Meeting of the Parliament 27 June 2023
The Scottish Government condemns the UK Government’s abhorrent Illegal Migration Bill, as does this Parliament, which voted overwhelmingly to reject the bill on 25 April.
The Joint Committee on Human Rights at Westminster has stated that the bill is currently incompatible with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings and the European convention on human rights.
The Scottish Government has written to the UK Government on multiple occasions to request that it withdraw the bill. We will continue to ask it to do so, including at the second meeting of the interministerial group for safety, security and migration, which the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice and the UK Home Secretary will attend in July.
The Scottish Government’s view is that the bill overreaches into devolved competencies by altering the Human Trafficking and Exploitation (Scotland) Act 2015, which was passed unanimously by this Parliament. Clauses 23 and 27 of the bill are a restriction on the power of the Scottish ministers under the 2015 act, as they alter the executive competence of ministers and impact our powers to support and assist people excluded as a result of the UK bill.
Therefore, the Scottish Government prepared a legislative consent memorandum, because we firmly believe that the Illegal Migration Bill is a relevant bill under rule 9B of the Scottish Parliament’s standing orders. The Presiding Officer concluded that the bill does not meet the criteria in rule 9B, so the Scottish Government has not been permitted to lodge that LCM.
The Presiding Officer is, of course, entitled to reach the conclusion that she did, but I am disappointed by the decision, and that disappointment has been amplified, given that the Senedd voted just last week to refuse consent for what it called a “callous” bill that could allow children to be removed from the care of Welsh social services.
The Scottish Government’s view is that the consent of this Parliament should be required for clauses 23 and 27 of the UK bill. I will outline to Parliament the reasons for that. Clause 23 of the bill disapplies specific provisions of the 2015 act in relation to support and assistance for potential victims in Scotland. Clause 27 of the bill directly amends sections 9 and 10 of the 2015 act to make it clear that they are subject to clause 23.
The provisions are disapplied in respect of persons for whom the secretary of state is under a duty, in clause 2(1) of the UK bill, to make removal arrangements, and who are in receipt of a positive reasonable grounds decision—that the adult is a victim of an offence of human trafficking—or a competent authority is in the process of determining whether there are reasonable grounds.
The 2015 act requires the Scottish ministers to secure such support and assistance as they consider necessary for an adult where there are reasonable grounds to believe that the adult is a victim of an offence of human trafficking. That duty exists during what is described as the “relevant period”, which begins on the date that it is determined that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the adult is a victim of human trafficking and ends on the earlier of the end of the period specified in regulations—currently up to 90 days—or the date on which there is a conclusive determination that the adult is or is not a victim of an offence of human trafficking.
The 2015 act also enables the Scottish ministers, via a discretionary power, to secure support and assistance for an adult trafficking victim in certain circumstances.
Scottish Government crisis support for potential victims of human trafficking is currently delivered through grant funding arrangements of more than £7.45 million from the victim-centred approach fund between 2022 and 2025. Those funds are shared between the Trafficking Awareness Raising Alliance, which supports women who have been trafficked for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation, and Migrant Help, which supports all other adult victims. Support can include accommodation, assistance with day-to-day living, medical advice and treatment including psychological help, language translation and interpretation, counselling, legal advice, help accessing other services and, if the victim wishes, repatriation.
The UK Government’s Illegal Migration Bill will prevent delivery of that support to people within scope other than in a very narrow selection of cases in which there are compelling reasons for an individual to remain in the UK to provide co-operation with a public authority in connection with an investigation or criminal proceedings related to their exploitation. Indeed, the UK bill has been amended to ensure that the secretary of state must assume that it is not necessary for a person to be in the United Kingdom to provide that co-operation.
I hope that all of us in the chamber today will recognise that victims of trafficking are among the most vulnerable people in society, having suffered unimaginable trauma through the experiences of exploitation. They should be afforded the correct support and protection, not vilified for seeking safety.
Last Thursday, alongside the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, I hosted a summit with stakeholders across Scotland and beyond to assess the bill and discuss reasonable mitigations.