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The scale of the challenge is significant. While net immigration into the UK last year was 44 per cent lower than in the previous year, the number of people who came in-more than 118,000-is still far from insignificant. It is a mistake to think that only illegal immigration, which I shall come to in a moment, results in the exploitation of migrants. The UK's threat assessment for serious and organised crime says:
"Legal migrants are also vulnerable to various forms of exploitation, especially those from the new European Union ... member states as they represent a large proportion of economic migrants and can work legally without a visa, therefore not requiring facilitation or false documentation".
Paradoxically, this makes them more rather than less vulnerable to exploitative employers because they are easy to pick up. You do not have to do a great deal about covering your tracks; you can take them in because they are here legally. The Vulnerable Worker Enforcement Forum has found that poor language skills-this makes workers vulnerable even though they may be skilled-and a lack of awareness of their rights are key factors in the vulnerability of migrant workers. It is very important that we should not just care for these people but help them to help themselves. I would be grateful if the Minister could tell us how the Government are trying to raise awareness of workers' rights in EU states before people come to the UK.
Many noble Lords have noted that there are also problems with organised immigration crime. A particularly vivid picture of that was painted by the noble Baroness, Lady Neuberger. People-smuggling and human trafficking are particularly odious forms of organised crime as
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- "become victims of trafficking during their journey or find themselves vulnerable to exploitation on arrival at their destination".
We know this, and we need to try to do something about it.
The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Ripon and Leeds said two interesting things. First, he talked about people without skills, but secondly also in this category are people who are not necessarily being directly exploited by organised criminals, but who have skills and are not able to use them. They come here on a different basis and they find that there are barriers, such as doctors whom we cannot employ. They lose and we lose. Personal unhappiness, misery and decline can result. It seems to me that there is a lot that we could do in individual instances as well as in general policy to ease some of these difficulties.
The think tank CentreForum has said that there are an estimated 500,000 illegal immigrants in Britain, who are largely working in the underground economy. There are suggestions of amnesty for these individuals, which is a difficult issue. There are those who consider that it sends out the wrong message to give amnesty to such people, and others think that it is a humane way of dealing with the existing situation. I would be interested in the Minister's comments.
I shall come to the question of those who are engaged in exploiting people. The UK is beginning to look like a rather attractive place to people who are involved in immigration crime. I will give some examples. Of the 19 people who were convicted of trafficking for sexual exploitation in 2008, four received suspended sentences. In that year, there were only four convictions for trafficking for the purpose of forced labour. There is a question mark over those convictions. The average sentence for human trafficking is just 4.69 years. The final figure to note is that of the 3,200 employers of illegal immigrants who were arrested in 2008, only 14 were successfully prosecuted. Do we not all think that part of the key to bringing down the levels of exploitation is to go after those who are really engaged in that exploitation? Some are themselves victims, but there are a significant number who are not victims and who are knowingly exploiting people. They are making money out of it and they do not care about the effects of their actions.
One of the keys to enforcement must be a more rigorous use of investigation and the judicial process. It is all very well laying a burden, as it is right to, on employers to make sure that their employees are there legally and have a right to work, but it is also important that the authorities follow up when they discover that illegality is going on. We need to use the courts. I would be grateful to the Minister if he could give us a
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There are some gaps in the law. Last year, the Government dropped measures to increase civil penalties for employers found using illegal labour that had appeared in the draft immigration and citizenship Bill. A number of noble Lords rightly mentioned that the Coroners and Justice Bill presents us with another opportunity to tackle these issues by creating a clear offence of holding a person in servitude or subjecting them to forced or compulsory labour. Matrix Chambers has confirmed how important this is, stating that,
- "the existing criminal law offences pertaining to trafficking, the slave trade, false imprisonment and kidnapping are not apt to cover all offences of servitude".
This point was mentioned by the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich. I would be grateful if the Minister will outline the Government's position.
Discussion of the sex sector leads me to my last point. A number of noble Lords have talked about extending the remit of the Gangmasters Licensing Authority. One noble Lord rightly mentioned that the authority had been effective in reducing the level of exploitation in the sectors that it covered. Proposals have been made to extend the authority's remit. We understand the motivation for this and are sympathetic to it. However, we must be careful, particularly in a recession, that we do not drive up costs in sectors such as hospitality, with its implications for waiters' wages, and thereby drive more people underground to earn less. We must be careful how we do it, because costs are an issue.
Overall, we must seek a better policy balance between enforcing the law and treating individuals who are victims of these rapacious activities with sympathy and understanding. Will the Minister say how the Government will improve the enforcement of legislation in this area? There are other aspects to the problem, particularly ensuring that those who consciously, willingly and deliberately engage in exploitation of humans and are part of people-trafficking rings should suffer the penalties of the law. They are a big pull factor for illegal migration. If they are dealt with, we will be able to deal more readily with other policies that flow from their actions.
6.17 pm
Lord Brett: My Lords, I join in congratulating the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries of Pentregarth, on the timeliness of the debate. Protection of vulnerable workers is something that the Government are committed to. We must protect all vulnerable workers, including vulnerable migrant workers.
It might be useful to start with our definition. A vulnerable worker is defined by the Government as someone working in an environment where the risk of being denied employment rights is high, and who does
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In the fascinating debate that we have had, a number of proposals have been made, which I will come to. However, if noble Lords will forgive me, I will avoid trespassing on matters that we will debate in the Coroners and Justice Bill in the next 24 hours-I would not be thanked by anyone for going down that road.
The Government are saying that there should be no hiding place for employers who exploit vulnerable workers and who are not prepared to obey the law. Migrant workers with an entitlement to work in the UK have rights like any other workers. We have launched a major programme to support vulnerable workers following the report of the business department's Vulnerable Worker Enforcement Forum, published last year. The programme is being implemented to raise vulnerable worker awareness of basic employment rights, as was mentioned by one noble Lord, and to ensure that those rights are enforced effectively.
The first thing that we have done is to streamline access to the enforcement bodies, and I am delighted to see my noble friend Lord Young sitting in his place. In September he launched a new, free, single enforcement helpline known as the Pay and Work Rights Helpline. In case Hansard is read more widely than we imagine, I should say that the number is 0800 917 2368. This replaced five separate helplines, and the new line enables workers to obtain information and advice, and report abuses, all via one number. It covers the national and agricultural minimum wages, working time infringements and potential abuses of employment agency and gangmaster regulations-something that we have heard quite a lot about in this debate. As proof that some of the anecdotal evidence put forward tonight is supported by others, I am pleased to say that it is effective, as it receives 600 calls a day. On the other hand, I am not so pleased, as that shows that there is a real problem.
I was also pleased that when the helpline was launched it secured strong backing from organisations that do a lot of work with vulnerable people-Citizens Advice, the Trades Union Congress and others-which saw it as a very valuable new tool in seeking to protect vulnerable workers. It makes it easier for workers to report abuses and, of course, for the Government to respond.
An understanding of English is something that we wish to see. Now, under the five-tier system, people coming to Britain are expected to have basic English but that is not the case with many vulnerable migrant workers. Translation facilities in more than 100 languages are available for all who need them so that migrant workers can report abuses and we can take them on board and seek to resolve them. This measure is
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A strand of the campaign is aimed at new Europeans, by which I mean those who joined the EU some years ago-a point also mentioned by noble Lords-be they Lithuanians, Slovaks, Poles, Bulgarians, Latvians or what have you. Awareness-raising material has been produced in these languages and is being published in relevant media for those migrant communities. We are also focusing on spreading the message within communities by sending mail-outs to community leaders, business organisations and the relevant embassies.
We have also ensured that workers coming to the UK following the 2004 accession, and the subsequent accession of Bulgaria and Romania, have been provided with information concerning both their rights and their responsibilities. We have offered to work with the Governments of all the new member states-a valuable point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Jones-to ensure that people know before they go that this is not a country where the streets are paved with gold, and that people seeking to separate them from large amounts of hard-earned money in their own countries to be smuggled here are providing a totally false prospectus. To date, we have also produced leaflets in partnership with the Polish, Lithuanian, Romanian and Portuguese Governments aimed at ensuring that all potential migrants are aware of both their rights and their responsibilities before they leave their country. Indeed, we reinforce that on their arrival into the United Kingdom.
The noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Jones, asked what we are doing to toughen up enforcement of the existing laws. In particular, we want to see the enforcement of employment rights. We have strengthened the penalties for failing to comply with employment law in order to increase the deterrent effect. Provisions in the Employment Act 2008, which came into effect this April, introduced automatic penalties for non-compliance with the national minimum wage. These have already been used more than 80 times. In the first quarter of this financial year, HM Revenue and Customs, which enforces the minimum wage, identified over £2 million of arrears owed to more than 6,000 workers.
The Act also brought in changes making employment agency regulations indictable so they can be tried in a Crown Court, where tougher penalties are available. Perhaps that meets the concern that we need to move to tougher penalties and enforcement.
Significant effort has been put into the profile of the employment and enforcement agencies, particularly the Employment Agency Standards Inspectorate, which previously lacked visibility. We doubled the number of inspectors from 12 to 24. A major advertising campaign was launched which promoted awareness of agency-worker protections and the role of the EAS. It is carrying out intelligence-led blitzes and is having increasing success in returning money to workers who have had pay illegally withheld. Twice the amount has been recovered this year compared with the previous year.
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Criticism was voiced by noble Lords about the need for more joined-up action and better and effective collaboration between the enforcement agencies. Action is being taken to address legal barriers which, in some cases, constrain the extent to which enforcement officers can share information with each other about potentially non-compliant employers. An amendment in last year's Employment Act, which took effect in April, established an information gateway between the national minimum wage and employment agency inspectors. The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills is currently consulting on proposals for a legislative reform order to amend primary legislation to address the limited number of remaining barriers. We are already seeing better targeted and effective enforcement action with enforcement bodies increasingly acting as the eyes and ears for each other, and collaborating to make best use of the enforcement powers that are available.
It might be appropriate at this point to turn to the question raised by my noble friend Lord Parekh and the noble Baroness, Lady Neuberger, on the GLA interface with the UK Border Agency and exchange of information. The Government believe that the GLA needs to share information with the UK Border Agency on immigration status because it is likely that an immigration offence is being committed by the employer. Without that information, action would be difficult to take. There are new resource requirements for an extension of the GLA and in many other areas. The Government are putting new resources for compliance and enforcement from the migration impacts fund, which include around £3 million over two years to workplace enforcement bodies. The HM Revenue and Customs has a project establishing a dedicated team to respond to problems in hotspots where there is evidence that employers are using migrant labour to undercut legitimate employers by paying below the national minimum wage.
The HSE is undertaking projects to increase awareness of health and safety law among migrant groups, particularly in construction and agriculture. The GLA is taking on five enforcement officers to work in communities in Lincolnshire, Devon, Cornwall, Cambridge, London and the south-east to ensure that migrant workers' employment rights are enforced. There is also a union modernisation fund commitment that supports the building industry unions in their work with vulnerable migrant workers. We have set out details of oversight, to ensure that those involved at all levels have part of the control of how we deal with the problem. A further employment enforcement board is chaired by the Employment Relations Minister in another place and brings together the enforcement bodies and the key external stakeholders, such as the CBI, TUC and Citizens Advice. It meets regularly to help drive the Government's vulnerable worker programme and to encourage more joint working and collaboration between enforcement agencies.
The point was made several times about the extension of GLA licensing. There was broad support for that from a number of quarters. There was also considerable praise for the work of the GLA, which I would share. However, we have to understand that 25 per cent of gangmasters remain unlicensed and, ironically, in the industry that was the raison d'être for the creation of
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It would not be accurate to say-indeed, no one did-that employment sectors outside those covered by the GLA are not regulated. They are regulated by the Employment Agency Standards Inspectorate, part of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. They are also subject to inspections by HM Revenue and Customs, the HSE and other workplace bodies, irrespective of whether they are registered or not.
The EAS responds to all complaints and carries out targeted risk-based proactive inspections. It sees its approach of spot checks as the most intelligent way of dealing with the problems that exist. As regards taking the GLA model across all industries, the Government are not convinced that the licensing of gangmasters-for example, those operating in construction-would be a targeted, proportionate or effective way of tackling safety challenges in the construction sector. It would have only a minor effect on health and safety outcomes, as under construction health and safety legislation duty holders have a legal responsibility of their own irrespective of their employment status. Equal protection is provided to all. In particular, the principal or main contractor has responsibilities for ensuring the health and safety of all individuals who work on a construction site, irrespective of the formal employer. I am also told that it would have a limited impact because only about 3 per cent of construction workers are agency workers.
However, I want to reassure the House that the Government are keeping the issue in the construction sector under close review and are taking targeted steps to tackle the problem. These include joint consultation with HM Revenue and Customs on proposals for tackling false self-employment. The proposed tax changes will lead to a more appropriate treatment of workers and a culture of responsible employers applying employment rights. The HSE has recently recruited more than 20 new inspectors with construction industry backgrounds to support the work of existing inspectors.
There are many other points that I want to address but, recognising the limited time at my disposal, I will look to some that I have not covered so far. The major issue, which is difficult and has been around for some time, was raised by the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich-the question of an amnesty. There are those who favour it and those who believe that it is a one-off solution. Unfortunately there is a lot of evidence to suggest that the pull of an amnesty will only encourage more people to seek not only to be legal migrants but to be illegal migrants on the grounds that once you get in, at some stage you will be legalised. We know the difficulties
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My noble friend Lord Haskel made a good point that is often lost in our discussions about the European Union. It is that we enjoy a two-way freedom. We hear that there is a danger of EU nationals coming here and perhaps threatening British jobs. I endorse the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Jones, and others who said that this country owes a tremendous amount to migrants. I am the son of migrants, albeit from the Irish Republic, who claim to be part of Britain. I have to say that given my grandfather's political sentiments, he would never have claimed that. However, my noble friend Lord Haskel made the point that we have a two-way street. Not only do 6 million people go on holiday to Europe every year, but more than 580,000 Brits work in Europe. British firms have some 47,000 British people working in all parts of Europe-in the new emerging countries and also in the older established EU countries. Therefore, when talking about migration, we often forget the advantages for workers in this country of being able to migrate to other parts of Europe.
An important point was made by the noble Baroness, Lady Neuberger-namely that there is a link between illegal migration, exploitation and crime. We saw it classically in the case of the cockle pickers, but it is not the only one.
Interestingly enough, in my previous incarnation as director of the International Labour Organisation in London, I had people saying to me, "Isn't it disturbing", when someone in Scotland who had exploited about 600 people was not put in prison for trafficking or for the exploitation. He went to prison for a considerable period-I think that it was eight years-but the point is that he was not charged with those offences for the simple reason that there were other offences for which he could be charged that would guarantee that he would spend a long time at Her Majesty's pleasure that were easier to prosecute than the charge of exploitation of workers.
That was to the chagrin of people who wanted to show that the law would protect workers. It had the effect of taking the person out of the exploitation and therefore releasing a lot of people from his evil grip, but there is the issue of crime. That is why we must continue to have both strong borders and a strong managed migration policy and, at the same time, recognise that people who come to this country are indeed equal in front of the law as legal migrants and have all the same rights, and ensure that those rights will be enforced as they would be for British citizens.
I know that I have missed a number of points. I will look very carefully at Hansard tomorrow and write to noble Lords on any of the points that I missed or, indeed, any points that would benefit from amplification.
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