Baroness Butler-Sloss: My Lords, what training and support are prison officers given to deal with these appalling problems?
Baroness Butler-Sloss: My Lords, is it intended that there will, in the future, be monitoring set up by the efficiency organisation looking at the Civil Service?
Baroness Butler-Sloss: My Lords, I am co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery. Our group is very concerned about the plight of vulnerable children on the borders of Ukraine, where they are at huge risk of human trafficking. What are the Government doing about that?
Baroness Butler-Sloss: My Lords, it would be perfectly possible for someone in the House of Commons to raise this issue and deal with it there. What concerns me—I pick up what the noble Lords, Lord Cormack and Lord Howarth, said—is that this seems to be a constitutional issue. I am not going to say a word about the rights and wrongs of assisted suicide or assisted dying. However, I shall just read a few words...
Baroness Butler-Sloss: My Lords, as a former foot soldier who tried a very large number of these cases, I believe it is a far more complicated area than either the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, or the noble Baroness, Lady Shackleton, has said to the House. I would be very unhappy with a timetable; the Government ought to get on with it, but they need to take a lot of sensible advice before they put forward proposals....
Baroness Butler-Sloss: On behalf of the noble Lord, Lord Randall, I should like to test the opinion of the House. Ayes 210, Noes 128.
Baroness Butler-Sloss: I am sorry to interrupt but will the Minister deal with why children are going through the NRM? The Home Office, through the Minister, told me that the NRM was not suitable for children, who should be dealt with under the Children Act.
Baroness Butler-Sloss: My Lords, I declare my interests, which include being a vice-chairman of the Human Trafficking Foundation. I would like first to thank the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, for including me in the letter to the noble Lord, Lord Randall. Very unfortunately, the noble Lord, Lord Randall, has just tested positive for Covid, as a result of which I shall move Amendment 68A at the appropriate...
Baroness Butler-Sloss: I recognise the concerns that adults should not be able to be treated as children—that is a serious matter. None the less, I support not Amendment 64 but Amendment 64A for the following reason, in addition to what the noble Baronesses, Lady Neuberger and Lady Lister, said. Thanks to Safe Passage I had the opportunity to visit one of its children’s homes, where there were a number of young...
Baroness Butler-Sloss: My Lords, the Minister referred to sanctions against oil coming in through Russian tankers but I understand that oil is coming in through other tankers owned by other companies. What are the Government going to do about that?
Baroness Butler-Sloss: My Lords, I ask the Minister why there are no applications to the court for freezing orders.
Baroness Butler-Sloss: My Lords, where I live in Devon almost every small farmer has given up farming. What are the Government doing to help small farmers?
Baroness Butler-Sloss: My Lords, my grand- daughter went to a splendid primary school, Eleanor Palmer, in Camden, where every child aged nine had to learn a musical instrument—whatever it might be; the recorder or anything else—for a year. Does the Minister think that is something that could be pushed in primary schools?
Baroness Butler-Sloss: I apologise to the Minister, but could I ask him to deal with this unique position? There is, as far as we know, no other group of people who have been evicted as they have and have not been allowed to go back. They are in a special position, but the noble Lord is not even dealing with that point.
Baroness Butler-Sloss: My Lords, I sat as a judge in one appeal on the Chagossians and learned about the disgraceful behaviour of successive Governments of all political views—not, I have to say, the Lib Dems because they were not in power, but certainly the Conservatives and Labour have each left the Chagossians to their fate. One appalling thing they did was take an agreement from them whereby they signed away...
Baroness Butler-Sloss: My Lords, might I suggest to the Minister that it is not very difficult to get from Poland or Slovakia to England? Why cannot the Government, if they insist on using visas, set up an entirely separate system wherever anybody is trying to get to this country, so that they can be fast-tracked and not go through the main system?
Baroness Butler-Sloss: My Lords, I would just like to say that my noble friend Lady Hayman is speaking such excellent sense that the House should uniformly agree with her.
Baroness Butler-Sloss: My Lords, I support all these amendments but I will speak to Amendment 169, to which I have put my name. I will deal with two other people apart from the anti-slavery commissioner who said that her gravest concern lies with Clause 62 above all the other clauses in this part of the Bill. The United Nations rapporteur said: “We are concerned that Clause 62(3) would be in violation of the...
Baroness Butler-Sloss: Certainly.
Baroness Butler-Sloss: My Lords, for the reasons given by other speakers—particularly the last speaker, with whom I profoundly agree—I support these amendments. However, I want to raise a slightly different point on Clause 59. It appears to apply to children. I have had, over the years, numerous meetings with the Home Office, and I thought we had got to the position where the Home Office agreed that the NRM was...