Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)

My Lords, I declare that I am co-chair of the parliamentary group on modern slavery and vice-chair of the Human Trafficking Foundation. The Modern Slavery Act 2015 was transformational in its ambitions, but it was a long time ago and much of what came from it has not really been implemented, or has been positively discouraged. The two recent reports, particularly the excellent one we are debating today, set out sensible recommendations, but they are not yet implemented by the Government. That really is what I will talk about today. There is no provision in the Act for enforcement and we are now, as has already been said, out of step with many other countries, including Australia, the United States, Norway and France, and with the EU. I remember discussing with United States border control officers, over a web link, how they stopped “hot goods”, as they call them, very effectively. Why are we not looking at how the Americans deal with hot goods? The EU has a due diligence directive. That is going to affect our big companies, because we deal hugely with the with EU, as we do with the United States. As the noble Lord, Lord Alton, said, are we going to find that our goods are rejected because we cannot be clear that they are safe? We have the Procurement Act 2023; excellent in idea, but not yet effective. We have an Immigration and Asylum Bill that will increase transparency and reporting, but it has no due diligence directives, mandatory provisions, or duty to identify, prevent and address forced labour. Quite simply, we do not have anything effective to deal with the companies, many of which are working extremely hard to do the right thing, which means they are at a financial disadvantage compared with all too many companies that are not doing anything to prevent forced labour. My view is that the mandatory provisions should apply and that they should have financial implications. We should use SMEs, as well as the very big companies, with a right degree of proportionality. Trade negotiations should include consideration of modern slavery and cleaning the supply chains. There are issues across government departments, so there should be clarity and responsibility. This is urgent. The Government need to get on with it.