My Lords, it is a great privilege to address the Chamber briefly in support of the amendment before us from the most reverend Primate
the Archbishop of Canterbury. My points will build on the excellent speeches and comments that have been made.
As others have said, this amendment presents the Government with a phenomenal opportunity. All our debate has been very contentious and will remain so when the Bill is on Report, but here is an opportunity, in one amendment, for the Government to take a different approach in line with the 10-year strategy that has been laid before us.
Let me say this as well: the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, is right that this discussion deserves a wider audience. We ought to think about how we could generate that in the context of the Bill and perhaps in other ways to ensure that this issue gets the audience that it deserves. Why do I say that? I do so not only because I agree with it. Yesterday, we debated the purpose of this Chamber in a different context. We had a debate among ourselves and disagreement on the constitutional role of the Lords and what it should be with regard to legislation. As a relatively new Member here, I think that that is a really important role for this House to play.
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One of the things I have noticed since I have been here concerns something that I think has to some extent been lost in the other place; this certainly applies to one or two people here who have experience of the other place too. The abilities to make speeches on issues that challenge us all, trying to generate ideas and visions of the future on a cross-party basis, and to discuss, debate and put forward that vision to any Government, to a country or beyond a country have been lost. The most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury has given us a huge opportunity through his excellent speech today; we have heard excellent speeches from him before. It spoke to all of us in a way that said—I do not want to get spiritual—“Lift up your heads”. Sorry; I hope that he knows the biblical quotation better than me but noble Lords understand the point that I am making. You look beyond the immediate.
What the Government are doing in this Bill is looking at the immediate and the challenge that they face. We disagree on this but that is what the Government are doing. The opportunity that we have been presented with in terms of this amendment and the next group of amendments, on refugees, is to ask, “How do we as a country, along with our international partners and allies, want to work together to deal with a problem that we all disagree with and think is abhorrent?” This is a global challenge. We cannot sort it on our own. We are going to have to work with other partners to do it. Of course there are problems around that, such as the attitude on where we are at the moment, which many of us abhor, but, at the end of the day, that is the place where you have to go. Whether it is the Council of Europe, some sort of discussion with the EU, the United Nations, the African Union or whoever else, those international bodies are essential.
However, discussing and debating these issues is crucial. I cannot remember which philosopher it was but I remember this quote:
“There is nothing so practical as a good theory”.
That is absolutely right. If you have a vision and view on what it is that you want to achieve, those things are really important. The battle of ideas is important. The ability to move people emotionally and spiritually towards doing the right thing is important. It can be done. As I say, what the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury has done for us is give us an opportunity for the Government to look beyond the Bill and, in a long-term strategy, to look at how we as a country, working with other countries and partners across Europe and beyond, can tackle this very real problem.
With that, I want to end by adding just one practical point to the debate and the strategy; whether it is appropriate, I do not know, but I am going to make this point as these things sometimes get lost. Many of the trafficking victims that the national referral mechanism and the police in our country deal with are internal victims of trafficking. They are people who are being trafficked within our own country. British children—British citizens—are being trafficked. In the context of all this, we should never forget that.