House of Lords 10th May 2023
Speech to the House of Lords:
The Joint Committee on Human Rights, on which I serve, is required and mandated by Parliament to scrutinise every Government Bill for its compatibility with human rights.
But how is it to fully undertake its constitutional duties when a Home Secretary fails to come to the Committee and defend and explain a Bill that she has been unable to sign off as human rights compliant.
Discourteous and worse.
By contrast, in 2015, with consummate skill, Teresa May steered the landmark Modern Day Slavery and Human Trafficking legislation through Parliament, providing pre legislative scrutiny and building bipartisan, bicameral and consensual support.
Last week, with my noble and learned friend, Lady Butler Sloss and Lord McColl of Dulwich, we spent an hour with Lady May and Sir Ian Duncan Smith and hope the Minister will explain why their amendment on victims of trafficking- and alluded to by Lord Forsyth – has not been accepted.
Be clear , the changes proposed in the Bill will not stop the boats (as modern slavery victims are just 6% of small boat arrivals) but will remove support and protection from many genuine victims. It will deter slavery victims exploited on British soil from coming forward leaving them trapped in exploitation and making prosecuting criminal gangs harder.
I have been a Trustee of a charity that combats trafficking and yesterday chaired a session for key organisations including the Salvation Army who with partners have supported over 18,000 victims during the 11 years have held the Government’s Modern Slavery Victim Care Contract.
They point out that the Bill disapplies various protections and those who arrive irregularly and indirectly will be deemed a “threat to public order” and will therefore be disqualified from the existing legal protections.
The weight of evidence received by the JCHR – some it taken in camera from victims – has been overwhelmingly clear that this would be in breach of the UK’s obligations under the Council of Europe Convention Against Trafficking and Article 4 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
At yesterday’s meeting with the Salvation Army I was told that traffickers will use the new law as a tool; that it won’t break the cycle of exploitation, only exacerbate it; adding to the trauma –to destitution, homelessness, mental illness, to people living outside the law in precarious uncertainty.
Paradoxically, we empower traffickers and brothel owners and disempower the victims.
The JCHR heard concerns that clauses 2-5 will ultimately lead to the UK failing to play its part in the global system of refugee protection.
Vicky Tennant, UK Representative to the UN Refugee Agency told us the Bill is,”a series of unilateral measures that are about pushing refugees away and pushing responsibility on to other countries, it will undermine the trust and regional co-operation needed to manage these movements.”
Within the last 24 hours the UNHCR has said it“breaks the core UN Conventions that UNHCR is mandated to safeguard: the 1951 Refugee Convention and the 1954 Statelessness Convention.”
In addition to concerns for the victims of trafficking there are five other areas that have raised red flags – the removal of protections for refugees and stateless persons (clauses 2-5);Potential for indefinite and arbitrary detention (clauses 10-13); Due process and appeal rights compromised (clauses 37-52) Interim measures (clause 53); and lack of protections for both accompanied and unaccompanied children – a point raised by Lord Dubs. I was a cosignatory to his amendment on children.
The JCHR heard concerns that the Bill would not be compatible with the UK’s obligations under both the ECHR and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Two experts said the provisions “create risks of Article 5 breaches” while Welsh Women’s Aid said there would inevitably be “an increase in the number of women and children exploited in hidden and organised illegal trade.
As for due process and appeal rights, Freedom from Torture told us that “A person may be able to provide ‘reasonable’ or even ‘strong’ evidence, but not quite enough to be ‘compelling’. Very many refugees will not be able to surmount this evidential burden, putting them at risk of harm.”
The Bill also gives Ministers legislative permission to ignore interim measures indicated by the European Court of Human Rights and to breach various international and domestic legal obligations and risks breaching others.
Several witnesses told us that the Bill is so bad it is simply incapable of amendment – that before legislating further, we should undertake post legislative scrutiny of the Nationality and Borders Act which only came into force in January. If it proves impossible to amend the House should exercise its constitutional right to reject it at Third Reading.
Let me end.
In 1938, the Independent MP, Eleanor Rathbone, established the Parliamentary Committee on Refugees. In 1940, during a six-hour debate– when Europe faced the challenge of enormous numbers of displaced people – she argued that in addition to the humanitarian case there were hard-headed reasons for the UK to lead the international response. She said it “not only in the interests of humanity and of the refugees, but in the interests of security itself”. — [Official Report,Commons, 10/7/40; col. 1212.]
Her speech and its description of dog whistle politics and the stigmatisations of refugees bears careful study today.
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It is also worth noting that Rathbone’s ally was Winston Churchill.
His response included the creation of the Council of Europe and the European Convention on Human Rights, crafted mainly by British lawyers. Signed in Rome in 1950, it came into force in 1953.
Are we to so easily forget the lessons of the past?
With 100 million displaced people in the world, I want to see my country recapturing those ideals and leading the international campaign to tackle root causes. Not scapegoating vulnerable people. As a nation, we are better, much better than that
