I thank my hon. Friend for signing the new clause, and he is absolutely right. Justice and Care has done a phenomenal amount of work; I am enormously grateful for its guidance and we have worked together on this matter. He is quite right to congratulate the organisation; without it, I suspect this would have been very difficult.
Let me bring in two examples that illustrate the problem. First, a Home Office local authority pilot found that all 62 adult survivors receiving support through the project in 2018-19 supported a criminal investigation, which makes my point that, with the right support, people do the right thing. They lose their fear, they understand that they are protected and they will give evidence. Secondly, Justice and Care found that 89% of victims supported by victim navigator support workers chose subsequently to engage with the police.
I say to my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Treasury Bench that it is important that we understand and separate this question out from all the other arguments that go on about migration and asylum. This is ultimately about helping ourselves and helping the victims. The two go together, and that is the important issue.
It is also worth reminding ourselves of the cost of modern slavery right now, without the resolution that we require and that this new clause would bring. The Home Office estimates the cost at £328,000 per modern slavery victim—a total of £32 billion using 2020 estimates of 100,000 victims from the Centre for Social Justice. I will just repeat that figure: £32 billion is the overall cost. That does not include court, prison and probation costs, or the costs of failed or aborted prosecutions due to insufficient evidence. So the case becomes stronger and stronger that this Bill offers the opportunity to do the right thing here.
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Some objections have been raised by my friends on the Government Bench. They have talked about foreign criminals making fraudulent claims to avoid immigration removal. I want to deal with that issue here. I am clear that in this clause we want help and support, but we also want a minimum of 12 months leave to remain after victims clear the NRM. That is vital.
There are issues. People say, “Oh, hang on, that’s a pull factor.” They say that more people will immediately claim “on the steps of the aircraft”—I think that is the phrase used—that they are modern slavery victims and therefore they will get into the system. No, is the answer. No one will claim that because they have heard that they will get more than six months if they get through and they might get 12 months.
People might claim, if they are not modern slavery victims, to get into the process at the gateway of the NRM. If we think there is a pull factor, that if anywhere is where it would be. Giving people who are through the NRM longer is a genuinely decent thing to do and a powerful thing to do in prosecutions. If there is a problem and the Government perceive there to be a problem, I suggest with all humility that they need to look at the gateway, which is the NRM, not at what we do to the people who have got through.
Sure, if every now and then somebody who is completely messing around with the system gets through—no system is perfect—the Government can reserve the right to deal with them separately; but please, please let us understand that we should not be in the business of cracking down on those we believe have got through justifiably. We should be in the business of supporting and helping them for their own sake, with the by-product that they will help us in due course to crack down on those gangs.
I would have thought that must be a priority for any Government. The new clause allows victims to be excluded if they pose a threat to public order, and it has no significant impact, I believe, on immigration levels.
The problem right now is that clause 64 as it stands is too narrow; it is narrower even than the existing policy, which is a problem. I think the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North also raised that point. Linking leave to remain to needs arising from exploitation leaves victims unsure whether they will qualify. That is a major problem for them and will leave them even less likely to co-operate in due course.
It is almost impossible to separate needs that arise directly from exploitation from those arising from pre-existing vulnerabilities. It is really difficult—all the evidence makes that very clear. The criteria do not consider the risk of re-exploitation, another important point. What is the fear someone has if they have been exploited and they go into the system? It is that they will be out and they will be back into the hands of the very same people—only now those people will believe they were ready to give evidence against them, so the exploitation will be even worse.
On leave conditional on engagement with the police, there would be a problem if the Government were to say, “No, no, we can in guidance make it clear that they could have 12 months, or even more, if they were co-operating with the police.” I will just say that if I were a human rights lawyer, I would bring a judicial review against the Government every single day on that one. That is now coercion. They are saying, “You might have rights and we might want to help you, but, first of all, where’s the money? Let’s see what you’re doing before we act decently and give you anything.”
I simply say to my colleagues on the Front Bench that that would be a wrong move. If they start down that road, they will end up in court on almost every single case, justifying whether they gave someone three months, 12 months or 14 months. It will end up in court. As all Members will know, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead, the last thing Governments want is to do is give themselves an opportunity to be in court under a judicial review. I see my right hon. Friend smiling at that one. Anyone who has served as Home Secretary will know that every day you come into the office someone tells you how many times you are about to be “JRd”. So being decent and straight and doing what we have asked in new clause 47 will help the Government as well, because they will not have to end up spending vast sums on defending—sometimes—the indefensible in the courts.