To move that this House takes note of the Report from the Modern Slavery Act 2015 Committee The Modern Slavery Act 2015: becoming world-leading again (HL Paper 8).
My Lords, I am pleased to introduce this debate on our report. On behalf of the committee, I begin with a sincere expression of appreciation: to everyone who provided evidence; to our brilliant staff team led by Sabrina Asghar; and to our expert adviser Caroline Haughey KC, a pioneer in the successful prosecution of modern slavery criminals. It is also right to recognise that a step change in victims’ rights was achieved only because of the determination of the then Home Secretary, now the noble Baroness, Lady May, who sponsored the Modern Slavery Act 2015. At the time, this was truly world-leading legislation.
I thank my fellow committee members for their hard work, diligence and dedication. Our deliberations were sometimes challenging, not to say robust, but always, I hope, conducted in good spirit. Special mention should be made of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, who is unable to participate today, who made the original proposal to establish our committee, and that it should examine whether the Act is still fit for purpose. Last, but certainly not least, I pay tribute to the modern slavery survivors who spoke to our committee and provided feedback on our report. In future, we must go further to ensure that survivors are at the heart of policy-making, not just giving testimony but shaping strategy.
In my contribution, I want to highlight three areas of our report: first, immigration legislation. Our committee concluded that immigration legislation introduced by the last Government had served to undermine support and protection for victims, including the non-punishment principle that was enshrined in the Modern Slavery Act. This has had real-world consequences: making victims more vulnerable, which can only embolden the criminals who exploit them.
We were disturbed by the then Ministers’ attempts to justify this with the unfounded suggestion that the modern slavery system was being gamed. Second-hand anecdotes are never a substitute for hard data. On examination, our committee found no evidence to back up such claims. Can the Minister confirm today that those provisions contained in the Illegal Migration Act 2023 and the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 which weaken modern slavery victims’ rights will be repealed?
In addition, victims are often traumatised and may be reluctant to engage with the authorities. Our committee recommended that the Government set a goal to guarantee every victim a trained and accredited advocate or navigator to support them through the system. It is very welcome that the Government want to expand this scheme, but can the Minister tell us by how much and how fast?
Moreover, the harsh reality is that an employer who sponsors visas still holds the whip hand. What incentive does a worker have to report exploitation when an employer can simply withdraw sponsorship, putting them at risk of destitution and deportation? Sixty days to find another employer sponsor in the same sector means little if the worker has no home, no money and no power.
My Lords, I start by declaring my interest as the chair of the Human Trafficking Foundation. I echo all the comments from the noble Baroness, Lady O’Grady of Upper Holloway, particularly about the committee, committee members, staff and those who gave evidence. I also pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady O’Grady, not just for her excellent speech, but because, although she came in to chair the committee at short notice, her expertise has been really well received. She is now committed to this cause, as all those who are new to the subject committee will be.
Yesterday, there was a debate in the other place to mark the exact date 10 years ago that the Modern Slavery Act was passed. Favourable comments were made about the now noble Baroness, Lady May, and Dame Karen Bradley MP, who was the Minister taking it through. I am delighted to see in his place behind me my noble friend Lord Bates, who was the Minister who took the Modern Slavery Act through the House of Lords.
Some 10 years since the passing of the Modern Slavery Act, I have somewhat conflicted emotions. I am immensely proud of what we achieved in that landmark legislation, yet I am deeply frustrated that still, despite a decade of progress, the scourge of modern slavery still persists and our work in combating it is far from complete. The problem is that we find more and more examples of modern slavery all the time, and therefore we have more and more work to do.
The Committee came up with some very important conclusions. One of the things that struck me—I knew this before, but I was pleased to see it echoed—was how modern slavery, as an issue, has slipped down the political agenda—particularly, as was just mentioned, by the conflation between illegal migration and human trafficking. I was very frustrated with some of the legislation that was put through which did not endear me to my Whips—perhaps it should be the other way; I did not find myself endeared to them.
My Lords, I begin by declaring an interest: my family depends on care workers who come from a CQC-registered provider. Part of what I say today is based on reflections from sitting and listening to some of the conversations of those remarkable people who have come around the world to do jobs that are extraordinarily difficult and very necessary to us here.
Yesterday, I and the clerk to our committee had the great privilege of speaking to representatives of the Lao parliament about the process of post-legislative scrutiny. We talked about this Act and the work that we did, and we were asked, “What was the most important lesson that you learned?”. I said it is important to have a mix of people who know the subject inside out—I include in that our committee people, such as the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, the noble Lord, Lord Randall, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee—together with people who know very little and are capable of asking the obvious questions; that is me.
We will hear in great detail from various people from around the committee on the nature of this problem and what the Government have to do about it. But the key question that we are debating is: is it government policy that ending modern slavery is seen as an integral factor in the development of sustainable business, or is it a luxury that would be very nice to have but actually does not matter? It was quite clear to us that under the preceding Conservative Governments it had gone from being one to the other. My suggestion is that it is neither. I suggest that all the things that we are going to recommend today that the Government do as the result of our report add up to good and sustainable business practice.
The noble Baroness, Lady O’Grady, talked about the care sector, and obviously I want to focus on that. But during our deliberations, one particular case came up that shows the problems in stark contrast. There was a case of a trawler firm, TN Trawlers, based in Galloway in Scotland. For over a decade it had been bringing in people from all over the world to act as deck-hands, and they were kept in the most appalling and dangerous circumstances with absolutely no possibility of contacting anybody at all. That threw up three issues for me. First, this is not just a domestic issue for us but an offshore issue; that is something that we did not get a chance to focus on in our committee but is very important. Secondly, the Government have not yet tackled the role that the directors of the company and phoenix companies have in the perpetuation of bad practice. Thirdly, the loopholes and the lack of information between different agencies—the police, the gangmasters authority and others—are ongoing.
My Lords, I declare an interest as the co-chair of the parliamentary group on modern slavery and vice-chairman, to the noble Lord, Lord Randall, of the Human Trafficking Foundation. I am so delighted that the noble Baroness, Lady O’Grady, has held this debate, and I congratulate her on her splendid introductory speech. She was also an excellent chairman of our committee.
In the review of the working of the Act in 2019, chaired by Frank Field, then MP, we looked at how the Act was being or not being implemented, and we made 80 recommendations. Some of them were accepted by the then Government. None was implemented. The failure was largely due to the increasing concern over illegal immigration. Immigration, refugees and victims of human trafficking were conflated, as has already been said. Victims of exploitation were dealt with by the Immigration Minister. The tone of the previously excellent statutory guidance of the Home Office changed.
Subsequently, the Nationality and Borders Act was passed in 2022, the Illegal Migration Act in 2023 and the Rwanda Act in 2024. Much to the credit of this Government, the Rwanda Act will not be implemented. Sections 22 to 29 of the Illegal Migration Act on modern slavery have not yet come into force, and I very much hope they will be repealed. But the Nationality and Borders Act remains in force, and I want to deal with certain sections of it.
The Select Committee looked at the impact of Sections 61 to 68, I think. These limit the access that victims have to support, partly based on an entirely erroneous view of the previous Government—as the noble Baroness, Lady O’Grady, said—that the NRM was a vehicle for abuse of the system by enabling illegal migrants to enter the UK. A large majority of final decisions remain positive and, as the noble Baroness said, our committee found no evidence that this actually happened—it is entirely anecdotal.
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The Lord Bishop of Bristol
My Lords, I, too, speak as a member of the review committee on the Modern Slavery Act in this 10th anniversary week. It was world-leading legislation, as we have heard. I also rise in the week that the Church commemorates Harriet Monsell, founder of the Anglican Community of St John Baptist, Clewer, a community which, from its 19th century inception, had as a core vocation the care of female victims of human trafficking. That community has for several years funded training of community groups across the United Kingdom to notice the trafficked people—women, men and children—hiding in plain sight in their midst and to act on their behalf. Clewer has also produced apps, notably for car washes and nail bars, giving assurance on their labour practices and suppliers. In today’s debate, that is where I would like to focus my remarks.
I draw attention to Section 54 of the Modern Slavery Act, which imposes a duty on companies supplying goods or services that have a turnover of at least £36 million to
“prepare a slavery and human trafficking statement”
every financial year. The statement should set out the steps that the business is taking to address and prevent the rise of modern slavery in its operations and supply chains. I know that some take that commitment very seriously.
I was happy to meet with one such company recently, Primark, which undertakes thorough and regular independent audits of its factories, employing experts who speak the local language and, in turn, talk to the local workforce so that they know what is going on on the ground. Once they find that the situation has materially changed, they pull out of the market. For example, in 2019, Primark found that it could no longer conduct effective human rights due diligence in Xinjiang province in China, so it prohibited all suppliers from using and sourcing products, materials, components or labour originating from the region. Primark has taken equally decisive action when UK suppliers have been found to be non-compliant.
Our report included recommendations on strengthening statutory guidance in Section 54 and the introduction of sanctions for non-compliance, as the noble Baroness, Lady O’Grady, indicated. I look forward to hearing more from the Minister on progress in this area.
The issue of modern slavery and exploitation in supply chains raises questions about corporate accountability. Although consumer businesses are exposed to a greater level of transparency and accountability, their lesser-known competitors can get away with publishing weak statements or not publishing at all, in the knowledge that any penalties are unlikely to be forthcoming. I know that many businesses, including the British Retail Consortium, John Lewis, Tesco and others, are asking for further regulation so that companies that operate supply chains free from forced labour are not left at a financial disadvantage.
My Lords, it is a privilege to follow the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Bristol. The Church has been an essential voice in the campaign to end modern slavery, and many of us will remember the significant role played by the former Bishop of Derby, Alastair Redfern, during the legislation’s passage through this House. I begin by joining with others in paying tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady O’Grady, all the members of her committee and the clerks and advisers for an excellent and timely report.
As the Minister who had the privilege of steering this legislation through your Lordships’ House, I felt a shared pride with many others when it eventually arrived on the statute book. I say shared, because it was a cross-party measure brought in by a coalition Government—you cannot get more shared than that. That was, and remains, its strength. It could not have happened, however, and as the noble Baroness, Lady O’Grady, has generously said, without the determination and reforming zeal of my noble friend Lady May of Maidenhead as Home Secretary, nor without Frank Field—Lord Field—who first challenged us to “call a spade a spade” and refer to human trafficking as modern slavery. He chaired both the pre and post-legislative scrutiny, ably supported by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and my noble friend Lord Randall. We should also acknowledge the role played by many civil society organisations, such as the Centre for Social Justice and Justice and Care, and the dedicated civil servants who translated the poetry of our hopes into the careful prose of legislation.
The task of tackling modern slavery cannot be achieved by one department, one party or one country. The crime of modern slavery is not something that occurs only in the United Kingdom. The 2022 report by the ILO and the International Organization for Migration estimated that there are 50 million people in situations of modern slavery around the world. It is a global problem, and solutions need to be global too. We can no more work alone to tackle human trafficking than we can to tackle climate change or pandemics. Just as the problems are cross-departmental and cross-border, so solutions must be found through cross-departmental and cross-border working. The highly organised criminal gangs who are conducting this evil trade in human misery and suffering are no respecters of borders. We therefore need to co-operate internationally if we are to combat them.
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow my friend the noble Lord, Lord Bates. We worked together in the coalition Government on the question of human trafficking and on ensuring that we got the UN convention on human trafficking agreed. That took a while to get done, because of the election and so on, but we managed it. I declare an interest as a member of the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security, of Vital Voices and of the Global Women Asia network, the director of which, Wenchi Yu, was the first person to bring the question of human trafficking across my eyes and desk in 1976. Since then, I have been very interested in working globally, and here in this country, including previously with the noble Lord, Lord Bates.
I welcome this report. The UK made history 10 years ago by passing the Modern Slavery Act, a ground-breaking law designed to expose exploitation, prosecute perpetrators and protect victims. It was a beacon of leadership in the global fight against modern slavery. However, in 2025 we must ask ourselves: has it delivered on its promise? I know that the noble Baroness, Lady May, is also working on a report to see where we are, here and globally, for which I am grateful.
The Act brought modern slavery out of the shadows. It equipped law enforcement with greater powers, created the anti-slavery commissioner and mandated businesses to report on supply chains. Since its passage, we have seen progress, with 466 prosecutions in 2021, 405 in 2022 and over 3,500 live investigations in late 2022—a stark rise from 188 in 2016. Victim identification has surged, with 12,727 cases referred in 2021.
This is a global crime which is well-connected around the world, as my friend the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, has said. Yet, despite these strides, we remain far from eradicating this crime. Conservative estimates suggest that between 10,000 and 130,000 people in the UK are trapped in modern slavery, yet our prosecution rates barely scratch the surface, hovering around 2%. The national referral mechanism, designed to support victims, is overwhelmed, leaving survivors in limbo for months or even years. Worse still, recent immigration legislation such as the Illegal Migration Act 2023 has created tensions, with the potential to deter victims from seeking help due to deportation fears.
My Lords, I start by mentioning how sad I was that Baroness Henig, who was due to chair this committee, was sadly unable to take on this role due to ill health, and in fact passed away as our deliberations began. Ruth was a very intelligent and kind lady whom I had the privilege to serve alongside on other committees of special inquiry.
I also say, however, how fortunate we were that the noble Baroness, Lady O’Grady, took on this role. Despite having been in your Lordships’ House for only a short time, she was, in my view, an excellent chair whose past experience was evident in her careful and considerate handling of an important and timely review of the Modern Slavery Act. I of course add my thanks to our clerk and the wider team for their professionalism in dealing with the committee’s work.
The task of post-legislative review is never straightforward, and it is even less so when the subject matter is complex—and there is no doubt that modern slavery is a complex subject with a great many overlapping factors. We certainly saw that when hearing evidence and cross-examining witnesses.
In the short time we all have to speak today, it is possible to pick out only a couple of topics from our report, and I will therefore focus on the following. During our deliberations, we heard from a huge number of NGOs, academics, experts and people who had spent often years or decades studying or working in the area of modern slavery. But the word “prevention” was rarely spoken and, until our eighth meeting, I think it had been said only twice. There seemed at times to be a lack of understanding between cause and effect. The last statistic produced by government, back in 2017, estimated that modern slavery cost the UK economy between £3.3 billion and £4.3 billion each year, which is about as broad-brush as one could get.
Yet, despite these costs, despite people being able to have a career in the industry of NGOs looking after the victims of modern slavery, and despite all the difficulties that we as a committee saw evidence of, the current prosecution rate of people who are behind all this misery, human tragedy and suffering is 1.8% of all cases brought to the attention of the police and courts.
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In contrast, the Australian Government have recently introduced a workplace justice visa, which, in cases of where there is evidence of exploitation, frees the victim from dependence on a bad employer and supports their right to work in any sector. Have the Government made progress in considering such a scheme in the UK?
My second area of focus concerns the care sector. Modern slavery in the UK takes place in many—sometimes overlapping—forms. For example, as we recently saw in the shocking case of modern slavery at a branch of the multinational fast food chain, McDonald’s, labour exploitation can soon lead to sexual exploitation. While the picture of modern slavery is constantly evolving, prevention, regulation and enforcement have not kept pace.
Following an alarming spike in media exposure by investigative journalists, drawing on the great work of NGOs and trade unions, our committee decided to take an in-depth look at modern slavery in the care sector. We found that, in the rush to issue visas to tackle the care recruitment shortage in 2022, the then Government failed to put in place basic controls that could have prevented modern slavery. Does the Minister agree with our committee that organisations should not only register with but be inspected by the Care Quality Commission before they are allowed to sponsor overseas care workers to work in the UK? Does he also agree that, to deter phoenix companies, sponsoring organisations should also be subject to a minimum period of operation first?
Our committee heard evidence of a “continuum of exploitation” that starts with weak union organisation, low pay and insecurity, and runs through to no pay, confiscation of passports and modern slavery. The Government’s promised fair pay agreement to raise labour standards in the care sector offers a real opportunity to disrupt that continuum. When responding to our report’s recommendations for a single enforcement body, the Government promised that the fair work agency
“will be adequately resourced, with powers to proactively investigate and enforce compliance”.
That is welcome, but the Minister will be aware that the current number of labour market inspectors in the UK falls woefully short of the ILO’s recommended minimum standards, leaving us ranked 27th out of 33 OECD countries for labour market inspection. Although I am sure that many would accept that the ILO benchmark cannot be met overnight, can the Minister commit to setting targets for increasing the size of the labour inspectorate and publishing progress towards those targets?
Since our report was published, the Employment Rights Bill has proposed access for trade unions to the workplace so that they can organise and so that extreme exploitation is more likely to be deterred or exposed, tilting the current imbalance of power back towards staff. Can the Minister confirm that that will include care establishments?
My final point is about supply chains. Our committee was concerned to stress that the Department for Business and Trade must rise to its responsibility to help stamp out modern slavery at home and abroad. The Government’s commitment to build on and improve the modern slavery statement registry is welcome. Can the Minister tell us by when that will happen? Will it include revising thresholds for modern slavery reporting, given that most care providers fall well below the current threshold? Can he also reassure us that the promised review of sanctions for non-compliance with reporting rules will deliver penalties tough enough to make a difference and provide proper compensation for those who have suffered slavery?
Moreover, while greater transparency and consistency of reporting would be welcome, as our report makes clear, other countries have raced far ahead of the UK on due diligence requirements to tackle modern slavery in supply chains. The Government’s response to our report promised to look at that. If the Minister is unable to update us today, can he agree to facilitate a meeting with the relevant Ministers so that members of our committee have the opportunity to make that case? Some 10 years since the introduction of the Modern Slavery Act, the Government have a golden opportunity to reclaim the UK’s title as a world leader in the battle against modern slavery. We owe it to the victims to seize that chance. I look forward to the further contributions to this debate and to the Minister’s response. I beg to move.
In many ways, modern slavery makes us all complicit in it—how many of us can say with absolute certainty that the clothes we wear, the food we eat and the electronics we use are entirely free from exploitation? That is deeply troubling to me as a citizen and a consumer, and it troubles many people.
Modern slavery intersects with every aspect of society. It may be a hidden crime. We do not need to look hard to see it to become apparent and visible in our everyday lives. Trying to eradicate slavery from the supply chains, as the noble Baroness, Lady O’Grady, said, may be difficult but it is an absolutely fundamental issue that we really have to grasp.
The Modern Slavery Act introduced measures to ensure companies of a certain size produced modern slavery statements, but sadly this is just not happening.
Modern slavery also intersects with many of the Government’s own missions. We know that exploitation in the construction industry is high, and I would encourage them that mitigating the risk should be a key consideration in the plan to build the 1.5 million new homes we have been promised. When it comes to much needed green energy, it cannot be built on the back of forced labour.
Sadly, the Government cannot say that they were not warned by this House, because only this week they had an opportunity to prevent exploitation in the new Great British Energy supply chain. As expertly put by the noble Lord, Lord Offord, blocking companies found to be using forced labour
“does not create unnecessary bureaucracy or hinder investment; it simply ensures that taxpayers’ money does not fund exploitation”.—[Official Report, 11/2/25; col. 1175.]
This needs to be our focus. Ensuring that we are not all made complicit in enabling this crime and allowing it to be business as usual is fundamental.
At this moment it is business as usual. The Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority has not been properly resourced to proactively investigate and enforce proper labour practices. If, as we have heard, the proposed fair work agency faces the same levels of underresourcing, we are simply repackaging the problem. Proper investment and a clear plan on how it will operate are needed.
If we say that there will be consequences for forced labour, let us mean it. I point out to Ministers that the Government are fining hand car washes for non-registered workers, and yet only 5% of those fines are being collected—money that I think the Government not only need but could use for these resources.
We currently live in a society where victims of modern slavery are growing our food, caring for the elderly, propping up society and creating two tiers: people who are being exploited and people who benefit from this exploitation. I do not think anyone in this Chamber wants to be on either side of the coin.
Minister Jess Phillips, who spoke yesterday in the other place, is a real champion of fighting this scourge and has made a real difference. We will achieve this only if we have cross-party support and go forward to try to eradicate this, and get back to our position as a world leader.
We now have a growing body of evidence. In the care sector, for example, we have seen the problems grow over the last few years. It is very strange to me that we cannot get to the bottom of the problem. Our care sector is very well studied. People such as private equity investors do not put their money into a sector in the scale that they have without knowing the detailed financials, yet we could not get anybody to tell us who was paying for the care, which companies were bringing in workers and which were treating their workers badly. It is extraordinary to me that, as the noble Lord, Lord Randall, said, we are going to repeat the errors by setting up an agency that does not have the power to demand data of other public authorities or the requisite number of inspectors with deep knowledge of each of the sectors in which these abuses are happening, in order not only to deal with the cases that turn up but to do labour market projections and prevent matters arising. I see the problems of visas being tied to particular employers very clearly, and I think the noble Baroness, Lady O’Grady, is right that we should look at the Australian system as a way of preventing further abuses.
I go back to my starting point. I think that the role of government is to continue to make the business case against modern slavery. To do that, we really have to up our research game. The noble Baroness, Lady O’Grady, like me, was very disappointed by the response of the Department for Business and Trade that we received when we took our evidence. I sincerely hope that by making the fair work agency the responsibility of that department and making explicit the continuing responsibility of other parts of government to feed into it, we will overcome that problem. If we do not, we are going to continue to trade on human misery, and that is not just immoral but financially unsustainable.
I remember asking in this House again and again of the then Minister: “Where is the evidence?” We were never given it. But what happened in the past was that it strongly influenced the rhetoric and attitude of government towards possible victims of exploitation. We said in the report:
“It should be recognised that there is a very real difference between migrants who come here willingly, and those who come because they are being trafficked as victims of modern slavery”.
My goodness me—everybody would think that was obvious. It did not seem to me that it was obvious to the last Government.
Section 58 of the 2022 Act requires victims to provide evidence within a given time, which our witnesses pointed out was very difficult for those without representation. Section 61 decreases the recovery period. Section 63 provides that the protection from removal from the United Kingdom does not apply if an alleged victim
“is a threat to public order”—
that is to say, has committed a crime. Earlier statutory guidance from the Home Office recognised that victims were forced into committing crime by their traffickers, such as young Vietnamese men tending cannabis plants in rented property, who were locked in. None the less, they would be deported because they were a threat to public order.
In 2023, there were 331 confirmed disqualifications on the grounds of public order. We found that Section 63 was being applied beyond the statutory guidance and there are serious risks of retrafficking. The Home Office requires reasonable grounds to be supported by objective factors. Despite earlier guidance recognising victims’ trauma and the difficulties in giving an accurate account, time from referral to a reasonable grounds decision is now taking much longer. There are issues on legal aid to fight public law decisions. The committee recommended that the Government should remove the requirements in Section 58(2) for evidence to be provided before a specified date and the requirement for objective evidence, and should improve their guidance and give more protection to victims from removal. I ask the Government seriously to consider repealing all the sections of the 2022 Act that relate to modern slavery.
The other thing is on modern slavery orders. There are three orders: reparation, prevention and risk. None is being properly used. The data is inadequate. There does not seem to be sufficient training or understanding of how to deal with it. There is also a freezing order in the civil law. If someone is about to be arrested as a perpetrator, it would be wise to give a civil order first in order to catch the assets—or, the moment the person is arrested, he will remove the money from the country using his phone. The prevention and risk orders are extremely valuable and should be used. The national referral mechanism urgently needs a review to deal with unacceptable delays in the short term and a real shake-up in the long term. There is much else I would like to say, but these are the major things I ask the Government to consider.
A change in the law would chime with the public, as polling shows that four in five people want a new law to prevent exploitative practices. The law must in future hold UK companies accountable by establishing a central registry of statements similar to the gender pay gap register, and enforce the Modern Slavery Act by imposing financial penalties where companies fail to publish a statement and provide swift access to justice for victims.
Public sector organisations are also vulnerable to modern slavery risks in their supply chains and they lack the resources and legal power to address potential labour exploitation threats. Currently, public sector organisations, as we know, are driven by the need to drive down costs and find savings wherever they can, but it is vital that individuals are not endangered through their association with such risks. The Government’s modern slavery assessment tool indicates that 21% of suppliers were identified as high-risk, and that surgical instruments, gloves, gowns, uniforms and masks—PPE—were identified as the five highest-risk products. A possible reform to procurement processes could be the introduction of clauses into public tender legislation, mandating explicit disclosures about modern slavery risks. These clauses would require suppliers to demonstrate due diligence and reaffirm their commitment to preventing modern slavery.
The Modern Slavery Act was truly ground-breaking when it was introduced, but it must keep pace with changes to business practices by recognising the increasing complexities of supply chains. There are exemplary practices, as I have indicated, but these need regulatory support and a corporate environment where best practice is actively encouraged. Incentivising businesses would create a competitive and regulatory environment where companies would race to the top rather than to the bottom. The law as it stands discourages businesses from doing anything but the bare minimum and leaves the UK’s record on human trafficking, once so powerfully pioneering, now profoundly blemished.
It is worth reminding ourselves that the initiative for the legislation on modern slavery came through the United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children, known as the Palermo Protocol, which came into force in 2003. This then led to the Council of Europe’s Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings in 2008, which now covers 46 countries. We may have left the European Union but, mercifully, we are still part of its predecessor, the Council of Europe. The fourth UK evaluation report by the Council of Europe’s Group of Experts on Trafficking in Human Beings is currently under way. Can the Minister say what part this report has played in that evaluation process? How can we learn from the process and the evaluations undertaken in the other 45 countries? Whose responsibility will that be?
Paragraph 203 of the report deals with the need to clarify responsibility for enforcement and how this is divided between departments. On page 25 of the Government’s response, they point to the specific co-ordinating role of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. If you do not have clarity of responsibility, you cannot have clarity of accountability. Let me test that, in a couple of respects. In 2023, the Government appointed the highly experienced diplomat Justin Bedford as the UK’s migration and modern slavery envoy, but he left his post in 2025. This would seem to be an important co-ordinating role, but I cannot see who has replaced him. Can the Minister provide an update for us on that appointment?
Secondly, having served as a Minister in the Home Office and as a Minister for International Development, I know of the vital role that UK overseas aid played in tackling some of the pressures on human trafficking at source. In 2020, the Independent Commission for Aid Impact estimated that the UK aid budget allocated explicitly to tackling modern slavery was £200 million over an unspecified period. This is a relatively small sum compared with the estimated economic costs of modern slavery to the UK taxpayer, which in 2018 the Home Office estimated as between £3.3 billion and £4.3 billion annually.
However, on the development tracker on GOV.UK, I note that the “Supporting Global Action to End Modern Slavery” programme had a budget of £12.85 million and ended in 2021. The successor programme, which started in 2024 and runs until 2030, has a budget of just £1,128,500—10% of the previous programme. The aid budget has been cut overall by 40% but the modern slavery programme has been cut by 90%. Is that correct? What is the current aid budget directed to tackling modern slavery? How is this projected to change over the next few years? In government, as everywhere else, results are driven not by rhetoric but by the efficient allocation of resources and resolve. I do not doubt the Government’s resolve, but I seek reassurance on adequate resources.
Modern slavery is not static. Criminal networks have evolved, infiltrating global supply chains, the gig economy and care sectors. County lines gangs exploit vulnerable children. Digital trafficking is growing. Yet the UK’s modern slavery strategy has remained largely unchanged since 2014. Other nations have moved ahead. As others have mentioned, Australia’s Modern Slavery Act 2018 and the EU’s corporate sustainability due diligence directive impose tougher requirements, demanding businesses actively prevent forced labour rather than just report it.
We also ought to look at companies reporting not only on the gender pay gap and ethnicity but now on how their supply chains are delivered. This is getting more important as we are not making very much and are importing almost everything, particularly in the garment trade, which is huge. As we have seen, everything that comes in—not only in this country— is from somewhere in Asia or further afield in countries that we do not even remember because they are in the fourth division of the world’s countries. Those countries are now doing this.
Despite over 16,000 UK businesses filing statements by 2024, compliance remains inconsistent, as I mentioned. Crucially, there are no penalties for failing the Act. Without mandatory due diligence, transparency becomes a hollow exercise rather than a tool of real change.
For the UK to reclaim its position as a world leader in tackling modern-day slavery, as we were, we must act decisively. First, we must strengthen victim protections by addressing delays in the national referral mechanism, ensuring that survivors receive immediate legal representation, safe housing and psychological support. Immigration policies must be reformed to protect victims, rather than penalise them.
Secondly, corporate accountability must be reinforced through mandatory due diligence laws and strict penalties for non-compliance, aligning with global best practice. Businesses must be required to take protective measures, not just report risks.
Thirdly, enforcement must be bolstered by making sure that crime does not pay, increasing asset seizures from traffickers, increasing prosecution and modernising legislation to combat emerging threats like digital exploitation.
Finally, the Modern Slavery Act must be updated to reflect current realities. The Government’s Employment Rights Bill is a step forward, but comprehensive reform is necessary to ensure that the law keeps pace with evolving criminal tactics and economic vulnerabilities.
The Modern Slavery Act was a promise to victims and the world. A decade on, let us not merely commemorate its passage but demand its transformation. We must rise to the challenge and ensure that, in the United Kingdom in 2025, no one lives in chains.
I understand that there are many contributing factors for this low figure, and indeed we were assured that since hidden crimes, such as domestic abuse and sexual offences, sat at a similar prosecution rate of between 1% and 3% it was not apparently as low as it seemed. The figure nevertheless struck me and other members of the committee as being painfully inadequate. Will the Minister update the House on what measures are being considered to increase this prosecution rate and whether there are any plans significantly to increase prison sentences for those who are prosecuted as a deterrent to what is viewed by many in the criminal fraternity as being a high-profit, low-risk crime? Can the Minister provide an updated figure from the one available from eight years ago on how much the effects of modern slavery are costing the UK economy today?
The second point I would like to raise is that during our findings I was somewhat dismissive of certain areas and topics being examined which, in my view, constituted bad employment practices rather than modern slavery. I felt at times that we were being taken off course, but I have changed my mind. That is one of the great things about your Lordships’ House: we have the freedom and are entitled to change our views. I now accept that certain employment practices may provide a culture in which modern slavery can exist.
My view changed following the publication of a news article in September last year, subsequent to the publication of our report, which was briefly referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Grady, concerning modern slavery victims, all from the Czech Republic, who were forced for years to work at both a McDonald’s branch in Cambridgeshire and a company supplying bread products to major supermarkets. The criminal gang in question forced 16 victims to work at either the fast food restaurant or the factory that supplied Asda, the Co-op, M&S, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Waitrose.
I cannot comment on the bakery company, as I have no knowledge of it, but McDonald’s is an excellent employer with a happy, long-standing workforce, but well-established warning signs of slavery, including paying the wages of four men into one bank account, were missed over many years. On several occasions, some of the victims escaped and fled home, only to be tracked down and trafficked back to the UK. Now, while I am delighted that this exploitation ended after the victims contacted the police in the Czech Republic who then tipped off their British counterparts, how could so many red flags have been missed, allowing this exploitation to continue for so many years with the criminal gang making hundreds of thousands of pounds?
Will the Minister comment on whether there are any plans to initiate further collaborations with police forces from other countries to help solve this international problem and on whether the Government should provide advice to employers about red flags that indicate that modern slavery may be operating? Perhaps banks should be encouraged to be vigilant in cases where wages are being paid into a single account.
I end by saying that it was a privilege to serve on this committee of special inquiry, and I sincerely hope that our work and recommendations to the Government may in some way help to break the invisible chains of modern slavery.