Good morning and welcome to the 15th meeting of the Equal Opportunities Committee in 2010. I remind everyone, including members, that mobile phones and BlackBerrys should be completely switched off because, even when they are switched to silent, they interfere with the sound system.
I head up the Jobcentre Plus network, and you will be familiar with the fact that it comprises 99 centres—there is a centre in most Scottish high streets, from Lerwick to Annan. Our purpose is twofold: to help people find employment and to administer the benefits system and look after those unable to work.
In Scotland, the UK Border Agency has a public inquiry office for those in the UK within the immigration rules who are seeking to extend or vary the terms of their stay. We also provide accommodation and support for asylum seekers and those going through the asylum process who have no funds of their own. For employees and those in the workforce, we operate the sponsor management system to ensure that employers comply with our employment laws when employing overseas nationals.
My next question probably gets us more into the detail of things. What relationships do your organisations have with each other, the Scottish Government, local authorities and Scotland’s voluntary sector? Can you give us examples of the things on which you work and co-operate with those agencies?
For several years now, we have had very close relationships with Scottish Government officials, with monthly meetings—in some cases, almost daily meetings—on particular areas. The Border Agency funds the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities strategic migration partnership, which considers local authority immigration and migration issues. Our Scotland and Northern Ireland region also hosts three partnership groups, the first of which deals with asylum matters and involves the complete range of Scottish public and local authorities and the voluntary sector. We also have a managed migration group, which looks at issues around people coming into the country to settle and look for work and employment, and a legal compliance group, which deals with crime and immigration-related crime matters.
Can you give me an example of some of the voluntary sector organisations with which you work?
The Scottish Refugee Council is part funded by the UK Border Agency and we deal regularly with it. We also deal regularly with the Red Cross and Scottish churches. We have a whole range of arrangements with various organisations that engage with us generally on matters to do with asylum and protection. In dealing with family issues we have close relationships with Scotland’s Commissioner for Children and Young People.
Do you tend to engage with national voluntary organisations or with local organisations?
We tend to engage with national organisations.
That is helpful.
There is really quite a large and complex connection between all the institutions that you mentioned. We own employment. The fact that matters such as education and skills are devolved creates a need for close partnerships, certainly at official level—we have a lot of meetings and there is a lot of close talking. It is very difficult to talk about employment without bringing in skills and education, because they are all part of a continuum.
Is there a scheme to encourage people to volunteer?
Yes. “Get Britain working” is the new banner for it, but we will be promoting further volunteering as an excellent way for people to find a route back into employability.
Do you find that how actively local authorities engage with you in that process varies from local authority to local authority?
Recently we had a contract with Volunteer Development Scotland, under the previous Government’s strategy for employability. That is changing under the new coalition Government’s policy. The process is still being worked through, so it has not been finalised yet. I anticipate that there will be a strong emphasis on volunteering. That will have to happen principally at the local level, with an overview from the regional Jobcentre Plus office.
Does Neil Hughes want to add to that?
I am from Sheffield and have a national, UK-wide, remit. My colleagues are much better informed about developments that are specific to Scotland.
You can chip in as and when you like.
I thought that the committee might find it helpful if I gave a brief overview in relation to the people who apply for national insurance numbers. That is quite a good measure of inward migration, because people need a national insurance number to register in the process and take up employment.
It was on the issues in relation to migrants and whether the situation varies between Scotland and the rest of the UK.
We have identified—some of this is fairly self-evident—that there is a higher proportion of foreign workers in hospitality in Scotland than in the rest of the UK. The proportion sits roughly at about a third of foreign workers in Scotland, whereas for the rest of the UK it is about a quarter.
Are you particularly aware of any differences between issues for EU nationals and those for non-EU nationals?
We have noted that there is a higher degree of employability among EU nationals than among non-EU nationals, which is quite striking.
It is worth noting that there is a clear distinction in immigration and migration between EU and European economic area nationals, and non-EEA nationals. Effectively, the standard immigration laws and control mechanisms do not apply to EEA nationals.
As far as our engagement with employer groups is concerned, we have a number of what are called, rather unfortunately, task forces. We gather together groups such as an employers task force, an education task force and an arts and entertainment task force, on each of which Scotland is represented. They lobby on behalf of UK employers, colleges, universities and so on. We use them as consultation bodies before we implement new policies or put out new products. They meet about every six weeks at the moment and every two months at other times. They represent a total of about 20,000 sponsors nationally, about 1,300 of whom are in Scotland. An incredibly diverse range of organisations is represented, from what might be described as business organisations to sporting bodies, religious bodies, educational institutions and charities. We deal with a highly diverse group of bodies. We take as much time as possible to listen to what they tell us and to adjust policy to meet their needs.
Another member has a question, but first I would like to drill down a bit and find out more about the deportation of foreign criminals. I think that Phil Taylor said that there were two timescales: 12 months for non-EU criminals and 24 months for EU criminals. What about the checks and balances for people who come into the country? Concern has grown that such people are not looked at robustly enough, even though they have potentially very—
Are you talking about foreign criminals who come into the UK?
Yes.
Most countries’ criminal records are held by the criminal justice system, not by the border agency authorities. We have arrangements with the police service in the UK whereby when we are notified of someone who is of interest to the police, we will identify them, and we have the power to detain for non-immigration purposes on behalf of the police.
If an EU national or a non-EU national appears in court and they are found to have an outstanding conviction, are they deported right away? I think that I read recently that people were looking to do that. Am I right in thinking that?
No, it is never quite that easy. There are rights of appeal. If someone appears before a court and is sentenced, it is up to the court and the judge whether to recommend deportation. If the court recommends deportation, that is considered to be part of the criminal sentence and is appealable through the criminal process. The recommendation is not automatic; the Secretary of State decides whether to make the deportation order, and there are secondary rights of appeal through that process. For those on longer-term sentences, the judgments of the court are that the decision to deport should be taken late on in the course of the sentence, not at an early stage, in order to consider the facts at that time rather than at the time of sentencing.
So the periods of 12 months and 24 months apply to people who have a criminal record, but who have served their sentences. However, if there was still an outstanding conviction—
Someone who goes before a court now and is given a sentence of 12 months or greater—or 24 months or greater—would automatically be considered for deportation.
And it would not matter whether they had an outstanding conviction in their native country.
If we found that someone had entered the United Kingdom with an outstanding conviction, we could, on the basis of that conviction—taking into account whether the conviction was spent—consider deportation, if it were considered to be conducive to the public good to do so.
I ask Alastair MacDonald to talk me through the process of getting a national insurance number. I have come across the myth a number of times that there are more national insurance numbers than there are people eligible for them. Is there any basis to that myth?
I am afraid I am not in a position to comment on the number of national insurance numbers that are in circulation; I do not have that information. I can, however, tell you what the process is at the moment. Quite a strict check is connected with national insurance applications—I have seen it for myself in jobcentres. People are interviewed in person, their identity documents are checked for forgery, and a series of eligibility criteria are checked by a job centre clerk. The details of the outcome of that process are sent to a central unit where further checks are made. On the basis that someone is found to be who they say they are and that they are entitled to a national insurance number, they will enter the system.
It would be helpful if you could make available the figures that I asked for, if they exist.
I am happy to take that away and do what I can. Would I write to the committee once I have found out the information?
You can write to the clerks with any additional information.
In response to Mr O’Donnell’s question, I will hand over to Neil Hughes, as he is the expert on the points-based system.
The answer depends on whether you are talking about people who are overseas or those who are already in the UK.
Overseas, to start with.
The service standard that is being met in 97 per cent of our issuing posts is that the application will be turned around in 15 working days. In certain places—one of which is Iran, at the moment—there are problems that make the process take longer. Last year we had problems with Pakistan and earlier this year we had problems with China, but they are okay now.
I invite you to comment further on the interaction between the new developments in UK immigration policy and specific Scottish policies on inward migration. What problems arise from that? You have touched on that in talking about managed migration. Can you say a bit more about the lack of engagement that the Migration Advisory Committee commented on? Is there a need for us to call for more engagement from Scottish employers and the Scottish Government or for more evidence? How could we help in that respect?
I will address the general point and then hand over to Neil Hughes on the specifics.
The introduction of a limit on migration will have an impact throughout the UK. The Government’s policy is that we will reduce net migration from hundreds of thousands to tens of thousands of people. Given that that net migration includes British citizens moving or returning from abroad and EU citizens moving into and out of the UK, and the fact that the levers that the Government can adjust are around non-EEA migration, we can expect to see a tightening of the arrangements right across the board for people coming here for work, study and family reunions. There is no Scotland-specific dimension to the policy at the moment. The MAC will advise us whether there needs to be, so engagement with the MAC is crucial, as Phil Taylor said.
I will ask a couple of questions based around the profile of migrant communities as they come to Scotland and either settle here or live here for a period of time. The apparent lack of robust and up-to-date statistical evidence about migrant communities and the trends and patterns has been a recurring theme in a number of evidence sessions. That is possibly because a range of data is held by the registrar general for Scotland, the UK Border Agency and the Home Office, and there are also administrative databases containing information on education, national health service admissions and employment registration. Given the apparent lack of robust and up-to-date statistical evidence because of the range of organisations collecting it, can the witnesses give us some idea of how greater information sharing between key organisations will allow public services to plan for these migrant communities?
My view is that the community planning partnership process is probably key, because it involves local authorities and the people who really understand the community. It becomes more difficult the further away that you get and the more nationally that you look at things. I recognise that there are different databases. I do not feel terribly well informed of the facts about migrant communities, but I would certainly expect local employability partnerships to be focusing on them.
Given that most people come here to work, might not their applying for a national insurance number draw a lot of the issues together? That system would not necessarily register their family, but it would certainly register those who were coming here to work.
The national insurance process is currently just a registration process to link into the benefits system and to pay national insurance contributions. There is potential for the use of that system, but I am not entirely sure what the data-sharing implications would be. As Phil Taylor said, there is often a lot of nervousness, even between public bodies with the same purpose, about how much they can and cannot share.
From the perspective of the UKBA, we try to identify those who come into and go out of the UK, but, in the vast majority of cases, once someone has come into the UK we do not impose restrictions on them as to where they can go in the UK. For example, it is not as if EEA nationals require a sponsor employer in, for example, Glasgow or Birmingham and therefore we can presume that that is where they have gone. They are free to come and go and to take employment in the same way as any resident. That also applies to all non-EEA nationals who are admitted to the UK for settlement: husbands, wives, spouses.
There are problems, such as the situation in Govanhill in Glasgow, where certain newspapers have wildly overreported the numbers. According to them, there are more people from the Roma community in Govanhill than there are in eastern Europe. That is a big problem community-wise, but it is also a problem for the local housing associations, education services and so on, because the figures for the numbers of people who have arrived have not been kept well, so it is not always easy to plan services for them while maintaining good community relations.
Yes. Again, that reflects the European dimension. The concept of the European Community is that there is no difference between a Scot moving to England or an Englishman moving to Scotland. For UK Border Agency purposes, once someone has established that they are an EEA national, we do not track them through an immigration process beyond that.
I have a related question. What information is held—if any, given what you have just said—on the main countries from which migrants come to Scotland, the areas of Scotland that they are most attracted to, and the main sectors in which they seek employment?
The UK Border Agency keeps statistics not on a Scottish, Northern Irish, Welsh or English basis but on a UK basis, so it is difficult to say. However, I know from our local statistics that the Pakistani community in Glasgow is still a strong community and one that attracts migrants. Beyond that, most of the migration that comes through the non-EEA route tends to be through the asylum routes rather than through the normal migration routes, and that includes Iraqis, certain Nigerians and significant numbers of Indians and Chinese.
I note what Phil Taylor said about the migration impacts fund. For the record, the funding that came to Scotland—the figure that he mentioned is almost exactly right, as far as I am aware—was absorbed into the mainstream budget. It was not allocated to immigration issues by the current Government.
There are two sorts of jobseekers allowance: income based and contributions based. If I start with contributions-based jobseekers allowance, no distinction is drawn. If the person has paid their contributions, they are entitled to contributions-based jobseekers allowance. Income-related benefits—that is income support; income-based jobseekers allowance; income-based employment and support allowance, which is the allowance that is connected with disability and ill health; pension credit; housing benefit; and council tax benefit—are subject to the habitual residence test, but they are available.
That is helpful.
Those going through the asylum system who are being supported—or, indeed, not being supported—are entitled to health care in the UK; their children are entitled to education; and the support mechanisms are based on standard benefit rates with a reduction to take account of the fact that the agency provides accommodation and utilities. The only challenge that I can think of—and I am not sure whether the Scottish Refugee Council would be concerned about it—is in relation to migrants who are in the country unlawfully and are seeking to obtain services or those who are here for a very short time and for a very temporary purpose. In that respect, there is a real issue around NHS services, and we work closely with Glasgow City Council and NHS Scotland counter-fraud services on access to public health.
Before we move on, I want to consider some of your comments. You said earlier that Glasgow City Council runs housing on a subcontract. What is the role of the Angel housing organisation in that respect and how does the UKBA monitor the standards and quality of accommodation that it is providing in Glasgow?
There are three accommodation providers for asylum seekers in Scotland: Glasgow City Council and the YMCA, both of which obtain their properties through Glasgow Housing Association; and Angel Group, which I think now has about 254 service users. I know that, historically, there have been concerns about compliance arrangements with regard to Angel, which is a private company that procures properties from private landlords to house asylum seekers. However, I should say that, from 1 April, we have received nine complaints from service users about the standards of Angel’s accommodation, which is about 3.5 per cent of the total 254 service users.
Normally, inquiries to Jobcentre Plus can come through a number of channels—we offer choice about how to contact us—including by telephone, by visiting a jobcentre to speak to someone at the front desk and by inquiring online through Directgov. On Directgov, people can follow their nose for a lot of information, whether they are a foreign worker or an employer who is taking on a foreign worker. I am told that we have also worked with Edinburgh University Settlement’s community learning centre and the European Commission to produce an online information pack—I am afraid that I have not seen it myself, but I am aware of it—for migrants who wish to come to Scotland. I am also advised that citizens advice bureaux provide a number of advice services for migrants.
With the convener’s forbearance, I want to ask Phil Taylor what percentage of Angel Group’s tenants have English as a first language. What access do they have to information on how to complain?
Very few of them have English as their first language. However, all asylum seekers in Scotland are inducted through a one-stop-shop process that is provided by the Scottish Refugee Council, which is the process by which they can complain initially. The majority of complaints about accommodation go to the SRC first. That is helpful, because the SRC will often give us a heads-up that there is a particular accommodation issue. However, as far as I am aware, I have not directly received any challenge from John Wilkes or his team about Angel Group in the past 18 months.
My colleague has already explored many of the issues that I wanted to ask about, but I have a further question on awareness levels among staff. Given that witnesses expressed concern about confusion between devolved and reserved areas, is there sufficiently robust training in your organisations for staff to be able to know that the advice that they are giving out is correct?
That is a difficult question to answer accurately, as I do not think that one can ever have full confidence that the advice given out will always be accurate. That said, I have checked the instructions in the online A to Z that the training for jobcentre staff refers to for guiding people through what is a very large and complicated process. Having looked at that myself, I think that it provides pretty clear signposting.
Is the UK Border Agency happy about awareness levels among staff?
I would not say that we are happy. One of my deputy directors, Victoria Bowman, is now head of devolution policy for the agency, because I was very struck by the fact that the Home Office tended to be Anglocentric in its thinking. We now have three devolution settlements—in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales—that are all distinct and different. Victoria Bowman not only works for me but is part of the UK Border Agency’s policy team. Part of her work is ensuring that, when we formulate policy and instructions, we are conscious that things are different in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. That is still a challenge, but I suspect that I am told less about us getting it wrong than I am about us getting it right nowadays. However, there is still some way to go.
One reason why we are conducting the inquiry is to dispel some myths about migration and trafficking. Is any of you in a position to give exact details of what people are entitled to when they come to the country? I ask because, over the past weekend, I received all sorts of comments from people when I was out and about. I heard the usual one about people flooding—that term was used—into the country, although somebody mentioned today that the migration rate has decreased. I was told that everybody who comes to the country is entitled to claim family allowance, which they can send back to their families who live elsewhere. Such myths are around.
I will talk about the asylum process. Section 95 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999, which deals with the support that is given to people who go through the asylum process, relates directly to benefit rates in the UK. However, as I have said, it is abated for those who are provided with accommodation, because the Border Agency pays directly for the accommodation and the utilities—gas, electricity and water.
Can those figures be presented as a percentage of what a British national in similar circumstances receives?
I am sure that they can. Does Neil Hughes know the exact percentage?
I do not—sorry.
I can write with that information, if that would help.
That would help.
If someone succeeds and is given legal status in the UK, they fall in with the normal population and they are entitled to the same benefits as are members of the normal population who are in the same circumstances.
So the minute that a claim finishes, the housing and assistance that have been provided to a claimant stop.
That depends. In Scotland, we have been fortunate in that the only local authority that contracted to take on asylum seekers who were going through the process—Glasgow City Council—favoured keeping many asylum-seeking families in the accommodation in which they had been housed and many families were happy to stay in that accommodation. That was the easiest transfer, because the family, which might have been in the accommodation for a year, two years or three years—and sometimes longer in legacy cases—just stayed in their accommodation.
Is it correct that people who are refused asylum—the term “illegal asylum seekers” has been used, which is completely wrong, because there is no such thing—and who do not leave the country receive nothing?
The situation is slightly different. There is a process under section 4 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999. Families with minor children are kept on the support system, because it is seen to be unacceptable to do otherwise. The main issue tends to be around singles who have been refused asylum in the process. If the final statutory appeal goes against the applicant, at that point they have no status in the UK; they are here unlawfully and they should either remove themselves from the country or face an enforced departure.
For people who have come here to work, train or study, the general rule is that there is no recourse to public funds. With most of the points-based system, we require people to demonstrate up front that they have enough money to support themselves. The amount varies tier by tier. A student needs to show not only that they have the money to pay their course fees but that they have £600 a month to accommodate and support themselves for the duration of their course.
I do not have much to add to that. We draw no distinction: once people are entitled to a range of benefits or services, we treat everybody equally. We have clear criteria, which we enforce strictly.
I want to take you back to the employment situation. The committee has heard a range of evidence from different people about the exploitation of migrant workers. We heard about employers making illegal deductions from pay, not paying for holiday leave or cutting hours because of pregnancy. The committee is also aware that migrants often do not want to come forward to complain in case they lose their job. What action can be taken to protect migrant workers from exploitative practices in the workplace? How can we encourage migrants to come forward with complaints? As MSPs we would highlight the problem if it affected a Scottish or UK national, and I see no difference between a Scottish or UK national and a migrant worker.
I will start to answer those questions. Phil Taylor might be able to add a local dimension. When employers are bringing in people from outside the EEA, they are required to have a sponsor licence issued by the UK Border Agency. They have to sign up to certain obligations, such as paying people the appropriate rate for the job, which are all set out in codes of practice and the like, to which they have to adhere.
I would distinguish between legal and illegal migrants. If someone is here illegally and in employment, they are much more vulnerable than they would be if they were here lawfully and had rights and entitlements.
You mentioned that fines of up to £10,000 per employee can be imposed. On how many occasions has that sanction been imposed?
I do not have the specific figures with me. I suspect that I do not have them for Scotland at all, but I can certainly get you the national figures. If I can, I will break those down into the Scottish figures for the cases that we are taking to the courts. I will write to the clerk with that information.
Phil Taylor mentioned trade unions. Are people who are working here legally aware that they have an entitlement to join a trade union? Is there a mechanism to make them aware of that, or is it simply up to trade unions to organise the workforce?
I do not know of any mechanism whereby we notify people about trade union rights. However, the unions are represented on the COSLA strategic migration partnership. It is fair to say that we expect the unions to do the publicity themselves.
Earlier in the discussion we touched on the barriers to migrants taking jobs. There could be language barriers, or they might choose to enter at a lower level and then build up their position within an organisation.
I can partly assist with that point. I can provide only a limited answer, as the skills agenda is really owned by the Scottish Government. A scoping study entitled “Scoping Study on Support Mechanisms for the Recognition of the Skills, Learning and Qualifications of Migrant Workers and Refugees—Final Report” has been brought to my attention. It was published in July 2010.
All of us around the table will have heard anecdotal evidence about qualified doctors coming to Scotland and the rest of the UK who are not allowed to practise, for whatever reasons. Given the European working time directive, the health service will always be looking for qualified doctors, nurses and others to come in. I find it bizarre for there to be a trained, skilled pool of labour already in the country that is not allowed to practise—those people are not allowed to do their job, which would help the economy and themselves.
In most cases, whether someone can practise would be decided by the governing body of the particular industry or sector. It is certainly not something that we would impose from an immigration point of view.
Going back to what Alastair MacDonald was saying, I believe that the Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework has been involved in assessing equivalency with regard to artisan trades in Scotland, but the process has been chuntering forward rather slowly. Although, as you say, there is UK NARIC, it deals primarily with academic rather than professional qualifications and my understanding is that in individual industries the professional body sets the benchmark in that respect. I also believe that UK NARIC has been privatised and that people have to pay for this information.
It is licensed by the Department for Education, but it does charge for its services.
Phil Taylor will not be surprised to hear that I have some questions about Dungavel and the national referral mechanism. How is the UKBA identifying victims of trafficking in Dungavel; how is it referring such people to, say, mental health services; and how is it dealing with the fear of detention and criminality and the impact of both issues on the individual?
We operate the NRM, but it is usually the first responder—in other words, the first person who comes into contact with the individual—who deals with the matter. As a result, the individual’s first point of contact with the authority will happen not at Dungavel but when they are arrested by the police or detained by the Border Agency. All officers are trained to deal with those cases and to look out for possible cases of trafficking.
Thank you for answering that question, but I must point out that this session is specifically about migration. Last week we took evidence on trafficking from the UKBA and, indeed, our next witness is from TARA so there will be an opportunity to raise questions of trafficking. If you have any specific questions, Christina, I suggest that you seek the answers to them directly.
I have a question about communication between MSPs and the UKBA. Can I ask that?
Absolutely.
MSPs have an issue about communication between us and the UKBA. Yesterday, I received a letter from Lin Homer, saying that that process is under review. That is very welcome, but where do you think that that review should go? This is anecdotal, but when I looked over my cases for the past six months, I found that for every asylum and immigration case that I dealt with, I dealt with 10 or 12 benefits cases. I do not have the same issues with the Benefits Agency—it never writes back saying, “This is a reserved matter, so I’m not going to speak to you.” How can we resolve the issue?
The matter is under active consideration by Home Office ministers, as it has been from time to time over the past several years. As Lin Homer pointed out in her letter to you, it is being reviewed by ministers and I expect that we will get a further decision in the next several weeks. However, it is a matter for ministers and, once the decision is taken, my job is to comply with their policy.
We fully appreciate that you are attending as civil servants.
We move to the second panel of the morning. It is my pleasure to welcome to the meeting Ann Hamilton, head of equalities and women’s services at Glasgow Community and Safety Services, who is representing the trafficking awareness-raising alliance, which is more commonly known as TARA.
At the moment, one of the problems is the distinction between forced and free prostitution—I am talking about sexual exploitation. As Phil Taylor said, many victims of trafficking will not identify themselves as such, which makes it difficult to know what percentage of people in the sex industry are trafficked. I have brought along five copies of today’s Daily Sport—you will need to share them. If you have not seen it, it is worth a look. It contains a couple of pages of adverts supposedly placed by individual women who are selling sex. There are adverts for Aberdeen, Glasgow, Peterhead, Inverness, Dundee, Dunfermline, Falkirk, Paisley, Hamilton, Perth, Stirling, South Lanarkshire and West Lothian. So, women are being advertised all over Scotland. To me, what stands out is the fact that new, fresh faces are seen very much as a selling point. There are a lot of oriental women, such as Thai women. I will leave you to have a look at what is there.
Let us go back to what could be done to improve the evidence base and make it more robust. Are the adverts followed up in any way? Are you aware of any policing of the adverts?
Undoubtedly, intelligence is taken from them, and we have fed into Strathclyde Police any concerns that we have had. We have tracked a number of adverts that offer different women using the same name and telephone number. It is highly organised. Someone reading the adverts may think that they are individual operations, but following them over a period of time reveals that they are clearly not.
Last week, we heard evidence from the UKHTC and the new trafficking unit that has been set up, and it occurred to me that nearly all their work was with organisations as opposed to being about raising the awareness of victims. Do you have a comment to make on that, given the concerns that exist about how long it takes for victims to become fully compos mentis? On awareness raising, do you think that a helpline or some kind of way of allowing individuals to contact someone anonymously to talk things over would be helpful?
Do you mean something for victims?
Yes.
That is what we provide on a Wednesday. I accept that it is only for women who prostitute themselves in Glasgow—they may not be from Glasgow, but that is where they are located.
Given everything that you have said, are there issues around the terminology that is used, apart from anything else? I noted that in the discussion with the first panel, the term was used that a woman was “delivering services”. I assume that what was meant was that she was a prostitute. If we are going to look at trafficking and prostitution and tackle them in the way that you are talking about, is such terminology unhelpful?
Definitely.
How can we help to change that?
The term “migrant sex worker” is particularly difficult, especially in a Scottish context, given that the Scottish Government has recognised in “Safer Lives: Changed Lives” that prostitution and trafficking are forms of violence against women, which is a very welcome definition. The terminology is extremely important.
Moving on to the trends that are likely to impact on the scale of human trafficking, I suppose that there is a link with awareness raising and an understanding that it is not necessarily about other countries but that the industry very much exists here in Scotland. Will you comment on those trends and on the Commonwealth games in 2014, which is another aspect?
Our view of the Commonwealth games and indeed the football that will happen in Glasgow during the Olympic games is that we need a robust framework to ensure that Scotland is not seen as a soft touch or as a place where people can make money by bringing in women. We think that it is very much about having a long-term view that makes Scotland an unattractive place for traffickers, pimps and those who make money out of the industry.
TARA’s role is to identify and support women who have been trafficked for commercial sexual exploitation. Will you comment on whether you consider sexual exploitation to be the primary rationale for human trafficking in Scotland? What is TARA’s experience of other forms of trafficking such as labour exploitation and domestic servitude?
We have had a number of referrals that we have passed on to other agencies involving women who have come here as domestic servants and have been raped by the householder or subjected to some other form of sexual violence. We are also aware of women being trafficked for cannabis farming. Often they are doubly exploited. They might move on from prostitution into cannabis farming or vice versa. There is definitely movement between the different forms of exploitation.
I ask you to comment on some research that we have been given. The child protection committee in Glasgow had a look back at the records kept by the social work asylum assessment team and found that there were about 75 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children in Glasgow in 2007, of whom 23 were identified as possibly having been trafficked. That leaves 52 unaccompanied children arriving in Glasgow from somewhere, and they did not get on a plane by themselves. In your opinion, were they not all trafficked?
At that point, awareness among those working with children was very low—there has been a huge improvement since then and the committee learnt a lot from going back over those cases. The committee looked at what had been recorded in those cases and made judgments about whether it was likely or possible that those children had been trafficked. There would have been concerns about their coming as unaccompanied asylum seekers, but the review was really looking at whether the committee had overlooked something and whether trafficking was involved. The committee discovered that it had indeed overlooked something, which is why we now have a child trafficking sub-group of the child protection committee in Glasgow, as well as a vulnerable young people sub-group. Glasgow is tied into the UK national pilot, which is looking at how to support child victims better.
Thank you.
We will be asking more about that a little later on.
Will you share your insights into other forms of illegality that look as if they are being supported by human trafficking? In your experience, is there a link with other serious organised crime?
We are clear that there is a link with other forms of serious organised crime. Obviously we work only with the victims, but we are aware of a range of other crimes, such as the selling and making available of drugs and the making and distribution of pornography. There is also undoubtedly money laundering through premises. We know that two or three of those charged with brothel keeping in Glasgow have had links with other forms of organised crime.
I do not know whether we have had much evidence about the link with the making of pornography in particular.
There is a very clear link with that. Pornography is often made on the same premises—within brothels. Victims tell us that pornography was made of them, and that it did not just involve trafficking victims but others. We run a support service for women involved in prostitution in Glasgow and we know that the making of pornography might be part of the grooming process. It is certainly one of the control methods: victims might be told, “We have film of what you’ve been doing and we can make it available.” It can be used as a control method and it can certainly make people huge amounts of money.
Thanks very much.
I looked at your submission and I have heard you and previous witnesses make assertions about the extrapolation of numbers to show the scale of the problem. You painted a picture that was different from but no better founded than the picture that Phil Taylor painted.
Absolutely.
If we are to make a realistic assessment of what is going on, we have to ensure that we do so on the basis of empirical evidence. Creating or extrapolating figures does not provide a helpful basis on which to work.
I agree with your first point—the woman mentioned by Phil Taylor might not have been under duress. However, what I am saying is that there is often a need to look beyond what is presented. One of the first cases that we were involved in involved two young Lithuanian women who were referred to us after a police raid. We were told that they had not been trafficked and that they were just prostitutes who had come here from Lithuania, and we were asked to support them, which we did. It was very early days for us, and we made a number of mistakes in the way in which we supported them. We put the two of them up in the same hotel, because they wanted to be together. After a couple of days, it became clear that one was controlling the other. It was difficult to separate them but, when we did, the younger one began to let us know that she had not planned to come here to become a prostitute and that she was very unhappy about it. They both had boyfriends who were clearly pimps, because they were taking money from them and so on.
On the assistance that your organisation and others provide, can you give us some details of the accommodation that is available for adults and, perhaps, for those under the age of majority? What access to medical services is available? Finally, and perhaps most crucially, what is the situation with regard to interpreters and legal services?
For many years, we have had a lot of partnership working in Glasgow on the issue of violence against women, and I know that that is also the case in many other parts of Scotland. That has stood us in good stead and has allowed us to ensure that we are able to deliver a range of services.
TARA is based in Glasgow, but from what you are saying—and as Amnesty International indicated—it seems that you provide a Scotland-wide service. Amnesty International suggested that you are not really resourced to provide that level of support throughout Scotland, and that some victims of trafficking in Scotland may therefore be going to England to get that support. Can you comment on that?
Yes. We are currently in negotiations on the expansion of the TARA project. We are probably working at capacity at the moment—we are still able to see victims as they are referred, although we prioritise cases depending on the circumstances. We are very hopeful that the negotiations will have a positive outcome.
Part of my reason for asking the question is that the publication that you brought in with you—newspaper is not the right word—covers the whole of Scotland and, also, people move around. One concern is that services such as TARA and other resources might not be available outwith Glasgow, so obviously the committee is pleased to hear that a review is taking place.
I think that trafficking has links not just with pornography but—I have been threatened with legal action if I say this again—with lap-dancing clubs and other venues of that kind. Women have certainly come to us for support who were sometimes given light duties of dancing in a lap-dancing bar rather than prostitution. The issue needs to be looked at holistically. The people who advertise in the Daily Sport will not necessarily be running lap-dancing clubs—although they could well be—but they will certainly be making pornography and will be involved in all sorts of other activities. The most important thing for them is making money, and if they can find a new way of making money, they will use it. Certainly from the accounts that women give us, we know that they talk about their experience of having had pornography made of them and of being in lap-dancing or strip clubs. There are very clear links.
Sorry, let me return to the issue. You have just made a very clear statement about the connection between the making of pornography and particular other activities. I can see the causal link, but where is the evidence?
The evidence comes from—
I am asking in terms of prosecutions and all the other issues.
No prosecutions have taken place, as you know.
One of my colleagues will discuss that.
The evidence that we have is women’s accounts—that is all that we can go on. A large percentage of the women who have talked to us—not just in relation to trafficking but in relation to prostitution—have told us that they have had pornography made of them or that they are aware that the same people make pornography. One woman who gave evidence to the police was taken around several warehouses by the police to try to identify where incidents had happened. If we had any chance of holding somebody to account, we would pass that on to the police immediately.
In recent years, prostitutes’ involvement in taking drugs has been highlighted. Is the situation similar for women who have been trafficked? Are trafficked women who are prostitutes or who are involved in pornography or any other element of the sex industry forced to take drugs, or do they take drugs for whatever reason?
Drugs are used to control women who have been trafficked, so that is different from the situation for women who have serious drug issues and who then become involved in street prostitution or who are brought into prostitution as a result of those issues. Drugs are used to control trafficked women, so such women stop using anything as soon as they come to us. Some women might overuse alcohol, but we do not have women who use cocaine, heroin or anything like that.
Good morning—or good afternoon, as it is now after 12. I will move on to the national referral mechanism. The report has been really helpful—I have skimmed through it and garnered much information from it. Perhaps you heard my earlier questions. I have concerns about the national referral mechanism, which is fundamentally flawed because it requires informed consent and does not just put people into the process for protection. Will you describe the concerns that you highlighted in the report and in previous comments, particularly about the reflection period and about asylum proceedings continuing while somebody waits for a determination on whether they have been trafficked? We were concerned by the evidence from the Poppy project that, when an individual’s asylum application and trafficking claim were rejected, the two letters were put in the same envelope because the same person at the UKBA had made both determinations.
Our involvement in the anti-trafficking monitoring group report has pulled out many of the issues that we struggle with. I am a member of the strategic monitoring group for the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings, which someone from the Home Office chairs. That brings together three non-governmental organisations and many civil servants. Because of our clients, we are committed to making the system work as effectively as it can—we are engaged in trying to ensure that it works as best it can.
One of your recommendations is that the competent authority should be the child protection services rather than the UKBA. I could not agree with you more. We have specific laws in Scotland that govern the protection of children, and the welfare of the child is paramount.
Our first UK victim was a young woman from Edinburgh who was presented with the normal letter saying that it had been agreed that she was a victim of trafficking and that she was being awarded a reflection period within which she would not be deported. It came as a bit of a shock to a young woman from Edinburgh that she stood any chance of being deported from the UK. The whole mechanism has been designed for foreign women who come to the UK, and any UK citizens have been referred very much at the behest of the police, who have supported the identification of those people as having been trafficked. As I have said, the police’s decisions seem to carry more weight than those of the support agencies.
Does the national referral mechanism, as it stands, breach the European convention on human rights in as much as there is no right to appeal?
Our wording was that the national referral mechanism is “not fit for purpose”. We have worked closely with the UKBA, the Home Office and other agencies to make what they have work as well as it can. However, we would definitely say that the mechanism does not fulfil the obligations and the understanding of the convention. It is much more about prosecutions than it is about victim recovery. Obviously, the convention is about victim recovery, but it is seen as assisting with the level of prosecutions and, given that we have not seen an increase in prosecutions—it is the same down south—it is an issue.
My final question is about protection procedures for children. As Bill Kidd mentioned earlier, the research says that in 2007 there were 75 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children in Glasgow, 23 of whose cases were highly suspicious, and another nine of whose cases were suspicious. That is 32 children out of 75. How should those children be supported differently from how they are supported now?
The situation is changing. The exercise was useful for Glasgow because it highlighted trafficking and the profound impact that it might have on a young person or child. Glasgow is now much better at supporting such children. It is about taking an individual approach and ensuring that young people are safe to tell their story and start to recover from whatever has happened to them. Services are undoubtedly much better now. I can talk only about Glasgow, which recently had a major conference with local authorities from across Scotland coming to hear what had been happening and to have their awareness raised. The more awareness raising that can be done, the better. It is safe to say that young people who have been trafficked are more likely to be identified in Glasgow and other big cities than they are elsewhere. That is a clear problem.
Has the quality of the training that has been taking place had an impact across all the agencies?
There has been a lack of leadership on the issue. Somebody needs to drive the trafficking agenda through just as happened in the case of domestic abuse. We have a lot of patchy training and a lot happening at a fairly low level or a very senior level, but we do not have a drive to address the situation across all agencies. There is a role for better leadership. The fact that the UK response to the convention has been designed at Westminster by UK civil servants has meant that there has not been the focus in Scotland that there could be and that we have not had the leadership that we could have had from the Scottish Government and Scottish agencies.
Thank you, Ann; that has been really helpful. We could probably go on for ages, but I will shut up there.
I, too, thank you for your evidence, which has been extremely helpful. One of the issues is the lack of prosecutions in Scotland. Other witnesses have been asked about this and found it difficult to give specific reasons. Can you identify particular obstacles to securing convictions for trafficking offences?
It is difficult to tackle trafficking when all that we have to go on is that someone is running a brothel where there might be trafficking and, in some circumstances, rape. Trafficking is a difficult crime to prosecute. One of the problems is that, because we have not had any cases yet, we have not been able to learn whether the legislation is robust enough or needs to be looked at again.
That is helpful. Thank you. What more can be done to prevent the criminalisation of victims of trafficking?
The first that we know about a case is often when someone is charged with a prostitution-related offence or is found to be in Dungavel because of immigration and criminal offence issues. That is a problem. We have had a number of referrals—through the UKBA, I have to say—of women who have been in both Cornton Vale prison and Dungavel, so we have been able to advocate on those individuals’ behalf.
I think that you did answer my question. That was very helpful. The fact that you are listening and talking to the women makes your evidence particularly valuable. You anticipated my last question, but you may want to say more on the subject. What evidence-based approaches can be adopted in the prevention of human trafficking by public and voluntary bodies?
There are two or three different layers. We are involved in UKHTC working groups, one of which is on prevention. After two or three years of frustration in which we did not make any great progress, we are now talking to the Department for International Development, not about running anti-trafficking programmes in other countries—developing countries, in particular—but about how to build warnings on trafficking and exploitation into the poverty reduction, educational and other programmes that are operating in the countries from which we know women are being trafficked, such as Nigeria, which is the country from which trafficking to the UK is most prevalent. Much more of that should be done. There is no evidence that the Government has mainstreamed that way of working in its international development work and linked it to aid.
That completes our lines of questioning. Is there anything that you want to say in closing?
Thank you for giving me this opportunity. I know how frustrating it is that I cannot give empirical evidence to say, for example, that 300 women have been trafficked into Scotland. All I can say is that we have seen an increase in trafficking over the past few years. We have seen an increase not only in referrals but in the number of foreign women who use our service for women who are involved in indoor prostitution. Our staff say that all the 200 women with whom we are working want out. None of them wants to do what they are doing; it harms all of them. Many of the women will have been trafficked in the formal sense, but almost all of them will have been trafficked around the country, whether from one part of Glasgow to another or from Glasgow to Edinburgh, Aberdeen or Inverness. It is time to look at trafficking on a much more holistic basis.
It remains for me to thank you for coming to the committee today and providing an extremely valuable and in-depth insight into what is, without doubt, an extremely harrowing issue. This is a growth industry that is on our doorstep in Scotland and the UK.
Thank you.
The next committee meeting takes place on 28 September. It is our final evidence-taking session in the inquiry. We will hear from Alex Neil, the Minister for Housing and Communities, and Kenny MacAskill, the Cabinet Secretary for Justice. I look forward to seeing all members at the meeting.
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