Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill

Lord McColl of Dulwich Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 16th September 2020 Lords Chamber

Amendment 81 provides a means for assessing whether each facet of the new immigration system meets this commitment to prevent trafficking and, crucially, allows Parliament to scrutinise the assessment. It will ensure that the risks to the most vulnerable of all workers are considered at the outset of developing new immigration policies and provides a way for the Government to put flesh on the bones of their July policy statement commitment to protecting individuals from modern slavery. For all those reasons, I commend Amendment 81 to the Committee.

[Lord McColl of Dulwich (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I speak in support of Amendment 81 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Morrow. The noble Lord is to be commended for the work he did in the Northern Ireland Assembly to bring about new legislation on human trafficking and modern slavery. In particular, I greatly admire his determination that his legislation should include measures to protect and support victims, something that is sadly lacking in our Modern Slavery Act for victims in England and Wales.

I support Amendment 81 to ensure that any future changes that are made to the Immigration Rules using the powers in Clause 4 should be assessed for their impact on victims of modern slavery, in large part because it appears to me that, thus far, there has been insufficient consideration of the impact of the changes to the immigration system on victims of modern slavery.

As I said on Day 1 in Committee, any changes as part of the Brexit process that result in victims of modern slavery having fewer protections than they had prior to 1 January 2021

“would damage the integrity of the Brexit project in a way that is unthinkable.”—[Official Report, 7/9/20; col. 615.]

In introducing this important amendment, the noble Lord, Lord Morrow, spoke very movingly of how changes to free movement could lead to more exploitation for potential victims of trafficking, unless the Government are proactive in addressing this issue. It is indeed ironic that the current proposal means that a significant portion of EEA nationals who are victims of modern slavery would lose access to the very thing that, as recently as July this year, the Centre for Social Justice pointed out is of central importance to victims’ recovery, namely recourse to public funds.

In approaching Amendment 81 and the concern about the erosion of the rights of victims of trafficking on 1 January 2021, it is important to pick up the issue by reflecting on the Minister’s response to my Amendment 7, which addressed concern about the loss of rights on 1 January 2021. That response will help us to see the true significance of Amendment 81, for reasons that I shall explain.

In his response to that amendment, the Minister made it plain that the Government are unable to say precisely which directly effective rights under the anti-trafficking directive will be retained as part of domestic law and which will be lost on 1 January. On reading Hansard, I now recognise—contrary to what I said in response at the time—that this means it is still entirely possible that on 1 January there will be a reduction in the number of directly effective rights available to confirmed victims of human trafficking in the United Kingdom. I find it disturbing that the Government should acknowledge the fact that, in some respects, the rights of victims may be lost in such a way when we could use our sovereignty to ensure that there is no loss of rights.

Amendment 81 would help us to avoid such a situation in future by requiring the Government to make a specific assessment of the impact on victims of modern slavery of any further changes to the Immigration Rules. This will simply provide a check on the development of future regulations that might make the present situation worse. Knowledge that any such regulations will be checked against this standard—namely that they should not undermine the rights of victims of trafficking—creates a positive incentive proactively to develop legislation in favour of the best interests of victims of human trafficking. Indeed, subjecting ourselves to this discipline would give particular legitimacy to efforts to develop regulations that will offset some of the negative consequences of what will otherwise happen to victims of modern slavery on 1 January 2021.

In the absence of Amendment 81, it is as yet unclear what immigration status will be available to victims of modern slavery from the EEA and what access they will have to benefits, housing and other support services once they have exited the NRM. Unless they are among the lucky few to be granted discretionary leave, it seems likely that they will no longer have the access to these services that they have today. In 2015, just 12% of victims were given this special discretionary leave to remain. Unfortunately, despite submitting a Written Question in March, I have been unable to obtain up-to-date statistics from the Home Office.

I have also been advised that in the next few months there is something of an impossible choice for victims of modern slavery as to whether to apply for pre-settled status, which may in the long run provide greater support but in the short term does not give full access to benefits and other services and can prevent them being able to apply for special discretionary leave. It is these sorts of negative consequences that Amendment 81 seeks to avoid, which is why it has my support.

Rather than viewing the present situation as a great problem, we should see it as an opportunity. I encourage us to look beyond merely identifying risks and seek to set a bold new direction for supporting victims of modern slavery. The Government have the opportunity to inaugurate the post-Brexit era by asking Parliament to use its sovereignty to create a legal framework whereby we reject the possibility of victims having lesser legal protections than they do today—and indeed the notion that we should simply ensure that the legal rights of victims under Brexit are identical to the legal rights under the EU—and to enhance the rights of confirmed victims by adopting the Modern Slavery (Victim Support) Bill that I sponsored with the right honourable Sir Iain Duncan Smith.

This Bill, which amends the Modern Slavery Act, is particularly important in the context of England and Wales, for which there is no statutory obligation in the Act to provide support for victims. Among other things, it is developed to prevent retrafficking and to foster an environment that makes it easier for victims to give evidence in court, in the interests of increasing convictions. The Bill offers all confirmed victims in England and Wales a minimum of 12 months’ support to help them rebuild their lives.

This would demonstrate that Brexit is something with a moral purpose, something of which we can be proud and that enables us to shape the future and lead the world, in line with previous expressions of our sovereignty in abolishing the transatlantic slave trade in 1807 and slavery itself in 1833—achievements that have been generative of modern British identity.

Rather than viewing the present situation as a great problem, we should see it as an opportunity. I encourage us to look beyond merely identifying risks and seek to set a bold new direction for supporting victims of modern slavery. The Government have the opportunity to inaugurate the post-Brexit era by asking Parliament to use its sovereignty to create a legal framework whereby we reject the possibility of victims having lesser legal protections than they do today—and indeed the notion that we should simply ensure that the legal rights of victims under Brexit are identical to the legal rights under the EU—and to enhance the rights of confirmed victims by adopting the Modern Slavery (Victim Support) Bill.

My Bill passed very quickly through this House in the last Parliament with the help of the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, who was a tremendous support. There is no reason why it should not do so again and pass through the Commons, if the Government seize this strategic opportunity that now presents itself. I hope that at the very least, the Government might agree to meet me and Sir Iain to discuss the Bill’s merits in the context of what will otherwise happen to victims of modern slavery on 1 January.

[Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I first repeat my interest in the register as a vice-chairman of trustees of the Human Trafficking Foundation. I support Amendment 81 and commend the noble Lord, Lord Morrow, on bringing it forward and on his work on anti-trafficking and modern slavery, as we have heard. I think I read somewhere that it was hearing of the plight of a Romanian woman that set the noble Lord out on this admirable path. Similarly, every time I meet victims or survivors, it just makes me want to do more to help their lot; I believe that is not an uncommon experience. I also commend the noble Lords, Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown and Lord Alton of Liverpool, and my noble friend Lord McColl of Dulwich on their speeches. I particularly congratulate my noble friend Lord McColl and commend his excellent Private Member’s Modern Slavery (Victim Support) Bill, which we have heard about. I hope the Government can find time for his Bill or, even better, absorb it into a government Bill.

Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill

Lord McColl of Dulwich Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 9th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendments 15, 16 and 17. These amendments take us back to the very wide provisions in Clause 4, on which we spent a good deal of time on Monday, when we debated the problems of a skeleton Bill and the reports of your Lordships’ Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee and Constitution Committee. From those respective committees, the noble Lords, Lord Blencathra and Lord Pannick, applied their different but devastating critiques. My noble friend Lord Beith asked the pertinent question about what instructions had been given to the drafters of these provisions. After all, responsibility to give instructions lies with Ministers.

Had the Minister accepted the earlier amendments to Clause 4, particularly those changing “appropriate” to “necessary” and deleting the phrase “in connection with”, some of the ground would have been taken from under my feet. However, she did not and it was not; nor was the insertion of the term “only” in subsection (3)—that is, “may only make provision”—accepted.

Subsection (3) purports to explain subsection (1). The power to make regulations includes powers as listed in paragraphs (a) and (b). It does not limit those powers but just gives examples, and all my amendments seek to omit words from this clause. The first concerns the term “supplementary”. Why is it necessary to make “supplementary” provision as well as provision that is “incidental” and “in consequence of”?

The second amendment would omit the term “transitory”. I would be interested to know what is meant by the term in this context. It must mean something different from “transitional” because it sits alongside that term. It is a narrative word that I would have expected to read in a piece of fiction rather than in legislation.

Amendment 16 would take out paragraph (b), which gives the power

“to make different provision for different purposes.”

I am very familiar with this phrase; it may mean bringing provisions in at different times or for different jurisdictions and so on. However, my antennae were well up by the time I got to Clause 4(3)(b), and I would be grateful if the Minister would share with the House the different purposes that may be required, particularly in a Bill so urgent that it needs to come into effect very quickly. I can see that it may be important to bring some provisions in as soon as the Bill becomes an Act and others—particularly with regard to the settled status scheme—at a later date. However, it would be helpful to have her comments on this.

Amendment 17 would leave out subsection (4) as a whole. The amendments to this subsection had already been dismissed and one begins to wonder whether it is necessary at all, but opposing this provision will be a good summary of our concern about what are, to our eyes, its many flaws. I beg to move.

[Lord McColl of Dulwich (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I speak to Amendment 15. Clause 4 gives the Government substantial powers to make decisions about the future regulation of immigration without clarity about what these might be and what justifies such a wide power. Of course, we recognise that there needs to be an ability to do some tidying up of associated legislation when a Bill is passed, but the consequential amendments are normally set out in a schedule with a tidying-up clause that picks up anything that has fallen through the gaps. This does not seem to be the case in this Bill.

In August, the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee said that this clause would

“confer permanent powers on Ministers to make whatever legislation they considered appropriate, provided there was at least some connection with Part 1, however tenuous”.

The committee was very clear that transitional arrangements to protect the legal rights of EEA citizens should appear in the Bill.

Last week, the Select Committee on the Constitution also made strongly worded recommendations on the Bill. It agreed with the Delegated Powers Committee’s concerns about Clause 4. Other noble Lords have already raised questions about phrases in this regulatory power. Amendment 15 is an attempt to understand why the Government need a power that makes transitory provisions, provisions that are not permanent. I hope the Minister will set out examples of what transitory provisions the Government consider might be needed.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, Amendments 14, 15 and 16 in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Hamwee and Lady Ludford, seek to bring more clarity to the powers that the Government are taking to make regulations, and that, for me, is a very good thing. As we have heard, words such as “supplementary” and “transition” and the phrase

“to make different provisions for different purposes”

are very unclear, wide-ranging and open to interpretation. These probing amendments today will give the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Trafford, the opportunity to add some clarity to the situation and set out for the record the intention and the scope of the powers that the Government are seeking from Parliament. As for Amendment 17, which would remove Clause 4(4), again an explanation from the Minister as to why the Government need the new power would be very welcome.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, made some very good points and made them very clearly. As she asked when referring to the noble Lord, Lord Beith, what instructions were given to the parliamentary draftspersons? We need to understand that because clarity is important when you are deciding on legislation. Without it you get yourself into all sorts of problems: courts can get involved and there can be all sorts of other difficulties. What we have been hearing from the other end of the Corridor—certainly the comments from the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland—about where we are going to be on certain things gives us particular worry. That is why clarity is so important. I look forward to the Minister putting the matter right for us.

Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill

Lord McColl of Dulwich Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 7th September 2020 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord McColl of Dulwich]

7: Schedule 1, page 8, line 35, at end insert—
“( ) The reference in sub-paragraph (1) to any other EU-derived rights, powers, liabilities, obligations, restrictions, remedies and procedures does not include a reference to any rights, powers, liabilities, obligations, restrictions, remedies and procedures arising under the EU Anti-Trafficking Directive (2011/36).”Member’s explanatory statement
This is a probing amendment to confirm the status of the EU Anti-Trafficking Directive under EU retained law and how it might be affected as a result of Schedule 1, paragraph 6.

[Lord McColl of Dulwich (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I have tabled Amendment 7 because, as I raised at Second Reading, there is a great deal of concern about the situation that will be faced by victims of modern slavery after the Brexit transition period concludes at the end of December. Other noble Lords raised this concern at Second Reading, including the noble Lords, Lord Morrow and Lord Randall, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Bristol, who has kindly added her name to my amendment, and the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, who was gracious enough to support the Private Member’s Bill in my name, to which I shall return later.

The Minister will know that I firmly support the Government’s aim of bringing immigration policy solely within the control of the UK Government and that leaving the EU should also mean that the UK is not bound by EU law, other than that which we have chosen to incorporate into domestic law. However, I was and remain a strong advocate for the content of the EU anti-trafficking directive which the Government agreed to adopt in 2011. Having left the EU, exercising our sovereignty does not compel us to make fewer provisions for victims of trafficking than those available under the directive. Indeed, I suggest that we should use this freedom to ensure that we have the very best provisions for victims of human slavery.

Since the Government opted into the directive, we have passed the excellent Modern Slavery Act 2015. However, that does not contain any provisions relating to immigration status or access to support or benefits for victims, something which my Private Member’s Bill, the Modern Slavery (Victim Support) Bill currently before the House, seeks to rectify.

The directive has filled this gap to a degree, since the direct effect of the EU directive in practice made it part of domestic law, unlike the statutory guidance and the Council of Europe anti-trafficking convention. The statutory guidance is valuable but does not have the force of law and can easily be changed; the convention creates obligations for the Government, but these are not rights which would take precedence over other UK law such as, for example, immigration law.

I hope noble Lords will bear with me as I detail some background to my amendment. In a nutshell, there is uncertainty about whether aspects of the directive remain part of what is known as EU retained law. If parts of the directive are retained EU law, it is also uncertain whether they could then be disapplied by this Bill under paragraph 6 of Schedule 1, because they conflict with immigration policy

On the first uncertainty—namely, whether rights under the anti-trafficking directive remain recognised and available in domestic law—the answer depends on whether rights under the directive fall within the relevant definitions in the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018. The key definition is set out in Section 4(2)(b) of the 2018 Act, which requires that the rights in question are

“of a kind recognised by the European Court or any court or tribunal in the United Kingdom”.

Given that definition, part of the problem associated with trying to understand whether rights will obtain after the end of this year is because, to my knowledge, the phrase “of a kind” has yet to be interpreted by the courts. The Explanatory Notes to the 2018 Act offer some assistance, indicating that where a UK or EU court has recognised rights arising under directly effective provisions of directives, these will remain in law, meaning that they

“could be relied upon by other individuals who are not parties to that case”.

What is less clear, however, is the status of other rights in the same directive that may meet the test for having direct effect but have not yet come before the court. Will these be “‘of a kind” with those other rights and be available in domestic law? Or, as the Explanatory Notes—but not the legislation itself—seem to imply, will those rights no longer be available simply because they will not yet have been tested in court?

The second area of confusion relates to those rights that do fall within the withdrawal Act definition and have been retained in domestic law. The issue here is the broad nature of the terms used in paragraph 6 of Schedule 1 to this Bill, which could see those retained rights being disapplied because they conflict with immigration policy. Since the majority of the victims of modern slavery in the UK are not British nationals, there is necessarily an intersection between immigration policy and the rights relating to the support and other treatment of those victims. It is the combination of these two uncertainties that compounds the risk for victims of trafficking.

Experts who support victims of modern slavery, including the Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association —the ILPA—have said that, in the light of the above concerns, some of the protections which may be lost include the

“protection against removal of a victim of trafficking because they never received sufficient support and assistance under Article 11, or because an investigation was never conducted, or the protection against removal during their reflection and recovery period.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

I am very happy to make that commitment to speak not just to my noble friend but also to the relevant Minister, Victoria Atkins, who I know is looking carefully at the legal framework here and will want to be sure that she has taken note of the contributions made this evening. I will pass them on to her and have that discussion.

[Lord McColl of Dulwich (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate, and I am very grateful to the noble Baroness and to the Minister himself. It is very encouraging. I think the gist of it is that victim support rights specifically within the directive will definitely be part of retained EU law. I am thankful for that, and beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 7 withdrawn.

Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill

Lord McColl of Dulwich Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 22nd July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord McColl of Dulwich (Con) [V]]

My concern is the interests of EEA citizens who are victims of human trafficking and exactly how their situation will change on 31 December. Hitherto, some EEA victims have been able to remain on the basis of treaty rights that will no longer exist. Even if the Government allow all EEA victims of human trafficking to be automatically considered for discretionary leave to remain, the criteria are tight.

On the basis of past experience, only a tiny portion of confirmed victims of human trafficking are likely to be granted leave to remain. The EEA cohort of victims of trafficking is therefore likely to experience a significant net reduction in access to public funds. This will have significant implications for UK rates of destitution and retrafficking, given that 39% of victims were EEA nationals as of 2019.

In this context, do the Government recognise the strategic significance of my Modern Slavery (Victim Support) Bill? As the noble Lord, Lord Morrow, mentioned, it is sponsored in another place by Sir Iain Duncan Smith. It provides confirmed victims of slavery a minimum of 12 months’ support to help them rebuild their lives, avoiding destitution and retrafficking with all its associated costs and trauma. It will also greatly assist the conviction of traffickers by making it much easier for all victims to think about giving evidence in court.

The Government deserve great credit for their commitment in dealing with human trafficking and slavery, and I am particularly grateful that they adopted my first anti-trafficking and slavery Bill after your Lordships kindly passed it in this House. I therefore look forward to their adoption of my second Modern Slavery (Victim Support) Bill, as kindly mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Morrow.

Domestic Violence

Lord McColl of Dulwich Excerpts

Tuesday 5th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

We are reaching out to everybody. I cannot say for certain about faith groups, but I can certainly get him some information about that. One of the things that was first and foremost on my mind and that of other Ministers was the danger to women, mostly, and children who are locked up with their perpetrator for what has now been nearly seven weeks.

[Lord McColl of Dulwich (Con)]

My Lords, as most cases of domestic violence are known to the neighbours, should we not encourage them to inform the police about repeated episodes in order to reduce this terrible crime?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I totally understand that point. This has been on our radar, and we have engaged with police and communities. Neighbours can set up silent codewords with potential victims, which is one way that people can communicate with each other in these very stifling times during lockdown. That will certainly help the police, who are engaging with high-risk victims and perpetrators during this time.

Modern Slavery (Victim Support) Bill [HL]

Lord McColl of Dulwich Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 8th September 2017 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord McColl of Dulwich]

That the Bill be now read a second time.

[Lord McColl of Dulwich (Con)]

My Lords, this Bill is an essential addition to the Modern Slavery Act, a measure which has already been a great success thanks to the support of many people, not least the Prime Minister herself. I shall begin with a brief overview of what my Bill does before moving on to explain why I believe these new measures are necessary.

My Bill would amend the Modern Slavery Act with two primary effects. First, proposed new Section 48A would put into law victims’ entitlement to support during the reflection and recovery period, while the competent authorities are deciding whether there is evidence that they have been a victim of modern slavery. Secondly, new Section 48B would create a statutory duty to provide confirmed victims of modern slavery with ongoing support and leave to remain for a period of 12 months. New Section 48C sets out the main types of assistance and support that would be provided to victims, and stipulates key aspects of how that support is to be provided.

In April, the Home Secretary wrote:

“We must be better at getting immediate support to victims when they are at their most vulnerable. Otherwise they just slip through the net, to be abused all over again, and we lose any opportunity to gain information on the criminals who exploited them in the first place … We also want to make sure that victims are able to rebuild their lives. Our aspiration to help these people is in the right place—but at present, the provision of support may yet not be”.


With this, I agree entirely. My Bill provides a way to make these aspirations a reality by putting the principles for victim support into legislation.

The UK is a signatory to the Council of Europe convention and EU directive which require us to provide support when a victim is first identified, during the so-called reflection and recovery period. My Bill ensures that there is no doubt that victims should receive these international rights by creating a legal framework with minimum standards. This will provide certainty for victims and for the organisations that support them.

The treaty-monitoring body for the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking, known as “GRETA”, urged the UK Government,

“to enshrine in law … the right to a recovery and reflection period”,

in its first report on the UK in 2012 and repeated this recommendation in October 2016.

Victim support rights are also included in the EU directive. Your Lordships will remember, possibly, that I was a strong proponent of the EU anti-trafficking directive when it was being developed. I was pleased when the Government opted into the directive, and more so when the Modern Slavery Bill was introduced. However, although the Modern Slavery Act has brought into national law most of the directive’s provisions, it does not include the measures which guarantee support for victims. It is uncertain at present what the status of the directive will be once the UK has left the EU; presumably, its provisions will no longer have effect. This lack of clarity creates risks for victims which should not be entertained.

Scotland and Northern Ireland have introduced a legal duty to provide support to victims while the NRM decision is being made. It cannot be right that victims in England and Wales have fewer protections than those in Scotland and Northern Ireland. My Bill will create equality of access by setting out a clear approach to caring for victims in England and Wales through Brexit and beyond.

My Bill will also ensure that we have consistent standards of support. New Section 48C sets out clearly what support and services victims should have access to and establishes standards for their provision. For example, assistance should be provided only with a person’s consent and should be based on the individual’s particular needs. These minimum levels of support are all drawn from our international obligations.

I turn now to an issue which has come to prominence over the past year: the support available to victims following a positive conclusive grounds decision. Front-line agencies are advising us that the current system is not meeting our objectives to recover victims and protect them from further exploitation. As the anti-slavery commissioner has said:

“Supporting a potential victim until the conclusive decision is made and then ceasing support so abruptly could be damaging for the victim and negatively affect their recovery”.


Ending support just 14 days after the NRM decision without establishing access to services and suitable housing for the following period puts victims at risk and interrupts their recovery. Research by the Human Trafficking Foundation found that,

“the current options for housing and support in the post safe house period are not sufficient for survivors of modern slavery. If there is no effective strategy to prevent re-victimisation then generational cycles of abuse and exploitation of vulnerable people may continue unabated.”

Front-line support agencies have highlighted cases where confirmed victims are destitute and sleeping on the streets, are refused access to welfare benefits or housing, and have then engaged in prostitution because they were not entitled to any form of support. The anti-slavery commissioner raised these concerns with the Work and Pensions Committee in another place last year. The committee inquiry report which followed highlighted that despite its other achievements, the Modern Slavery Act did not secure a pathway for the victims’ recovery. The committee went on to recommend that,

“all confirmed victims of modern slavery be given at least one year’s leave to remain with recourse to benefits and services … this would allow time for victims to receive advice and support, and give them time to plan their next steps. This would not prevent those who wish to return home from doing so”.

A similar recommendation has been made by the GRETA report, which urged the UK authorities to,

“make further efforts to ensure that all victims of trafficking are provided with adequate support and assistance, according to their individual needs, beyond the 45-day period covered by the NRM”.

The committee recognised that not only is there a moral case for providing longer support, but that doing so also benefits the criminal justice system, because providing support can help to bring the perpetrators of these terrible crimes to justice. The anti-slavery commissioner told the committee that victims are often the best source of intelligence and that they would be deterred from even coming forward and making accusations against their abusers if they believed they would not be supported.

Victims are vulnerable, often fearful of reprisals from their traffickers and anxious about the future. If they are not given guarantees of housing and food, and access to other support, how can we expect them to feel secure enough to provide information about the people who abuse them? Yet without their input, it may be impossible to bring successful prosecutions against the criminals who perpetrate these horrible crimes.

The Government will no doubt wish to highlight that there are options for longer-term support through the existing discretionary leave to remain, which I shall refer to as DLR, for which confirmed victims of modern slavery can apply. However, there is significant evidence that many victims are falling through the gaps of this scheme, because of three key problems.

First, DLR is available only in three narrowly defined circumstances, one of which, known as “compelling personal circumstances”, is given a much narrower interpretation than that in the Explanatory Note to the Council of Europe convention. In all, just 123 of the victims positively identified as victims of trafficking in 2016 were granted discretionary leave to remain.

Secondly, because DLR is not automatically available for every victim, a separate process must be instigated, which can begin only after the conclusive grounds decision. The anti-slavery commissioner has said:

“This significantly delays the process, and ultimately pushes victims onto the streets while they await a decision on their DL application”.


Although safe houses can ask for an extension to the victim’s stay pending this decision, that extension is not always granted. This cannot be acceptable.

Thirdly, the process of applying for DLR varies for different victims and in different circumstances, which leads to confusion, of course. Where the application is being made because a victim is helping police with their investigations, the police must make the application. Sadly, it seems not all police forces are aware of this responsibility. One charity told the Work and Pensions Committee:

“Investigating police forces are not well versed in immigration matters and often do not know what DL means let alone how to apply for it or that they are responsible for this application”.


Even if forces are aware, processing the application takes time away from the investigative role that the police are uniquely tasked with. I suggest to the Minister that we would do better to relieve the police of that responsibility by giving all victims the option of a limited period of leave automatically, as my Bill does.

I will take a moment here to stress that my Bill provides only a limited period of leave. It does not provide an automatic grant of indefinite leave to remain. Indeed, I would not support such an open-ended commitment. The Bill provides a 12-month period for victims’ rehabilitation, not permanent residency. The possibility and length of any extension is at the discretion of the Secretary of State.

I know the Government have expressed concern that giving all confirmed victims automatic DLR would create a “pull factor” for traffickers or false claims. However, the Work and Pensions Committee rightly said:

“It is not clear … how such a pull factor would operate”,


and that it is,

“unsubstantiated by evidence”.

Traffickers do not exploit people with the aim that they should escape and receive benefits.

Moreover, the NRM is designed to filter out such fraud, and it is expert at so doing. The suggestion that automatic DLR might lead to a greater number of false referrals to the NRM forgets that a victim cannot self-refer. It is not in the interests of the professional first responders who make NRM referrals to knowingly make false referrals. I do not believe making support available after the NRM period would lead to such unprofessional conduct.

The Government have also expressed concern that an automatic entitlement would lead to victims with criminal records being allowed to remain in the country. I share the Government’s concern to protect the public from anyone who poses a threat, which is why I have included an exception for such people in my Bill. However, we must be cautious about assuming that everyone with a criminal record poses a risk. A criminal record can be one of the factors that makes a victim vulnerable to exploitation. A balance needs to be struck between protecting the public and denying help to a vulnerable victim simply because they committed an offence in the past.

Yes, the Bill will increase the number of victims who receive DLR and access to benefits and housing, but it will also help more victims on to the path to recovery. Some will not want to take up the offer of longer support and will return home before the end of the 12 months. Most victims do not want to live on benefits but want to regain their place in society by accessing training, education or jobs. It is just that they need help to do so. Here I must make a brief mention of the Bright Future partnership between the Co-op and charity City Hearts, which is an example to businesses that want to offer work experience to victims.

I have set out the case for further reform to benefit the well-being of victims of modern slavery. In doing so, I remind your Lordships that the Government should be applauded for setting the foundations for this next step and commended for the great strides forward that have been taken in tackling this crime over the past few years. Today I offer my Bill as a next stage in the development of the Modern Slavery Act so that we can lead the world in addressing this crime. I very much hope the Government will see in the Bill a great opportunity, and that they will embrace it and make it their own. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord McColl of Dulwich]

My Lords, I say a very big thank you to everyone who has taken part in the debate, which I found inspiring, moving and encouraging. I thank the Minister for her warm words and encouragement, and look forward to the publication of the evaluation of the NRM pilot scheme. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, for his gracious acceptance of my reassurances regarding the possibility of abuse of the provisions. I finish with a word of thanks to the many charities that have given me advice, information and encouragement, and which share the stories of some of the victims. I applaud the work they are doing, caring so diligently for these victims, including filling in the gaps in our publicly funded provision.

I commend the Bill to the House and ask your Lordships to give it a Second Reading.

Bill read a second time and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

Calais Jungle

Lord McColl of Dulwich Excerpts

Monday 10th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The noble Lord is absolutely right. We consider these children to be children, whether they are Dublin III or Dubs Immigration Act children. We now know that under the Dubs amendment 50 have been accepted for transfer and 35 are here. However, the noble Lord is absolutely right; it is vital to get children from either category over here as soon as we can.

[Lord McColl of Dulwich (Con)]

My Lords, some years ago I was asked to chair a government inquiry into services for disabled people. We produced 30 recommendations and I was amazed at how difficult it was to change anything in this country and move things along. As I listened to the debate about the problems in Calais I began to wonder just how many obstructions we have to overcome, so I went round your Lordships’ House asking various people who I thought might know how many obstructions—forms, regulations, French and English laws—there are. No one could tell me. We ought to have some idea of exactly what the obstructions are before we are too critical of the Minister. Can she therefore tell us, not necessarily now but perhaps in writing, just how many forms, regulations, and French and English laws have to be overcome to get the children over? That would be helpful.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I thank my noble friend for that question. Certainly a large number of hoops have to be gone through in placing these children in the appropriate country of safety, and I will try to get a full list, with precise details, of the bureaucracy that has to be overcome. I hope that in the coming weeks some of that bureaucracy will be simplified so that we can expedite these cases. However, we have to abide by the laws of the countries that the children are coming from and we also have to be very mindful of the safeguarding arrangements in place in those countries. It is incredibly important that we verify that the children go to the right place to meet their needs but also that we verify that they are who we think they are. We have to avoid any awful unintended consequences of trying to rush things rather than doing them properly.

Committee on the Equality Act 2010 and Disability Report

Lord McColl of Dulwich Excerpts

Tuesday 6th September 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord McColl of Dulwich (Con)]

My Lords, first, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, on securing the debate. I also pay tribute to her. It was a pleasure to serve under her chairmanship of the Select Committee for this inquiry.

It will not surprise noble Lords to know that, as a member of the committee, I agree with the noble Baroness. Quite simply, more must be done. As she mentioned, legislation to prevent disability discrimination has been on the statute book for more than 20 years. In spite of that, here we are in 2016 and many disabled people continue to be excluded from public buildings, public transport and other services. This is, frankly, unacceptable.

I will centre my contribution on access to transportation. For any person, access to transportation is essential to play a full role in society: to get to work, school or university; to attend community, cultural or sporting events; to attend medical, legal and other appointments; and so on. Yet, the evidence to our committee demonstrated that this was one of the areas in which disabled people face the most challenges—challenges that have significant wider consequences. As the evidence we received from the group Transport for All makes clear:

“The difficulties disabled people face using transport is one of the major factors behind our exclusion from work; from healthcare; from education and from public life in general”.

Unless we take seriously the need to make our transport systems accessible for all, we will never succeed in providing disabled people equal access to many sectors of public life.

I begin by examining the situation of access for disabled people to taxis. As was acknowledged by many who gave evidence to our committee, the door-to-door nature of the service provided by taxis and private hire vehicles makes them particularly attractive to those for whom public transport may not be suitable. The committee heard that two-thirds of wheelchair users say they have been refused a taxi. Others report having been charged extra. Back in 1995 Parliament passed provisions in the Disability Discrimination Act to prohibit both these actions, yet successive Governments have failed to bring those laws into force.

Fifteen years after passing the original laws, Parliament reiterated its commitment to the necessity of legal protections to ensure taxi services are made available for those who use wheelchairs by incorporating them into the Equality Act 2010. Yet, six years later, those provisions are still not in force. I therefore welcome wholeheartedly the Government’s commitment in their response to the committee’s report that they,

“will now proceed to bring the measures into force, aiming for commencement by the end of 2016”.

Today I ask the Minister not only for details of when we can expect the commencement of Sections 165 and 167 of the Equality Act 2010 but for her assurances that the Government will put into place clear guidance and structures to enforce these duties.

I accept that there may have been a need for a transition period to ensure that taxi businesses are able to meet the requirements but 20 years is far too long to wait. I hope the Minister will give the House an assurance today that the commencement timetable will ensure that the duty will be applied as soon as possible. As we said in our report, we do not see that taxi drivers,

“can complain about the burden of converting their taxis to be wheelchair-accessible, since they have known for 20 years that this might happen”.

For too long the interests of taxi businesses have been placed above those of disabled people. This was clearly demonstrated by the fact that the provision allowing for exemption was brought into force almost six years ago without any parallel introduction of the duty itself. This must change. I am hopeful that with the commencement of Section 165, the Government will begin to redress that approach.

Ensuring that taxis are available for wheelchair users requires more than just commencing Section 165. We need local authorities to take a lead in supporting and encouraging taxi drivers to be open and able to carry disabled passengers. Local authorities must use their licensing powers to nudge and, where necessary, require taxi businesses to make their vehicles accessible for disabled people, as well as ensure that drivers receive disability awareness training. We must make vehicle accessibility and disability awareness a part of licensing obligations. The past 20 years have shown that leaving it up to the good will of drivers, or expecting the purchasing power of disabled people to produce accessible taxis for all, simply does not work. I welcome the Government’s promise in their response to our report that they will be producing guidance for local authorities, and considering how licensing regimes should incorporate accessibility criteria. I hope the Minister can give us some good news about that process.

I shall now address some other key concerns relating to transportation which arose in the course of our inquiry. First, there is no doubt that wheelchair accessibility has improved since the first disability discrimination legislation, as evidence to the committee demonstrated. However, far too many buses, trains and stations are still not accessible by wheelchair. We heard the shocking story of Crossrail—it is scarcely believable that it was considered acceptable for a new piece of public transport infrastructure built in the 21st century to have seven stations without step-free access. Much more training, transparency and accountability are required to ensure that all future new-build public transport infrastructure has wheelchair access throughout.

Accessibility is also an issue in many bus stations around the country. That is why the committee has recommended that Network Rail, Transport for London, train operators and bus companies around the country should put more resources into making their stations and vehicles accessible for wheelchair users. There is particular need for improved services in rural areas, where public transport is already much less readily available than in larger towns and cities. Companies should not need the threat of enforcement proceedings before operators comply with existing regulations. The Public Service Vehicle Accessibility Regulations 2000 came into force for single-deck buses earlier this year and will do for all double-deck buses by 1 January 2017. It is essential that these regulations are enforced by the Driver & Vehicle Standards Agency.

The evidence we received in the inquiry also highlighted that accessibility is not simply a matter of putting rules and infrastructure in place, though those are undoubtedly necessary. Stations and trains are accessible only if that infrastructure is maintained and the necessary equipment and staff are provided. We heard one terrible story of a lady who, despite her best efforts in communicating with the guard on the train, was completely forgotten, so she missed her stop not once but twice, which resulted in her being dumped at a completely different station and having to phone her husband to come and collect her. As the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee told our inquiry:

“Although much of the basic accessibility provision is now in place through the construction requirements for rail and bus ... there is little effort going into making sure that accessibility features are consistently in place and working”.

We need bus and train operators to put sufficient resources into maintaining as well as building this accessibility infrastructure.

Another form of physical infrastructure which is vitally needed is audio-visual annunciators. For passengers who are hearing or visually impaired, the making of announcements via both visual and audio media is essential for them to utilise the bus and rail network. Evidence to our committee highlighted the discrepancy between the regulations for trains, which include requirements for audio-visual information, and for buses, which do not. This lack of regulation seems to have led to a situation where very few bus companies outside London have installed audio-visual annunciators on their buses. The importance of annunciators was shown clearly by information from the organisation Guide Dogs, which showed that seven out of 10 bus passengers with sight loss have been forgotten by a bus driver who was asked to let them know when the bus reached their stop. As Guide Dogs told the committee:

“For a sighted person, missing a stop is an irritating experience; for somebody unable to see, it is distressing, disorientating and sometimes dangerous”.

It is clear that more resources should be devoted to providing annunciators. Particular attention must also be paid to the production of new buses. There are already requirements that no new trains be put into service without having audio-visual information systems and we need the same requirements for buses.

I was disappointed that the Government’s response to our committee’s report rejected our recommendation for the mandatory installation of annunciators in new buses via the Public Service Vehicles Accessibility Regulations 2000. The evidence is that without such regulations, the industry will be slow to respond to the needs of visually and hearing-impaired passengers. While I appreciate that the Government are concerned about placing too onerous a burden on bus companies, I do not believe that our committee’s requirements are in fact onerous. We were told by Transport for All that these information systems form only 1% of the cost of a new bus—a minimal cost for such a facility. It would increase the ability and confidence not only of passengers with sight or hearing loss but of those with learning disabilities and any passengers making unfamiliar journeys. I ask the Minister to explain today the Government’s reasoning for determining that a requirement for new buses to be fitted with annunciators would be too burdensome and invite her to commit to reconsidering the committee’s recommendation relating to new buses specifically.

Fitting information systems to buses already in service may be more costly and our committee therefore did not recommend that such action should be mandatory, although we do urge bus companies to put more resources into fitting annunciators to all their vehicles. I also welcome the Government’s support for initiatives to develop lower-cost information systems and new technologies which may make it easier and cheaper to assist disabled passengers overcome these challenges in using buses, especially on older buses which do not have audio-visual annunciators fitted.

Finally, it is essential that staff operating public transport have adequate training on disability equality. There will always be individual staff who fail to act in accordance with the training and guidance they receive, but ensuring widespread, consistent delivery of training of a sufficient standard is an important factor in reducing incidents where staff fail to respond to disabled passengers in an appropriate way. If we are to see the standards of staff behaviour improve across the board then we need to have an agreed level of training for all bus, coach and rail staff. Without it, levels of training, and thus the quality of services, will remain patchy across the country and divergent between different companies. Training for front-line rail staff is already mandatory as a condition of the licensing regime. I fail to understand why a similar requirement cannot be placed on bus operators. I welcome the MacDonald review that the Government have commissioned into delivering disability awareness training in the transport industry and hope that the Government will seriously consider the recommendations of both that review and our committee. Too often we found in the course of our inquiry that, across many sectors, a desire to remove so-called red tape and to avoid burdening business has resulted in a failure to enforce or prioritise disability equality. We must take a longer, harder look at where we set our priorities.

I conclude by again welcoming the Government’s positive response to some of our committee’s recommendations but also by urging a reconsideration of the others I have mentioned.

Online Safety Bill [HL]

Lord McColl of Dulwich Excerpts

Friday 11th December 2015 Lords Chamber

4: Clause 8, page 5, line 5, after “be” insert “—
(a) ”

[Lord McColl of Dulwich (Con)]

My Lords, I am very pleased to speak in support of Amendments 4 to 7 from the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, to which my name is attached. No one can read the very important 2014 ATVOD report and not be convinced about the child safety imperative to provide some kind of regulatory framework for dealing with online pornography, which is projected into this country mainly from websites located abroad.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, will tell us, that report demonstrated that 23 out of the 25 pornographic websites most frequently visited by people in this country are located outside of the UK. To this end, I am of course pleased that this year’s Conservative manifesto committed to introducing age-verification checks on all pornographic sites, and I look forward to hearing from the Minister when further details about this proposal will be published. We had been promised a consultation before the end of the year.

The Government are exceptionally well placed to rise to this challenge, having recently introduced the Gambling (Licensing and Advertising) Act 2014 to regulate online gambling websites based beyond the United Kingdom. In the context of gambling, if someone does not have a licence and they seek to conduct transactions with people in the UK, they operate illegally, so financial transaction providers are happy to refuse to facilitate transactions.

ATVOD, however, reports that the same is not true of pornographic websites that service UK customers from other countries. At the moment, such sites break no law. Indeed, the financial transaction providers have pointed out that, if they refuse to conduct illegal transactions between such sites and people in the UK, they would be the ones likely to be taken to court. This difficulty, however, would not obtain if we introduced a licensing system similar to that pertaining to online gambling and the provider in question did not have a licence. The simple proposal in this Bill is that the providers of online pornography from outside the UK must get a licence, a condition of which would be the provision of robust age verification. I hope that the Government will adopt this Bill as it presents a timely means of fulfilling their manifesto pledge.

The Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee report took the view that it would be better if the body that heard appeals against decisions not to grant a licence or to revoke an existing licence, were not the same body that awarded the licences. The noble Baroness, Lady Howe, through these amendments, has made provision for the designation of a separate body to hear appeals. The amendments, which the noble Baroness wisely asked the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, to assess, clearly have that effect. I hope the Committee will support them.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, I apologise for the delay in finding my papers, particularly to the noble Lord, Lord McColl, who very kindly stepped in.

Amendments 4 to 7 form the second group of amendments that I tabled in response to the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee report published on 20 July. They relate to my proposal under Clause 8 to introduce a licensing scheme for foreign pornographic websites in the absence of any robust regulation of these websites.

The Committee may remember that ATVOD, the Authority for Television on Demand, which I am sad to say will cease to exist at the end of the month, published a report in 2014 that found that 23 of the top 25 adult websites visited by UK internet users provide instant, free and unrestricted access to hardcore pornographic videos, some of which would not be available on a British high street.

ATVOD’s report explains that it has encouraged the UK payments industry—credit card companies, Paypal and so forth—not to process transactions involving websites showing hardcore pornography that is presented without robust age verification safety checks. However, it also explains that the transaction providers are unwilling to do so because,

“the absence of clear case law on the issue precludes such an initiative”.

In short, unless the provider of the material is breaking a law, a financial transaction provider could be taken to court for failing to process the transaction. Setting up a licensing scheme, however, as proposed by Clause 8, would set up clear case law. An organisation would have a licence, or it would not. If the organisation did not have a licence, there would be no legal obstacles if a financial transaction provider was minded not to process the transaction—something that Clause 10 crucially mandates.

Clause 8 would provide a regulatory framework to ensure that these websites are not available to children. Clause 9 makes it an offence not to have a licence and Clause 10 provides a means of ensuring that payments to unlicensed websites would cease—a matter I shall come back to when I speak on Amendments 8 to 13.

The committee was concerned that appeals against decisions on not granting a licence or having a licence revoked would be heard by the licensing body. That is a genuine concern, so I tabled Amendments 4 to 7 to ensure that an independent body be able to review any appeals.

Amendments 4 and 5 ensure that the powers under Clause 8(1) allow the Secretary of State to designate both a licensing body and a separate independent appeals body. Amendments 6 and 7 ensure that the Secretary of State is not able to designate a licensing body without knowing that the independent body has adequate arrangements for appeals. As I have already said, I sought the counsel of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, about whether these amendments deal with the problems highlighted by the committee and he assured me that they do. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Shields]

I thank all noble Lords for their contributions, and I state one more time that there is no ambiguity about the Government’s commitment to launch the consultation shortly after the new year, and to provide for a robust age verification system to ensure that no one under the age of 18 can access pornographic material in the UK. It is a process that has been going on. We have been seeking advice from experts since the manifesto commitment was announced and we are consulting early in the new year. We are 100% committed to that.

I thank the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, for his contributions and for his extraordinary work in leading the development of solutions that will in fact achieve our goal. Many elements of the Bill are incredibly well thought-out and well intentioned, and they will be taken on board in the resulting legislative approach that we take in the new year. This is about timing. This clause requires that the Secretary of State must identify a licensing authority for non UK-based pornographic services, and the noble Baroness’s amendment to the clause specifies that the Secretary of State needs a second independent body to conduct appeals. It is a very good suggestion, but it is a bit premature until we finish the consultation.

Regarding the Ofcom/ATVOD role, there is some confusion about the function of ATVOD continuing, but following an Ofcom review, it was publicly announced in October that from January next year Ofcom will take sole responsibility for regulating video on-demand programme services. As a result, it will not continue its co-regulatory arrangement with ATVOD. Let us be clear on this: it is continuing with the function and the obligation of ATVOD, but that is being brought into the Ofcom portfolio.

[Lord McColl of Dulwich]

My Lords, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 4 withdrawn.

Advertising of Prostitution (Prohibition) Bill [HL]

Lord McColl of Dulwich Excerpts

Friday 23rd October 2015 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord McColl of Dulwich]

That the Bill be now read a second time.

[Lord McColl of Dulwich (Con)]

My Lords, as noble Lords will know, I have previously introduced a Private Member’s Bill to address human trafficking on two occasions. I am very pleased that, after many debates over a good number of years, this House played such an important part in changing the law to bring in new offences on human trafficking and new mechanisms to provide support for victims. The Bill that I am bringing forward today addresses similar concerns to those Bills—that is, how to prevent harm to those who are in vulnerable situations.

I had the privilege of listening to hours of evidence on human trafficking, including as a member of the Joint Committee that examined the draft Modern Slavery Bill and as part of the all-party parliamentary inquiry, which ran from 2013 to 2014, on the laws in England and Wales on prostitution. As I said when I spoke on a similar subject on 1 December, the group published our report, Shifting the Burden, in March 2014. I encourage noble Lords to review its findings.

The inquiry reinforced for me the concerns I have had about the negative impact on individuals involved in providing sexual services and the circumstances in which they find themselves. I recognise that this does not apply to all individuals, but, as I said in December, the evidence I have seen indicates that the majority of individuals in prostitution today are victims of exploitation and violence of one form or another. I set out some of that evidence in my speech then, and I hope the House will indulge me if I repeat some of the arguments again as they are very pertinent to my Bill.

Multiple academic studies, including data compiled for the Home Office, demonstrate that the majority of people who sell sex are incredibly vulnerable and subject to real exploitation. For example, research has shown that homelessness, living in care, and debt and substance abuse are all common experiences prior to a person entering prostitution, which is sometimes reflected in the evidence received by our all-party group inquiry.

Many of those in prostitution have suffered abuse and violence in the home. Dr Max Waltman of Stockholm University notes that international studies have consistently found that,

“the majority of prostituted persons—somewhere between 55% and 90% … were subjected to sexual abuse as children”.

The 2012 study, which was carried out for the charity Eaves, interviewed 114 women in prostitution in London both on the street and indoors. Of the women interviewed, 50% said that they had experienced some form of coercion from a partner, pimp or relative, or through trafficking. The same study found that 32% of those interviewed had entered the sex industry before the age of 18. Other studies have found higher numbers than this. For example, the 2004 UK study found a figure of 52% entering before the age of 18.

Numerous studies have found that between 50% and 95% of women in street prostitution are addicted to class A drugs. Professor Roger Matthews, an expert in prostitution law and policy has written:

“Street prostitutes frequently report that they work to support not only their own habit but also that of their boyfriend, pimp or partner. In some cases, male drug users/dealers will seek out female prostitutes as ‘partners’ since they make good customers and providers”.

The Eaves study I referred to also found that drug and alcohol misuse was not restricted to those in street prostitution, with 83% of their interviewees having a current or previous problem, which in a significant number of cases had begun or increased after entering prostitution. The evidence indicates not only that most people entering prostitution are vulnerable, but that the experience of prostitution compounds that vulnerability, putting them at risk of significant physical and mental harm. A comparative study of prostitution in nine countries, with more than 850 subjects, found that 73% had been physically assaulted. Some 61% of the women surveyed in 2012 by Eaves reported experiences of violence from buyers of sexual services.

Prostitution has also been shown to have a negative impact on people’s mental health. One comparative study in Glasgow looked at the mental health of female drug users, some engaged in prostitution and others not. The study found that those involved in prostitution experience more abusive incidents as adults and more mental health problems than those who are not. The authors concluded:

“Higher rates of adulthood abuse among prostitutes may explain the greater proportion of prostitutes than non-prostitutes meeting criteria for current depressive ideas and lifetime suicide attempts”.

The Council of Europe succinctly summarised my concerns in a parliamentary assembly resolution last year:

“Prostitution is a complex issue presenting various facets that should be taken into account. It affects the health of sex workers with consequences ranging from increased exposure to sexually transmitted diseases to higher risks of drug and alcohol addiction, physical and mental traumas, depression and other mental illnesses”.

However, it is not only the statistics that persuade me that the harms of prostitution are such that it can be seen as a form of violence against women and a dehumanising practice damaging for individuals and society as a whole. It is the stories of individuals who I have met that have been the most compelling. Earlier this week I had the privilege to listen to the powerful account of a woman who had been through prostitution and who now campaigns against sexual exploitation. She said the following:

“When you are prostituted, however you arrived there, you sign a social contract that comes with the highest cost; for the small print of this contract, the terms and conditions are harsh, disturbing and unjustifiable. So it would appear to most that we stand free on the street and yet everywhere we are in chains”.

She went on to say:

“It is my firm belief that every human is entitled to live a dignified life, and prostitution is the systematic stripping of one’s human dignity and I know that because I have lived and witnessed it, and it must no longer be tolerated”.

I agree with her entirely. The dignity and value of every individual person must be our priority.

All these facts lead me to the conclusion that a reduction in the levels of prostitution is essential, and that this would positively impact not only those domestically but also individuals who might be trafficked into England and Wales in the future.

Noble Lords will remember that we have international obligations to reduce the demand for human trafficking in both Article 18 of the EU directive and Article 6 of the Council of Europe convention on this subject. Indeed, last year the European institutions advocated action to reduce demand for human trafficking and for prostitution. I am sure some noble Lords are thinking that we have covered all this in the Modern Slavery Act. That is, indeed, a fine piece of legislation but, as I said at the time, it did nothing to fundamentally address the demand for human trafficking for sexual exploitation—a very serious oversight given that, according to the NRM figures, sexual exploitation is consistently the most prevalent form of human trafficking in England and Wales.

My Bill before us today seeks to address some of that demand by preventing the advertising of prostitution. It does so by addressing an anomaly in the law on prostitution whereby it is currently illegal to organise or profit from prostitution by running a brothel or allowing premises to be used for prostitution and to cause, incite or control prostitution for gain, but it is not illegal to advertise those same services in newspapers or on the internet. As the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner, Kevin Hyland, said to me yesterday, we would not accept adverts for a stolen bicycle or for illegal drugs and yet many prostitution adverts contain clear indications of other offences by referring to the availability of several women and, when combined with reference to ethnicity, should at least raise suspicions of trafficking.

I am not naive enough to think that if this Bill becomes law all advertising for prostitution will cease. That is not the criterion by which we should measure its success. My goal is twofold: first, that the law will help to reduce the amount of advertising and thereby help reduce the demand for paid sex, and all the attendant suffering and exploitation that comes with it, and help us fulfil our international obligations to address the demand for paid sex; and, secondly, that it will send a very clear message that we as a society reject the culture of prostitution advertising which commodifies and dehumanises women.

It is for those reasons that I am bringing this Bill before the House. In so doing, I would like to draw the attention of your Lordships’ House to the fact that this proposal is not without powerful international advocates. The European Parliament has noted that,

“advertisements for sexual services in newspapers and social media can be means of supporting trafficking and prostitution”.

This connection was poignantly highlighted by the case of a family in Bolton jailed last month for trafficking and exploiting two women in prostitution. According to the Guardian newspaper report, the court was told that one of the traffickers,

“set up profiles for the two women on adult websites, and when clients called he and his father would tell the women what to say. The victims, aged 30 and 21, were forced to see up to five clients a day and worked ‘whenever the phone rang’”.

The proposal to ban advertising of prostitution was recommended in a 2014 resolution of the Council of Europe parliamentary assembly. That resolution, which was passed by an overwhelming majority last year, states clearly that,

“trafficking in human beings and prostitution are closely linked … legislation and policies on prostitution are indispensable anti-trafficking tools”.

The resolution calls on Council of Europe member states to,

“ban the advertising of sexual services”.

My Bill meets that call.

The Purple Teardrop Campaign, the United Kingdom organisation committed to ending human trafficking, has a petition calling on Her Majesty’s Government to ban what it terms “sex for sale” advertisements, saying:

“Many ‘sex for sale’ advertisements are placed by traffickers and so contribute to the demand for sexually exploited women and children”.

I understand that more than 36,300 people have signed the petition to date.

My Bill is short and to the point. Clause 1 makes it an offence for a person to publish or cause to be published, or distribute or cause to be distributed, an advert for prostitution. Clause 4 ensures that the offence applies to a business as well as to an individual. Clause 5 defines an advert as,

“every form of advertising or promotion, whether in a publication or by the display of notices or posters or by the means of circulars, leaflets, pamphlets or cards or other documents or by way of radio, television, internet, telephone, facsimile transmission, photography or cinematography or other like means of communication”.

Clause 2 sets out that the punishment would be a fine, the level of which would be set by the Secretary of State. Clause 3 provides a defence that the person,

“did not know and had no reason to suspect that the advertisement related to a brothel”,

or prostitution.

This is a modest but important Bill and I urge noble Lords to give it a Second Reading. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Davies of Stamford (Lab)]

My Lords, I start by saying that I totally share the horror of the noble Lord, Lord McColl, and the whole House, at the ideas of violence, exploitation—I think that he had in mind living off immoral earnings—intimidation and, although he did not mention it, rape, having sexual intercourse without consent. These are real horrors. We have pretty strong laws against them with pretty strong penalties, but if the noble Lord can make out a case to strengthen the penalties or enforcement, I may well be with him. I do not think that he has made a case that the solution is to criminalise prostitution itself. I am quite certain that he has not made a case that the right way to criminalise prostitution is to do it on the back of this Bill, which is ostensibly about something else.

In my view, legislation should always be open, overt, frank and transparent. It should not be carried surreptitiously, casually on the back of some other Bill. It is very important that the whole House, the other place and the public have a chance to think through the long-term consequences of new legislation, particularly radical legislation of the kind that the noble Lord proposed in his introductory speech, which is criminalising prostitution itself. A lot of perverse consequences would flow from that. The noble Lord shakes his head, but we must be in a position to consider those consequences specifically in relation to the proposal that he has now made to the House to abolish prostitution, not the proposal in the paper that he has put forward, the Bill, which is simply to criminalise advertising for prostitution purposes. There is a lack of frankness in that approach of which I strongly disapprove.

My view about legalising or criminalising prostitution is, above all, based on a fundamental principle, which is that set out so lucidly by JS Mill 150 years ago, which I think is dear to the hearts of everybody who believes in freedom. That is that the state should not restrict the freedom of any citizen except to the extent required to protect the freedom of others. It flows directly from that that acts in private between consenting adults are no concern of the state or of the law. You violate that principle at your peril.

I recognise that virtuous and respectable people, in the interests of reforming society, as they see it, are always trying to encroach on that principle. The worst case was the introduction of the legislation in the 1880s criminalising homosexuality, which continued on our statute book for 80 years. In my view, we should never have violated that principle. I would be against it even if the pragmatic arguments ran in the other direction, but actually, I see several pragmatic arguments which run very much against the idea of criminalising prostitution. In the time I have, I will mention just three.

One is a definitional problem, whether it has to be dealt with by Parliament or by the judiciary in the courts. I fear that it does not sound very romantic or edifying to say so, but I suspect that quite a lot of relationships—far more than we like to think—have some element of material interest in them. It would be extremely difficult to decide whether the material or monetary interest was decisive in one particular case. The law would make an awful fool of itself if it specified that if you hire someone for sex for a night or a weekend, you are committing a criminal offence, but if the relationship, including the financial relationship, continued for months or years, you are not—in other words, that a crime, if continued long enough or repeated frequently enough, ceases to be a crime. That would be a novel jurisprudential notion.

Equally, the law would be pretty stupid if it ended up specifying that if you pay for sex with money—cash or specie—it is a criminal offence, but if you pay by means of a diamond brooch, it is not. The law would be held up to equal ridicule and there would be a considerable sense of injustice if you targeted the poor prostitute and perhaps the relatively poor client of the poor prostitute and left the wealthy man and the successful and wealthy courtesan to enjoy themselves without let or hindrance. That would be a mistake. So the definitional problems are real, and the noble Lord needs to address them, if he wants to take further his project of abolishing prostitution by law.

Then there is the issue of the strain on the criminal justice system and particularly the police. We know that the Government are cutting police numbers in drastic fashion, which I personally think is an utterly irresponsible policy that we and even they will ultimately regret. That aside, can you imagine what would happen if the police had responsibility for chasing up every act or alleged act of prostitution in this country? Here for once I do feel that I am not speaking alone. I should be very unamused if I was told by the police that they did not have time or resources to investigate the burglary of my house because they were launched on a much more exciting case, because Snooks was alleged to be having sex with Fifi and money might be changing hands. We want to think very carefully about that aspect as well.

Thirdly, there is the whole issue of the prohibition effects. We all know what prostitution is conceptually. The exchange of money for sex or sex for money is the confluence of two powerful forces in human nature: the desire for sex and the desire for money. If there are more powerful forces in human nature, I am not quite sure what they are, and if you try to dam the tide against them you may have some very perverse effects. The Americans did that with prohibition, but I fear that the two forces that I have just mentioned may be even more ubiquitous and powerful than the desire for alcohol. So you get the same effects; you create a whole new seam of rich potential profits for criminals involved in the intermediation which obviously would be necessary if you criminalised prostitution. It is quite easy to envisage all sorts of opportunities for criminal activity, racketeering and so forth, such as happened under prohibition.

If you prohibit by law something that has been going on for a long time and for which there is a structural demand and existing supply system—we are told that it is quite pervasive; I have not seen these websites myself but I have heard about them and I gather that there are an awful lot of them—you will force a raft of people overnight to change their habits or give up their livelihoods or become criminals. There are enormous social implications from doing that which have to be thought through. None of this has been thought through on this occasion.

Finally, there is one extraordinary anomaly—an ironic contradiction at the heart of the noble Lord’s Bill. He set out his intention essentially to defend women in this matter, and I have some sympathy with that: but he then brings forward a Bill that criminalises advertising. But advertising is always paid for by the supplier, not the customer, and the suppliers on these occasions are largely women. So the only people who would suffer criminal sanctions as a result of the Bill becoming law, if it ever did, would be the females involved in prostitution, and not the males. That seems to me an extraordinarily perverse outcome, and I hope that the noble Lord will think a little bit further about this Bill before taking it further.

[Lord McColl of Dulwich]

Before the noble Lord sits down, could it be by some unimaginable stretch of the imagination that he has come into the wrong debate? We are not talking about criminalising prostitution—we are talking about advertising.

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

The noble Lord’s Bill, as I have just said, talks about advertising—but, as I have also said, it seems not to be his real agenda. He made it clear in his own introductory remarks that what he intended to do was to abolish prostitution, and that this was just one of several legislative instruments that he has had in mind with that particular intention. I do not think that he can get away from the fact that his introductory speech was all about criminalising prostitution and that that was his preferred solution to the problems of violence and exploitation which he started off with.

[Lord McColl of Dulwich]

The noble Lord reminds me very much of part of the Queen’s speech—I refer to the Queen’s speech in “Hamlet”, when she says:

“The lady doth protest too much, methinks”.

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

The noble Lord has brought forward a Bill which is a bit of a false prospectus. If he had talked about advertising, we would all understand that we were simply limited to talking about advertising. In actual fact, every economic activity involves advertising, because every supplier has to have some way of communicating with his customers or potential customers. So you could say that if you ban advertising you ban the activity that is advertised, anyway. We did not get into any of that at all, and I think that—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord McColl of Dulwich]

My Lords, I thank all those who have taken part in this debate and the Minister for his kind remarks about me. However, I should like to draw attention to the amazing work that has been done by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby and the noble Lord, Lord Morrow. A big team has been at work.

It has come through clearly in this debate that advertising facilitates the exploitation in prostitution of people who are trafficked and some who are not. I shall not respond directly to the remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Davies, because they do not relate to this Bill. However, I should like to address briefly one point that he raised. He suggested that my Bill will further criminalise women who are placing adverts. The Bill was drafted with the intention, courtesy of Clause 1, to address those who facilitate and publish the advertising, such as newspapers and website operators. I shall certainly look into the question further and if I receive legal advice that Clause 1 could be interpreted to apply to an individual placing an advert rather than only to the entity publishing it, I shall certainly look into bringing an amendment in Committee.

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

I was guided in my remarks by the phrase in the first line of the noble Lord’s substantive Bill:

“A person who publishes or causes to be published”.

It seems to me that inevitably the supplier of prostitution services would be causing to be published any advertisements that appeared on her behalf.

[Lord McColl of Dulwich]

I shall certainly take legal advice about that and see whether we can tighten things up later on.

The Minister referred to the importance of minimising the harm of prostitution and I agree that we want to do all we can to reduce the harm experienced by people in prostitution. Indeed, that is the aim of reducing demand. By addressing the proliferation of advertising and reducing the demand it fuels, we can reduce levels of prostitution and thereby reduce the harm that is caused.

We should of course be working with the police, the courts system, the NHS and social services to try to prosecute those who commit acts of violence against people in prostitution and to help people access support to exit prostitution and build a new life for themselves. However, unless we address the demand, for each person who is assisted out of crisis, another will take their place. We need to look at the bigger picture.

I find myself in a rather difficult position because there is much I would like to respond to but we are out of time. I should like to put on record that I completely reject the suggestion that the Bill is unenforceable or that it will make life more dangerous for people in prostitution. I feel very frustrated that time does not allow me to explain why.

Bill read a second time and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.