Asked by: Lord McColl of Dulwich (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government, in the past three years, how many victims of modern slavery have qualified for leave to remain to pursue a compensation claim or a criminal case against their traffickers.
Answered by Lord Sharpe of Epsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
We carefully reviewed the commitment made regarding the provision of 12 months’ support to modern slavery victims with a positive Conclusive Grounds decision and concluded that the Recovery Needs Assessment ensures that necessary support is available to victims with a positive Conclusive Grounds decision for the necessary length of time, including if this is 12 months, or longer. There is therefore no need to specify 12-month support for all individuals in guidance and no current plans to do so.
A total of 10,704 consenting adults in England and Wales received support through the Modern Slavery Victim Care contract during the year ending June 2023, the largest number support for any year since the contract began, and the Government remains committed to supporting victims based on need.
Through Section 65 of the Nationality and Borders Act 2022, the Government also set out, for the first time in primary legislation, that confirmed victims of modern slavery are eligible for temporary permission to stay in the UK. Depending on the individual circumstances, Temporary Permission to Stay can be granted for 12 months, or more, to confirmed victims of Modern Slavery. This delivers a fair and effective permission to stay process in relation to confirmed victims of modern slavery, allowing those who are cooperating with public authorities in the investigation and/or prosecution of their exploiters to stay in the UK for that purpose.
We do not publish the other data requested.
Asked by: Lord McColl of Dulwich (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government, in the past three years, how many victims of modern slavery have (1) received support following a recovery needs assessment, (2) received all the support they asked for, and (3) received support for 12 months or more.
Answered by Lord Sharpe of Epsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
We carefully reviewed the commitment made regarding the provision of 12 months’ support to modern slavery victims with a positive Conclusive Grounds decision and concluded that the Recovery Needs Assessment ensures that necessary support is available to victims with a positive Conclusive Grounds decision for the necessary length of time, including if this is 12 months, or longer. There is therefore no need to specify 12-month support for all individuals in guidance and no current plans to do so.
A total of 10,704 consenting adults in England and Wales received support through the Modern Slavery Victim Care contract during the year ending June 2023, the largest number support for any year since the contract began, and the Government remains committed to supporting victims based on need.
Through Section 65 of the Nationality and Borders Act 2022, the Government also set out, for the first time in primary legislation, that confirmed victims of modern slavery are eligible for temporary permission to stay in the UK. Depending on the individual circumstances, Temporary Permission to Stay can be granted for 12 months, or more, to confirmed victims of Modern Slavery. This delivers a fair and effective permission to stay process in relation to confirmed victims of modern slavery, allowing those who are cooperating with public authorities in the investigation and/or prosecution of their exploiters to stay in the UK for that purpose.
We do not publish the other data requested.
Asked by: Dan Jarvis (Labour - Barnsley Central)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if he will make an estimate of the number of (a) women and (b) girls from Eastern Europe who were trafficked to the UK and subsequently (i) compelled and (ii) forced to commit criminal acts in each of the last five years.
Answered by Laura Farris - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Ministry of Justice) (jointly with Home Office)
We do not routinely collect the required data to estimate the number of women and girls from Eastern Europe who were trafficked to the UK and were subsequently compelled or forced to commit criminal acts.
In 2022, 479 females were referred to the National Referral Mechanism (NRM) who reported criminal exploitation, either partly or wholly.
For adult victims of modern slavery who enter the NRM, the Home Office funds the Modern Slavery Victim Care Contract (MSVCC), contracted to spend £379 million over 5 years, to provide specialist support through the provision of safehouse accommodation, support-worker contact and financial assistance.
In addition, between 2016 and March 2023, the Home Office has spent over £37 million through the Modern Slavery Fund to combat modern slavery overseas and reduce the threat of human trafficking to the UK.
Asked by: Lord Alton of Liverpool (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the reply by Lord Benyon on 30 November (HL Deb cols 1172–1174), what assessment they have made of the (1) health impacts, (2) developmental damage, and (3) risk of sexual assault, that may arise for children in the Democratic Republic of the Congo as a result of cobalt mining.
Answered by Lord Benyon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The use of child labour in artisanal cobalt mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) remains a serious problem. We regularly raise the issue of child labour in DRC's mining sector with both the DRC government and through multilateral fora such as the Human Rights Council. We also raise concerns about gender-based violence in DRC. The UK was the first country in the world to require businesses to report on the steps they have taken to tackle modern slavery. Section 54 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 requires businesses with a turnover of £36 million or more to report annually on steps they take to prevent modern slavery in operations and supply chains. We are also committed to addressing the developmental impacts of illicit mining on children, and have provided funding to the Effective Approaches to Ending the Worst Forms of Child Labour in Fragile Contexts consortium, to develop innovative approaches to ending child labour in DRC.
Asked by: Lord Alton of Liverpool (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the reply by Lord Benyon on 30 November (HL Deb cols 1172–1174), what steps they are taking to identify whether the cobalt-containing products imported into the UK are associated with child labour in the Democratic Republic of the Congo; what assessment they have made of the credibility of assurances given by consumer-facing technology and electronic vehicle companies that their cobalt supply chains are not associated with child labour, forced labour, hazardous conditions, or environmental destruction arising from mining operations; and what steps they are taking to ensure (1) that the products arriving in the UK contain correct information about the supply chain, (2) that any falsified information is fully addressed, and (3) that, where it is not possible to give assurance from legal and ethical sources, this should be clearly disclosed on the products.
Answered by Lord Benyon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The use of child labour in artisanal cobalt mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) remains a serious problem. We regularly raise the issue of child labour in DRC's mining sector with both the DRC government and through multilateral fora such as the Human Rights Council. We also raise concerns about gender-based violence in DRC. The UK was the first country in the world to require businesses to report on the steps they have taken to tackle modern slavery. Section 54 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 requires businesses with a turnover of £36 million or more to report annually on steps they take to prevent modern slavery in operations and supply chains. We are also committed to addressing the developmental impacts of illicit mining on children, and have provided funding to the Effective Approaches to Ending the Worst Forms of Child Labour in Fragile Contexts consortium, to develop innovative approaches to ending child labour in DRC.
Asked by: Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to prevent abuse of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 by foreign national offenders using the provisions of the Act to delay proceedings against them or to stay their removal from the UK.
Answered by Lord Sharpe of Epsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
The Government is clear in its commitment to identifying, protecting, and supporting genuine victims of modern slavery whilst prosecuting criminals.
The Modern Slavery Act 2015, and subsequent legislation such as the Nationality and Borders Act 2022, and Illegal Migration Act 2023, make it harder for people to game the modern slavery system. Measures in our modern slavery legislation strike the right balance and still enable us to protect genuine victims of trafficking.
The Nationality and Borders Act 2022 introduced the Public Order Disqualification, which means that foreign national offenders can be removed from the protections of the NRM where they pose a threat to public order.
The Illegal Migration Act 2023 furthered these measures, toughening the measures introduced in the Nationality and Borders Act 2022.
Additionally, where a foreign national offender has entered the United Kingdom illegally, and therefore presents a threat to public order, they will be disqualified from access to a recovery period and modern slavery specific support, unless they qualify for limited exceptions.
Asked by: Lord Alton of Liverpool (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the reply by Lord Benyon on 30 November (HL Deb cols 1172–1174), what discussions they have held with the government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and what support they have provided to that government to ensure that children are not incarcerated, penalised, or physically harmed solely for unlawful acts committed as a direct result of their exploitation in child labour.
Answered by Lord Benyon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
We note the continued prevalence of child labour in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and are committed to eradicating all forms of modern slavery, forced labour and human trafficking in line with achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goal 8.7 by 2030. We regularly raise the issue of child labour in DRC both with the DRC government, and through multi-lateral fora such as the Human Rights Council. In addition, the Home Office is funding work through the Modern Slavery Innovation Fund with the objective of strengthening partnerships to prevent and remedy forced labour in supply chains from DRC. Through such partnerships, we are committed to ensuring that children are not penalised any further for their unlawful exploitation. The UK government is committed to the principles laid out in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) and is dedicated to providing the best possible opportunities for all children, but especially those who have had the hardest start in life.
Asked by: Lord Alton of Liverpool (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the reply by Lord Benyon on 30 November (HL Deb cols 1172–1174), what assessment they have made of the prevalence of non-state actors recruiting children in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, whether they have conducted a Joint Analysis of Conflict and Stability assessment in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in recent years, and if so, what were the findings in relation to the use of children for forced labour and in armed conflict as recruited by non-state actors.
Answered by Lord Benyon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The UK is firmly committed to ending the recruitment and use of child soldiers and to protecting all children affected by armed conflict. We are working with the Government of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to ensure their approach to community-based disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR) and stabilisation includes a focus on the need to provide tailored support to children associated with armed groups. The DRC Government has not published figures on the prevalence of child labour, but we note continued reports of modern slavery within the mining sector of DRC, especially in cobalt mining. Our support for the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) recognises the humanitarian problem posed by non-state actors recruiting children for forced labour, and aims to eradicate this by improving transparency and governance in the mining sector.
Asked by: Maria Eagle (Labour - Garston and Halewood)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, whether he has made an assessment of the implications for his policies of reports linking Army solar panels to claims of forced labour in China.
Answered by James Cartlidge - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)
The Government is committed to tackling the scourge of modern slavery and takes allegations such as these very seriously.
Ministry of Defence (MOD) policy requires us to scrutinise our supply chain to ensure that the MOD does not procure equipment from any supplier that cannot robustly demonstrate they have a supply chain free of forced labour.
Asked by: Maria Eagle (Labour - Garston and Halewood)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what steps his Department takes to verify the anti-slavery declarations made by companies within the defence supply chain that have procurement contracts with his Department.
Answered by James Cartlidge - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)
All defence contracts are subject to Government level guidance regarding the tackling of modern slavery in Government supply chains, the Ministry of Defence (MOD) has also created supplementary guidance to bolster our approach. Current policy sets the expectation that all MOD suppliers comply with the Modern Slavery Act 2015. To support the verification of this, the government wide Modern Slavery Assessment Tool (MSAT) is used by major suppliers to assess their risk exposure and identify areas of weakness for further action. The MOD has access to this tool and can view the results of this assessment once completed.