Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)

My Lords, I will be brief, because I agree wholeheartedly with the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, particularly about the position of domestic migrant workers. This is something we will come back to at later stages of the Bill, but as the noble Baroness has raised it now, I just put on record how much I agree with her. The noble Lord, Lord German, and I recently met with Kalayaan, which does so much extraordinary, wonderful work in this field. We were reviewing with it how things have changed—and what else needs to be changed—in the years that have passed since 2015. I have with me a publication it issued called 12 Years of Modern Slavery, the Smoke Screen Used to Deflect State Accountability for Migrant Domestic Workers. I know that the Minister agrees with Kalayaan’s 2015 findings, because there is a photograph of the Minister and me, both of us looking considerably younger, alongside our redoubtable friend, now retired from this place, Lord Hylton. We were celebrating the passage of the 2015 legislation but recognising that more still needed to be done. I will not quote at length from the report. If the Minister has not seen it, I will be more than happy to share my copy with him, so that he can study the photographs and see the effects of too much engagement with Bills such as this. The report says: “Government data tells us that from 2005 to 2022, the number of visas issued to migrant domestic workers has remained consistent at around 20,000 per year”, so this does affect a significant number of people doing significant work. Kalayaan urged the Government to take immediate steps to amend the Immigration Rules and reinstate the rights provided for under the pre-2012 visa regime. Among those is the right to renew a domestic worker visa annually, subject to ongoing employment. That is a reasonable demand. I hope that at some stage during the proceedings on the Bill, the Minister will see whether there is a way to address that issue. So I strongly support what the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, has said.