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Anti-Slavery Day Bill

My Lords, I join in the congratulations to the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, on sponsoring this Bill in this House and to the noble Baroness, Lady Young, on introducing it today in her excellent speech. Once again we debate the horrendous subject of human trafficking and slavery, which affects every country in the world, including, of course, the United Kingdom. This was amply illustrated by a number of speakers. The noble Baroness, Lady Nicholson, spoke from her knowledge of eastern Europe and other parts of the world. The noble Lord, Lord Alton, referred specifically to where this is going on, as did the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Bradford. This debate is testament to the determination of your Lordships’ House to ensure that the Government and the United Kingdom as a whole continue to focus on dealing with this crime. As the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, said, this is not an historic crime; it is going on today. I pay particular tribute to the work undertaken by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Human Trafficking, under the chairmanship of the honourable Member for Totnes, Anthony Steen—he has been mentioned by a couple of speakers—which has consistently raised awareness of this issue in both Houses. I acknowledge the work and commitment of the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, in regard to that group. My noble friend Lord Soley touched on the Royal Navy. I think that, with a slip of the tongue, he referred to Nelson’s flagship as "Victoria"; it was, of course, "HMS Victory". I thought that Hansard ought to record that correctly. I hope that noble Lords will indulge me if I speak further on the Navy. The Royal Navy has a very proud history associated with the abolition of the slave trade. Through its active policing and enforcement between 1807 and 1866 we captured more than 500 slave ships. In the same period, when the Royal Naval "Preventive Squadron" was merged with another part of the fleet, it freed an estimated 160,000 slaves, but over that period suffered casualties of some 17,000 men—quite a lot. It is important to remember the efforts and sacrifice of the Navy in combating those horrors. The current director of Anti-Slavery International, Aidan McQuade, called this, ""the most inexplicably forgotten campaign of the Royal Navy. Even at over a century removed, the scale of the achievement and the suffering endured for the sake of others cannot but fill one with a profound sense of admiration"." I am sure that the House agrees with that. The Government have given considerable consideration to the proposal that the United Kingdom should introduce a national day of awareness about human trafficking and slavery. Our position remains as outlined by my honourable friend the Minister for Immigration, Phil Woolas, in another place. As he said, we support the principle behind this proposition, which is to raise awareness about trafficking. However, on whether this requires legislation, we will maintain a neutral stance and leave it to the House to decide whether it is appropriate that there should be a statutory anti-slavery day. This is our considered position on this Bill, although it should not be taken, of course, as an indication that any further requests to put awareness-raising days on the statute book will be met with the same response. As my honourable friend the Minister for Immigration said, we are very grateful to the authors of this Bill for including reference to the progress made by the Government in tackling this crime. We have consistently stated our intention to make the United Kingdom a hostile environment for traffickers, while ensuring protection of, and assistance to, the victims. To this end, we have a comprehensive strategy in the United Kingdom Action Plan on Tackling Human Trafficking. This was first published in 2007, the year of the bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade, as noble Lords mentioned, and is updated annually—most recently in October 2009. This coincided with EU Anti-Trafficking Day, which noble Lords will know is held on 18 October each year. The noble Baroness, Lady Nicholson, in particular asked what our focus was in our ongoing work. The focus of our efforts is an end-to-end victim-centred strategy in four key areas—prevention; investigation, enforcement and prosecution; providing protection to adult victims; and protecting child victims. Critical to our success is the work of our enforcement agencies. This includes the UK Human Trafficking Centre, which co-ordinates the response of law enforcement. In addition, the second highest priority of the Serious Organised Crime Agency is tackling organised immigration crime, which now includes human trafficking. We have always recognised that enforcement of our laws alone is not enough. We have therefore always sought to co-ordinate enforcement efforts with a clear focus on the need to prevent the problem in the first place and on protecting victims. This approach was commended by the Joint Committee on Human Rights in its 26th report of the 2005-06 Session, when it stated: ""We are encouraged by our further belief that the Government is also committed to achieving the best possible balance in its overall policy to combat trafficking, grounding that policy in human rights standards, and has an open mind about how this can best be achieved"." Central to this approach has been recognition of the need to raise awareness. The noble Lord, Lord Sheikh, specifically asked if we were doing this. The noble Baroness, Lady Young, also mentioned that. To this end internationally, the Department for International Development, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Serious Organised Crime Agency have supported a number of initiatives which aim to tackle trafficking at source. We have also been working with partners to strengthen the international response to trafficking, especially at EU level, where we have been negotiating a revised framework decision on human trafficking. That work is complemented by that undertaken by the UKHTC in developing the Blue Blindfold brand. For those in your Lordships’ House who are not already aware of this, Blue Blindfold is the international brand devised by the UKHTC with partner organisations and which is used to raise awareness about human trafficking. Most recently, this brand has been used to launch an awareness-raising campaign in Belfast. The aim of the brand is to encourage law-enforcement professionals and the general public to become more aware of human trafficking generally and the possibility of it occurring in their areas, because often people do not seem to realise how prevalent the problem is. The Blue Blindfold brand has been adopted by international partners, including Crime Stoppers International, linked with the UNODC's Blue Heart campaign. Blue Blindfold, with its strap line stating: ""Open your eyes to human trafficking"," encourages all sectors to be aware of the dangers of this horrendous crime. Blue Blindfold is therefore a highly valuable resource for all those interested in ensuring that the dangers of human trafficking are communicated as widely as possible. A number of noble Lords spoke about the Poppy Project. We have invested some £5.8 million in that, and additionally we have enhanced our victim care arrangements in line with our ratification of the Council of Europe convention. On top of that, we are investing a further £3.9 million in the next financial year to build on the previous success of the Poppy Project, which has been immensely valuable, as some noble Lords have said. We have made good progress in the other priority areas highlighted by the action plan. On enforcement and prosecutions, the efforts of law-enforcement agencies continue to deter, disrupt and arrest traffickers. We have secured 138 convictions on human trafficking since we commenced the dedicated legislation in 2004. On protecting victims of trafficking, our ratification in December 2008 of the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings represents a major milestone in our anti-trafficking efforts and has strengthened the protection arrangements for victims by granting identified victims an extendable 45-day recovery period and one-year temporary residence permit in certain circumstances. Going further, since 1 April 2009 we have established a national referral mechanism systematically to identify victims within a multi-agency framework designed to make it easier for agencies involved in tackling trafficking to co-operate, share information about potential victims and facilitate their access to support. To support victim care, we have invested more money—about £4 million—in addition to the £6 million already invested. Child trafficking is a particularly emotive issue for all of us, as children are uniquely vulnerable. A number of speakers touched on this, with the noble Lord, Lord Roberts of Llandudno, referring to that marvellous choir of wonderful young children that came over. To address the needs of children, we have established and maintained a multi-agency effort through joint working with children’s services, law enforcement agencies, the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre and the United Kingdom Human Trafficking Centre. There is also the work of the missing persons task force, which the Prime Minister launched in December 2009. The task force is looking at ways in which to strengthen and improve the multi-agency response to missing persons incidents through the announcement in January of the Government’s intention to strengthen the role of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre by placing the organisation on a statutory footing and giving it a lead on the issue of missing children, which is something that we needed to do. We remain determined to eradicate this abhorrent crime, as all speakers have highlighted. I am glad that that is on the record. We have made progress but we cannot be complacent—and we are not. We cannot afford to sit back and reflect on achievements so far; we will continue to look forward and develop our strategy both nationally and internationally, since this must be done as an international effort, to ensure that we do not allow the dangers of human trafficking to slip off the radar. To prevent this from happening, it is crucial that we keep the level of awareness high, not only among enforcement agencies and professions but among the general public. Whether that is best served by legislating for an awareness-raising day is a matter for your Lordships.