My Lords, I find myself preceding the noble Lord, Lord Rosser. Again, I am delighted to support this amendment and that my noble friends are doing so.
The government Statement, with its proposals as to how to respond to James Ewins’s report, does not seem to redress the power imbalance which he identified in his report. I must not let the opportunity go by—I should have started by saying this—without congratulating the Government on appointing Mr Ewins and congratulating Mr Ewins on his splendid report. The Government’s Statement, to which the noble Lord has referred, was at first attractive. I changed the notes to
my colleagues last night after I had read through it again, thought about it more and become, I am afraid, less attracted to it. I am not persuaded that without a right to apply for an extension to the visa—for the reasons that Mr Ewins gave, which I will come back to—the Government’s proposals will work. That proposal seems to be the linchpin. His recommendation is to entitle overseas domestic workers to be granted the right to change employer but also to provide for annual extensions provided that they are to work as domestic workers in a private home for up to two and a half years in total. He says in his report that he considers it,
“both impractical and invidious to discriminate between seriously abused, mildly abused and non-abused workers”,
and that,
“there is a real possibility, perhaps likelihood, that many overseas domestic workers will not avail themselves of that right … for those who are abused in any way at all, the universal right will give them a real and practical way out of that abuse without the current possibility of a subsequent precarious immigration status and threat to livelihood”.
He acknowledges that,
“an unintended consequence may well be that there are those who avail themselves of the universal right without having suffered any abuse at all”.
However, referring to pre-2012 figures, he says that the number of workers is likely to be low, and that,
“by legitimising their status, they will continue working, paying tax, and will be visible to the UK authorities during their extended (but limited) stay”.
With all the work done with overseas domestic workers over the last few years we have learned that that visibility is very important. To come to the balance, this takes us back to some of the arguments made on the last amendment:
“Such an unintended consequence is of limited detriment compared to the benefit of the central intended consequence”.
The second major recommendation is with regard to information sessions. Like the noble Lord, I was glad to have the briefing from the Anti-Trafficking and Labour Exploitation Unit, which, on the basis of its experience, has described to us that the complexity of the information that is required needs what Mr Ewins proposes more than what the Government propose. It considers that most domestic workers, faced with items that would be included in those information sessions—which it enumerates over a third of a page of bullet points —would choose to stay in abusive situations rather than take the risk of escaping. As it says, the right to change employer is not clear, concrete and simple. It also comments about the national referral mechanism, which is of course a part of this whole picture. As I say, I congratulate the Government on having appointed Mr Ewins and having made an attempt, which I recognise, to meet the situation with the Written Statement a few days ago, but we are not there yet.
I am very pleased to support the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Hylton. This House has shown on previous Bills and in previous Sessions its concern for this group of workers. I hope that we will do the same again tonight.
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