Modern Slavery Bill

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Tuesday 4th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

This is an important Bill, which we support, but it does not go far enough. The Home Secretary was right to talk about the horrors of modern slavery, but she was too complacent about how far the Bill will go in acting as a solution to those problems. Time and again, she has turned down the opportunity to strengthen the Bill. So much more could be done—and I hope it will —before it returns to us from the other place.

I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson) and my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) for scrutinising the Bill on behalf of the Opposition. I also thank all members who served on the Committee and the members of the cross-party Joint Committee, including my hon. Friends the Members for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) and for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty), my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) and the right hon. Members for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Sir John Randall), for Meriden (Mrs Spelman) and for Hazel Grove (Sir Andrew Stunell), who have continued to improve the Bill and argue for the changes required.

The horrors of modern slavery in the 21st century are still with us and the Home Secretary is right to raise such concerns about them. Victims include children forced into servitude or to tend cannabis farms; grown men exploited and held in dreadful, inhuman conditions, labouring under gangs; and women raped, beaten and pimped into prostitution. They are trafficked by gangs across borders or around the country, used and abused, their basic humanity denied.

The Home Secretary is right to say that action is needed to introduce a Bill that builds on the work not only of Anthony Totnes, but of the previous Government, who criminalised trafficking in 2003, introduced the new offence of forced labour, slavery or servitude in 2009 and created the national referral mechanism and the UK Human Trafficking Centre. It is also right to introduce new offences, a new commissioner and the new civil orders. However, if this Bill is such a powerful signal and a chance to lead the world, it should also be chance to go so much further.

The former Member for Totnes, Anthony Steen, has said that the Bill in its current form is a “lost opportunity”:

“The bill is wholly and exclusively about law enforcement—but it shouldn’t be enforcement-based, it should be victim-based. We have majored on the wrong thing. It is positive in the sense that it is an entirely new initiative, but is it going to do anything?”

That is the challenge from Anthony Totnes to all of us, and we should seize the opportunity to go further.

[Sir John Randall]

I hope the right hon. Lady realises that it is Anthony Steen, not Anthony Totnes. The quotation she cites relates to an early stage of the Bill and I know, because I am in constant touch with Anthony Steen, that, although there are some things to be addressed, that view was from some time ago.

[Yvette Cooper]

The right hon. Gentleman has taken a great interest in this subject and he did an immense amount of work on the Joint Committee. I thank him for his clarification. It shows that I still have the unfortunate habit, which we can so easily fall into in this place, of naming people by their constituencies, rather than by their surnames. I reiterate my tribute to—

[Mr Hanson]

John Uxbridge.

[Yvette Cooper]

Yes, I reiterate my tribute to John Uxbridge, and to the former Member for Totnes, Anthony Steen, whom we all hold in high regard. The trouble is that the Bill has not changed very much during its passage. There have been some significant and welcome changes, but it still does not go far enough.

On law enforcement, the main offences at the heart of the Bill, particularly in clause 2, are not strong or simple enough to ensure that we can prosecute the criminals who drive this evil trade. It is such a shame that the Government have not listened to all those calling for separate offences of trafficking and exploitation, and for separate offences for children. We know that the law fails to protect children, and this is an opportunity to strengthen the law through a separate offence of child exploitation. I really hope that the other place will take that chance. I urge the Home Secretary to give this matter further consideration and I urge the Government to respond in the other place.

[Jim Shannon]

Last year, 2,744 people were trafficked across the United Kingdom, of whom 602 were children. Is the right hon. Lady aware of the legislative change made in Northern Ireland on human trafficking and exploitation? The legislation sets in place terminology and change that could be a precedent for the rest of the United Kingdom. Does she think that that is worth considering?

[Yvette Cooper]

The hon. Gentleman is right. We know that the issue crosses borders and exists in different areas, so we should look at such legislation. We all know that the most vulnerable people who are so abused by this evil trade are children, so we should do as much as we possibly can to ensure that they get the additional protection they need and deserve. That is why the Government should really look at this again.

We welcome some of the changes that the Government have started to make on supply chains. We hope that they will go further—we will look at the details of their proposals—because none of us should ever tolerate the seafood on our supermarket shelves or the fashion clothes on our rails being stained with the sweat and blood of slaves overseas, and our companies should never participate in that kind of slavery.

Why do the Government not go further and help domestic workers? Their visa reforms have made things worse, trapping more domestic workers into slavery. Why will they not admit that they have got things wrong and look at that again? Why will they not do more to help victims—the most important thing of all—through guardians, strengthened referral mechanisms and the anti-slavery commissioner? We hope that the other place will consider what more can be done to improve support for victims. Why do the Government not look further at the links between trafficking and prostitution, which also drive the evil trade?

Rarely has a Bill had such overwhelming support from Members on both sides of the House, but also caused so much frustration. It could go further, and it could do more. There can be no half-measures. This is about stopping evil people committing terrible crimes, ending the enslavement, abuse and degradation of modern-day slavery, and defending the rights of liberty and freedom that we in this country have championed for so long. Let us hear the words of one victim:

“I was trafficked. I was fooled. I was deceived”—

with someone—

“forcing me to work on the streets, beating me up, force feeding me and turning me into someone with no mind of my own. Death too often felt like my only way to escape…but I am a survivor. I have a new life but I am haunted by the faces of those who used me”.

For such victims and survivors, we must do more.