Protection of Freedoms Bill

My Lords, in moving Amendment 152B, I will speak also to Amendments 152C, 163A, 169A, 169B, 170A, 171A, 172A and 178. As the Committee will be aware, the United Kingdom opted into the EU directive on human trafficking in October last year in order to send a strong message that the UK is not a soft target for those looking to exploit others. The directive builds on and supports existing international instruments designed to combat human trafficking, in particular the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings, to which the UK is a signatory. The UK is already largely compliant with this directive but requires important changes to our criminal law, which these government amendments address. Before I move on to spell out the detail of these amendments, I wish to pay tribute to my noble friend Lord McColl, who has through his Private Member’s Bill been a strong advocate of tightening the law in this area. There are two areas where our criminal law on human trafficking currently falls short of the requirements imposed on member states by the directive: namely, the requirement to establish extra-territorial jurisdiction where the trafficker is a UK national and commits a human trafficking offence anywhere in the world; and the requirement to criminalise labour trafficking within the United Kingdom. Amendments 152B and 152C insert two new clauses into the Bill that will broaden the current human trafficking offences by extending extra-territorial jurisdiction over UK nationals and criminalising labour trafficking that takes place entirely within the UK. The first new clause relates to trafficking offences for the purpose of sexual exploitation. Under Sections 57 to 59 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, it is already an offence to traffic a person into, within or out of the United Kingdom for the purposes of sexual exploitation. In the interests of clarity, Amendment 152B proceeds by consolidating these existing trafficking offences into new Section 59A and also adding the necessary additional provisions to ensure extra-territorial application of the offences where a UK national commits a trafficking offence anywhere in the world. The new clause introduced by Amendment 152C, which relates to trafficking offences for the purpose of labour or other exploitation, follows the same approach as Amendment 152B. In addition, Amendment 152C fulfils another requirement of the directive. At the moment, it is not an offence to traffic someone from Manchester to London, for example, for the purposes of forcing them into slavery, unless the victim has previously been trafficked into the UK. This amendment removes this requirement. This brings labour-trafficking offences into line with sex-trafficking offences, ensures our offences comply with the requirements of the directive and provides better protection against trafficking. The other amendments in this group make consequential amendments to other enactments as well as to the extent clauses and the Long Title. These provisions will apply to England and Wales only. We have been advised by the Scottish Government that, following the enactment of provisions in the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010, the criminal law in Scotland already satisfies the criminal law requirements of the directive. The Northern Ireland Administration intend to bring forward separate legislation in the Northern Ireland Assembly to achieve a similar effect. The Government are committed to implementing the rest of the EU directive on human trafficking. These amendments deal with those points of the directive that require primary legislation. The rest we will implement through secondary legislation or by other appropriate means. I commend the amendments to the Committee.