On Thursday 10 February in the House of Lords, the Right Revd Vivienne Faull, Bishop of Bristol, spoke in a debate about the Nationality and Borders Bill.
You can read her two speeches below.
Speech one – 12.30pm
"My Lords, I have added my name to those noble Lords who oppose Clause 57 standing part. I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, and others, who have already so eloquently made the case about concerns for this part of the Bill. As the Church of England’s lead bishop for modern slavery, I have had the privilege to sit with and listen to many charities, agencies and survivors of modern slavery, so it seemed appropriate to bring those conversations from the grass roots to your Lordships’ attention.
This is a clause which resonates deeply with the church. Through the Clewer initiative, the Church of England is working across England with many partners to raise awareness of all aspects of modern slavery and to help support victims and vulnerable groups. This includes running training courses on county lines, producing apps which allow for reporting of suspected modern slavery cases in car washes and the farming sector, and working with many churches to raise up and equip volunteers in this area.
Only yesterday, around the corner from here, the General Synod of the Church of England discussed a motion on modern slavery and trafficking brought forward by members of the diocese of Durham and supported by members of the diocese of Southwark. This was prompted by the practical experience and difficulty in supporting a victim who had come to their attention. The synod voted to acknowledge the leading role which Her Majesty’s Government have played internationally in challenging slavery. Voting unanimously, the synod asked Her Majesty’s Government to introduce legislation to ensure proper provision for the ongoing support and protection of trafficked minors, and for this to be enshrined in law.
As a church, and like many faith groups—I pay tribute, as others have, to the Salvation Army and the Medaille Trust—we wholeheartedly welcomed the Modern Slavery Act 2015. It has been such a crucial piece of legislation, and one we have long harboured hopes of seeing expanded and enhanced to do more to protect victims, to prevent future cases and to work with businesses and civil society in a collective effort against this appalling evil. Accordingly, it is so disheartening to see Clause 57—and others to which we will come to in due course—in this Bill. From so many charities and faith-based initiatives, and from survivors themselves, I have heard a torrent of the same message: “This is not going to work. It is going to exclude legitimate victims. It will result in fewer people being identified. It will result in fewer people being supported.”
The numbers who remain trapped and incapable of receiving the support that they need outstrip by an enormous margin the relatively small numbers seeking to abuse the system. Clause 57 seeks to eliminate abuse. I humbly suggest that we have a system in place that is already able to identify and refuse support to those who are not truly eligible. The noble Lord, Lord
Coaker, alluded to this. What Clause 57 will do, in order to cut down on a relatively small level of abuse, is add to the barriers that are put before victims.
I want to end by emphasising that point. Those who work on the ground are desperate to do more to work with the Government to identify victims and eliminate modern slavery. This is the time to be accelerating and increasing our engagement to break the business models that exploit and enslave human beings. It is not the time to be making it harder for victims to come forward. I hope that we can rethink and remove this clause."
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Second speech – 14.28pm
"My Lords, I have added my name to those of noble Lords who oppose Clause 62 standing part of the Bill. I echo remarks made by noble colleagues.
As the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, just said, Clause 62 goes to an essential point of principle in the entire operation of how modern slavery protections ought to work. The proposal is that Clause 62 makes victimhood a conditional state. In fact, it sets up a division between worthy and unworthy victims, as the noble Baroness commented. This would be such a retrograde step. If we are serious about destroying the business model of modern slavery and identifying and prosecuting as many slavers as we can, we must find ways of incentivising and supporting all victims to come forwards. By excluding from support those who have acted in bad faith—a term for which I greatly welcome more clarity from the Minister on what it would mean—or those deemed a threat to public order, we are creating two categories of victim.
Over the road in the General Synod of the Church of England debate yesterday, there was a plea not to be naive. As was said, traffickers and modern slavers are not stupid. They know how to use criminal exploitation to trap people into criminal activity, to scare them into not approaching the police. We know this from work on the ground. When speaking to support charities and victims in my role as lead bishop on modern slavery, I have heard often that one of the most effective ways to keep victims in fear is to force them to commit crimes so that they will be criminalised if they come forward to the authorities.
Life for legislators—indeed, for everyone—would be much easier if there were nice, clear binaries: blameless victims and evil enslavers. The reality, as anyone who has worked on the ground with those trafficked through county lines and many other forms of criminal exploitation can attest, is that things are not that easy. People who have done bad things can and often do become victims of slavery. People who have become victims of slavery find themselves compelled to do bad things.
In opposing Clause 62, I am not suggesting that people should not be held responsible for their actions. They should, but as a society we have responsibilities too and one of those is to break the way in which modern slavers operate. Creating a two-tier system of victimhood will, I fear, strengthen it."