This is a Policy Report on Priorities which aims to inform the new UK Government’s response to modern slavery. This Report, produced by the Policy Impact team at the Modern Slavery and Human Rights Policy and Evidence Centre, draws on analysis and research funded and produced by the Centre, wider evidence and data, and our experience of engaging with lived experience experts.
The issue
The scale of modern slavery identified across the UK is continuing to increase and modern slavery leads to significant harms for people and communities affected by it, and wider society. Modern slavery, with its many different forms of exploitation, is a complex challenge, interconnected with wider policy areas and issues, such as inequality, immigration and labour market enforcement. Addressing modern slavery requires a systemic, long-term and holistic cross-Government response, with more focus on prevention, given the many different root causes and drivers of vulnerability to exploitation.
The response
The new Government is faced with a challenging policy agenda on modern slavery, but there are significant opportunities for the Government to provide a renewed, ambitious, joined-up and prevention-centred UK policy response to modern slavery.
Recommendations
In Year 1, we recommend four priorities for the UK Government:
- Commit to a new, long-term, prevention-centred cross-Government Strategy and a strengthened legal framework on modern slavery; and put in place the necessary foundations to deliver these.
- Improve the effectiveness of the system for protecting, identifying and supporting survivors, and bring the system back in line with the requirements of human rights law and international legal obligations.
- Increase prosecution of offending and improve remediation for survivors.
- Take a whole-system approach by integrating modern slavery prevention into the delivery of the Government’s Missions and wider Year 1 policy priorities.
Priority 1: Commit to a new, long-term, prevention-centred cross-Government Strategy and a strengthened legal framework on modern slavery; and put in place the necessary foundations to deliver these.
Recommendations: we recommend the Government commits to developing a new Strategy that has a greater focus on prevention. We recommend five foundations in Year 1 to increase the effectiveness of the strategic approach, which would lay the ground for a new Strategy to be launched in year 2:
- A mechanism for Government to meaningfully and ethically engage with people with lived experience of modern slavery. This would improve the effectiveness of the strategic and policy response to modern slavery through providing a direct route for survivors to inform policies. The engagement mechanism should be co-designed with a diversity of survivors. It should be appropriately resourced and remunerated and take a non-tokenistic and trauma-informed approach. It should draw on emerging best practice, for example from the ODIHR International Survivors of Trafficking Advisory Council (ISTAC) and research on equitable principles.
- Robust data and evidence. The Government response to modern slavery should be closely informed by high-quality data and evidence and the Government should collect, analyse and publish further data on modern slavery, such as on the operation of the statutory defence (in section 45 of the Modern Slavery Act). The Government should develop a clear performance framework to measure outcomes achieved by the new Strategy.
- Effective cross-Government collaboration. The interconnections between modern slavery and wider linked policy areas require an effective mechanism for cross-government collaboration to enable accountability for developing and delivering the strategic response. Key departments should include, for example, those with responsibility for international development, safeguarding, criminal justice and labour market enforcement, as well as health, housing, education, local government, business and trade.
- Effective partnership-working. It is essential that the Government works with a wide range of partners to develop its strategic response and to deliver actions, including civil society groups, businesses, trade unions, researchers and international organisations, and survivors.Government should undertake a light-touch review of its existing partnership engagement structures to consider whether changes are needed.
- Sustainable funding. The Home Office and Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office should prepare a Spending Review bid for a dedicated stream of sustainable funding to deliver and evaluate the new Strategy, including funding for prevention activity overseas and in the UK.
New legislation: The Home Office should begin preparations now to develop a new Bill for the second Parliamentary session, for a more ambitious and effective legal framework to respond to modern slavery. This could strengthen or improve existing laws around transparency in supply chains and survivor identification, protection and support.
Priority 2: Improve the effectiveness of the system for protecting, identifying and supporting survivors, and bringing the system back in line with the requirements of human rights law and international legal obligations.
Recommendations: In Year 1, at the very minimum, the Government should amend immigration laws to bring them back in line with human rights law and international modern slavery obligations, to bring back protections for all modern slavery survivors.
The Home Office should increase policy focus on early identification of potential victims and people at risk of modern slavery and improve the effectiveness of training for First Responders and other frontline professionals that may come into contact with potential victims, including in healthcare and education. This should include consideration of expanding the list of First Responders to include statutory agencies such as HMPPS, making training mandatory for First Responders, and how to improve pathways for early identification by frontline professionals.
The Home Office should continue the work already underway to reduce NRM decision-making timescales, roll out Independent Child Trafficking Guardians across all of England and Wales, and ensure there is flexibility in the support provided by the new adult victim support contract to be responsive to the specific needs of different groups.
The Home Office should build a better understanding of the reasons that adults choose not to enter the National Referral Mechanism (NRM) support system to inform its policy response to addressing barriers to engagement.
The Home Office should prioritise collecting and publishing data on the use of the statutory defence for victims of modern slavery, to consider whether any changes are needed to the way it operates.
Priority 3: Increase prosecution of offending and improve remediation for survivors.
Recommendations: The Home Office should work with law enforcement and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) to better understand the obstacles to using the existing criminal offences at sections 1-2 of the Modern Slavery Act to prosecute modern slavery offending, and increase resource and focus on increasing prosecutions, including greater use of financial investigations and provision of trauma-informed training on modern slavery to relevant staff in the criminal justice system.
The Home Office should publish a review or an evaluation of the funding it provided in 2021/22 to initiatives aimed at improving victim engagement in the criminal justice system, and draw on these learnings and promising practices to inform future responses.
The Home Office should work with the police and CPS to drive a renewed effort to enhance use of Slavery and Trafficking Risk and Prevention Orders
The Home Office should work with Ministry of Justice to improve the access to legal advice to support compensation claims and address the wider barriers that survivors face when seeking compensation and accessing legal advice. The Home Office should work with criminal justice system partners to increase their awareness of Slavery and Trafficking Reparation Orders.
Priority 4: Take a whole-system approach by integrating modern slavery prevention into the delivery of the Government’s Missions and wider Year 1 policy priorities.
We highlight several Government Missions and policy priorities that are interconnected with modern slavery and recommend ways the Government could factor in prevention of modern slavery and protection of those affected, for example:
Border security and asylum: the Home Office should ensure that where it seeks to return confirmed victims of modern slavery to their country of origin, this is conducted in line with international legal obligations on modern slavery. Relevant staff in the new Border Security Command should be trained in understanding indicators of modern slavery and the difference between human trafficking and human smuggling, drawing on existing good practice.
Visas and Immigration: in its reform of the points-based immigration system, the Home Office should ensure that visa regimes are re-designed to prevent and address modern slavery risks, particularly for sponsored visas in the agriculture and adult social care work sectors.
International Development: the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office should mainstream measures to prevent modern slavery into other priorities, including through the recently announced £83million programme to address the reasons for irregular migration in the Global South.
Labour market enforcement: the Department for Business and Trade (DBT) and the Home Office should ensure that the policy design of the new Fair Work Agency considers how the Agency will identify exploitation that constitutes modern slavery and support workers to report abuses. The Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority’s existing responsibilities in relation to modern slavery are maintained in the Fair Work Agency.
Homelessness: the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and the Home Office should ensure that the new homelessness strategy identifies ways to reduce vulnerability to exploitation among people who are homeless and improves access to suitable and secure housing for survivors of modern slavery.
Climate change and green energy: the Government (including DBT and the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero) should encourage UK renewable sector businesses to address modern slavery risks in their operations and supply chains and ensure that expansion of green energy does not increase the risk of modern slavery and worker exploitation.
The Policy Brief also makes suggestions in the areas of Violence Against Women and Girls, Child Criminal Exploitation, housebuilding, education, public procurement and trade and investment.
Years 2-5: Our recommendations for Year 1 are intended to enable years 2-5 of the Government’s term to be focused on delivery of reform, underpinned by implementation of a new modern slavery strategy, strengthening of the legal framework and dedicated programme spend.
Taken together, these four priorities would increase the focus on preventing modern slavery and improve the effectiveness of the response when exploitation happens. Our recommendations ultimately aim to reduce the significant harms to individuals and communities affected by modern slavery, as well as reducing overall social and economic costs of modern slavery to the UK. A renewed response would also enable the UK to regain its international leadership on this issue.
