an essential element in a preventive public health strategy.

Culture has been particularly important in defining the so-called baby boomers: the first generation to be raised on television, influenced by advertisements and have their own record players, transistor radios and so on. They were key to creating popular culture in all its manifestations: fashion, music, dance, youth culture, talent shows, theatre, film and so on. As the cohort grows older it will continue to look to existing, emerging and as yet unthought-of cultural forms for stimulating leisure activities through a range of different media, including the internet and social media. The recent government public health White Paper Healthy Lives, Healthy People defines well-being as,

“a positive physical, social and mental state … Good well-being does not just mean the absence of mental illness—it brings a wide range of benefits, including reduced health risk behaviour … reduced mortality, improved educational outcomes and increased productivity at work”.

Mental well-being means that people can enjoy their later years and cope with some of the challenges that growing older brings. Cultural activities are an essential element in a society that promotes well-being, because well-being is concerned with fostering positive activity that enables people to flourish. An objective of the Age Well project is to examine the ways that the various media impact on the mental well-being of baby boomers, through reflecting their interests and needs and looking at how they might provide a better balance between the positive and the more challenging aspects of growing older.

Culture and the arts can affect mental well-being in many ways. Participation in cultural events can contribute to social cohesion, reduce isolation and loneliness, and support initiatives that develop understanding between generations—an increasingly important issue in the context of an ageing society and diminishing resources. Cultural activity can contribute to skills development and lifelong learning, help to sustain vibrant communities and grow the economy. Culturally enriching experiences increase appreciation of aesthetics, cultural artefacts, historic and global performance traditions, and historic buildings. I should declare an interest as an English Heritage commissioner.

Fostering this appreciation can develop a sense of meaning, continuity and connection for individuals, families and communities, and a confident curiosity about the world. These qualities are especially important during times of rapid and difficult change. That is why it is essential that local and national government promote them and contribute to the funding of arts and culture. Since 1996 more than 15 large-scale epidemiological studies, published in, for example, the British Medical Journal, have found evidence that cultural attendance improves health so much that people actually live longer. This is not about art therapy or even taking part in creative activities, but simply about going to concerts, museums, art galleries or the cinema. The findings of the original study have been confirmed, and key issues such as causality and effect have been tested and addressed.

As the population age balance changes and more people live for longer, if they do so with high levels of mental well-being, they are more likely to experience less mental illness, better physical health and reduced use of health and care services. They will live not just longer but better-quality lives. In an ageing society and with greater focus on increasing the quality of life post-retirement, there is a need to provide enriching, meaningful and stimulating activity which can be enjoyed in later life. Cultural and leisure services provided by local authorities have in the past done this on a large scale. We will see what impact the cuts have on that activity in future. However, there is no doubt that these services will become increasingly important. Sustained public funding for arts and culture at all levels is essential to ensure that all citizens have access to cultural opportunities.

Human Trafficking (Further Provisions and Support for Victims) Bill [HL]

Baroness Young of Hornsey Excerpts

Friday 25th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Young of Hornsey]

My Lords, I, too, express my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord McColl of Dulwich, for seeking to make legislative provision for measures both to combat human trafficking and to provide appropriate support for its victims. I declare an interest as a patron of Anti-Slavery International; the long history of that organisation reiterates the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, that trafficking in one form or another is, sadly, not a recent but a centuries-old phenomenon. What is relatively new, however, is the multifaceted, cross-border nature of it. Organisations such as ECPAT UK, CARE and Stop the Traffik, which several noble Lords have already mentioned, would like to see more vigorous action on the part of the Government to identify, combat, and prevent human trafficking, particularly in relation to child victims, which is where I will focus my brief remarks today. I thank those organisations for their informative briefings.

I want to draw particular attention to the plight of children who are trapped and caught up in the various forms of this odious, illegal practice. It is hard to accept the fact that there are those who seek to use children for sexual exploitation, domestic servitude, forced labour, benefit fraud and involvement in criminal activity such as pick-pocketing, theft, begging and working in cannabis farms. Tragically, however, that is what is happening, as a recent report from the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre demonstrates. Of course, the very nature of this activity means that it is hard to give the precise numbers of children involved, but the level of the problem is indicated by the data collated by CEOP.

Of the 202 children trafficked so far this year, more than a quarter were destined for sexual exploitation—with the majority being girls, of course. The data also show the international nature of this trafficking into the UK; my noble and learned friend Lady Butler-Sloss has already given a sense of that. She mentioned that 67 children were trafficked from Africa, 29 of whom were from one country, Nigeria. Again, they were mostly female and sexually exploited. We have trafficking from Asia, from eastern Europe, from western Europe, from South America and from the Caribbean. It is indeed a global trade. John Cameron, head of the NSPCC's helpline, is quoted as saying:

“The gangs who bring these vulnerable children into the UK are highly organised and ruthless. The trafficking is often carried out like a military operation with victims being taken through several countries and passed along a line of criminal ‘agents'. Even if the children are intercepted by the authorities and put into care they are frequently tracked down again by the people exploiting them and spirited away to a slave-like existence”.

The noble Lord, Lord McColl, has already pointed to statistics from CEOP which reveal that in the UK approximately one-third of the 942 children identified as victims of trafficking went missing from local authority care. A number of noble Lords also referred to that fact. It is clear that the Government want to combat child trafficking—I have no doubt about that—as do local authorities and child protecting agencies. But the fact that even when a child is supposed to be in a safe place, they are not secure means that we are failing and that something is not working. If, over the course of three years, 301 children can go missing from local authority care provision—an average of around two every week—we can only imagine how many others without even that level of protection might be disappearing every week of the year.

I am aware that there have been a number of exchanges between concerned NGOs, such as those I mentioned earlier, and the Government about the issue of guardians for these most vulnerable victims of trafficking. Members of your Lordships’ House may be aware that the Prime Minister does not currently feel there is a need for such a system as, in a letter to ECPAT UK, he wrote,

“we believe that existing arrangements for children are comprehensive—and that introducing a further professional … would be unhelpful”.

This approach is disputed by the majority of organisations working in this field and, indeed, by the majority of noble Lords this afternoon.

ECPAT UK believes that a system of guardianship is essential to ensure the safety and well-being of child victims of trafficking. It would minimise the risk of child victims of trafficking becoming “the disappeared”, help to break the connection to their traffickers and provide a base for a long and difficult journey to something approaching recovery. ECPAT has also reported that young people who themselves have been in these situations say that such a system would have helped them to improve their life chances.

While I support the overarching principles of this human trafficking Bill, particularly on the matter of guardianship, I am also concerned about other strategies being deployed to prevent these wretched, illegal forms of child exploitation. A system of guardianship and an independent rapporteur, as suggested in the Bill, would be helpful in preventing children falling into a cycle of repeated exploitation, but what other measures are being taken to prevent trafficking in the first place?

Poverty and the lack of education and opportunity that many families experience in developing countries mean that parents and children alike can be tricked into thinking that the trafficker is leading these children towards a prosperous, happy life overseas. A basic desire to improve their situation makes these families vulnerable to the blandishments of such criminals.

Poverty is obviously a big issue and, as has already been suggested, will not be solved overnight. However, what steps are the Government taking to work with Governments and NGOs from the countries that are the source of many of the trafficked children who end up in the UK to raise awareness of the real dangers that they may face? Raising awareness of the realities of what will most likely happen to their children is one way of protecting vulnerable families. So is supporting NGOs in the UK in their efforts to educate communities here about children’s and women’s rights.

I mentioned earlier some of the countries from which children are consistently trafficked into Britain. A substantial number come from east Africa and Nigeria. AFRUCA, which stands for Africans Unite against Child Abuse, was formed in 2001 specifically to address the issue of all kinds of abuse of African children. This culturally specific organization has insider knowledge of some of the cultural traditions and beliefs that have led to children coming here from the continent and being subjected to harm. It organises activities, information-spreading, education and advisory services. I agree with World Vision, which recommends that the UK Government should work with African and other affected communities in the UK and with organisations such as AFRUCA.

It is important to conduct rigorous research on best practice, methods and strategies to identify and raise awareness of demand as the root cause of trafficking, something that the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, alluded to. That should also be a priority.

Child Trafficking

Baroness Young of Hornsey Excerpts

Thursday 9th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Browning]

My noble friend is quite right. The number of children in inappropriate care, resulting in children who have been identified as being trafficked going missing, is a very serious problem on which we must bear down. My noble friend mentioned CEOP. I hope that she will take comfort that CEOP will have a new role in this area. It will provide a national focus on the issue of missing children, and its role will in particular include education and training for the police; supporting police operations through targeted research and analysis; operational support for forces in searching for missing children; and ensuring that co-ordination arrangements and capability are placed to manage complex or high-profile missing cases. I would expect the new, enhanced role of CEOP in this area to address some of the problems which my noble friend mentioned, which are serious and need addressing urgently.

[Baroness Young of Hornsey]

Will the Government undertake to set up a system of cross-checking custody documents to ensure that those who purport to have legal custody of children actually do so?

[Baroness Browning]

My Lords, I can give that assurance. It is something that we are already looking at. As a new Minister, I had my initial briefing from the UK Border Agency. One of the first questions I asked was: what happens at passport control for children coming into this country who are not accompanied by a parent? Of course, there are quite legitimate reasons why children would come in from overseas with an adult relative, but we are aware of some of the case histories—the Victoria Climbié case comes to mind in particular. It is very difficult to say how we address in the short term the passport arrangements for other countries, but we should focus on it to ensure that we pick up those children at that early stage, at the border when they come into this country, rather than later when so much damage has been done.