Ten years after the introduction of the Modern Slavery Act, safety is more elusive than ever

This week marked ten years since the Modern Slavery Act 2015 came into force. The trafficking statistics for October to December 2024 have been published, meaning we now have a full year of data for 2024. In the statistics before these, for July to September 2024, I noted that positive conclusive grounds decisions made by the immigration enforcement competent authority were down to 11%, thankfully that seems to have been rock bottom and recognition rates have improved. I look at recognitions rates, delay, referrals and reconsiderations in more detail below.

Referrals

Most referrals to the National Referral Mechanism (the identification process) went to the Single Competent Authority (14,790, 77%) and around a quarter (4,335, 23%) to the Immigration Enforcement Competent Authority (which deals with people subject to immigration control who are detained, those whose asylum claims have been deemed inadmissible and non-detained foreign national offenders). 23% of all referrals were British citizens, 13% were Albanian and 11% were Vietnamese.

Refusals and disqualifications

The reasonable grounds decision is the first in the two stage recognition process. The huge spike in refusal in January 2023 is because of changes made in the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 that were brought into force in January 2023 relating to the need for objective independent evidence. Some of these changes were reversed in July 2023 following litigation, which is why refusals dropped slightly after that, although as we can see in the last quarter of 2024 refusals by the Immigration Enforcement Competent Authority have started to increase again.

It really shouldn’t be considered good news that refusals by the Immigration Enforcement Competent Authority at conclusive grounds stage were at 66% for the period October to December 2024, but this is a huge improvement on the 89% of cases that were rejected in the preceding quarter.

Another harmful change made by the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 was the introduction of “disqualifications” whereby people can be excluded from support and protections, including against removal, after receiving a positive reasonable grounds decision, on either grounds of public order, bad faith, or if the person has previously received a period of support within the National Referral Mechanism.

There have been no disqualifications based on a person previously having a recovery period. All bad faith disqualification decisions to date have been made by the Immigration Enforcement Competent Authority. Despite receiving less than a quarter of all the referrals made, the Immigration Enforcement Competent Authority has made far more disqualification decisions based on public order than the Single Competent Authority.

Disqualifications based on public order grounds were paused from 31 July 2023 to 8 January 2024, while the policy was being litigated. A person can no longer be removed from the UK before an assessment of the risk of re-trafficking has been made. The impact of that on decision making remains unclear and as you can see from the chart, it is difficult to discern any trends at this stage, but it is obviously one to keep an eye on.

Delays

Delays within the National Referral Mechanism remain extremely long and the average (mean) number of days to a decision across both competent authorities for the period October to December 2024 was 952, a few months short of three years.

I do wonder at what point (or if there even is such a point) the High Court might actually be pushed far enough to say that these delays are unlawful, having repeatedly accepted the Home Secretary’s assurances that steps are being taken that will reduce the length of time taken for a decision.

Reconsiderations

Decision making is poor, as highlighted in a recent inspection of the Immigration Enforcement Competent Authority by the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration. The Home Office’s response to the high number of reconsideration requests being made has not been to improve the quality of decisions, but instead to restrict the ability of people to request a reconsideration, by quietly introducing a very short timescale for the requests to be made.

After Exploitation and the Anti Trafficking Monitoring Group have published a new report “Reconsiderations briefing: Modern slavery survivors ‘unable to challenge’ rejections” looking specifically at this issue. They point out that over 70% of reconsiderations were successful in overturning a refusal last year and make several recommendations for improvement.

Even with those additional barriers in place, the number of reconsideration requests continues to go up, and will inevitably continue to do so unless and until the Home Office addresses decision quality.

Conclusion

The Home Office’s management of these cases needs to improve, however it is difficult to see this happening of their own volition and as I have pointed out above, the courts have been reluctant to address delays. Decision quality is generally tackled through individual legal challenges from those who are fortunate enough to be able to find a lawyer, but these never seem to faze the Home Office, or prompt any change.

Instead, the focus has been on relentlessly making it ever more difficult for those who have been subject to these crimes to access any sort of assistance or safety in the UK. As stated by the Modern Slavery Act 2015 committee last year:

When the Modern Slavery Act 2015 was passed, it was considered to be a world-leading piece of legislation aiming to “tackle, prevent and disrupt” modern slavery. However, developments worldwide and in the UK in the past nine years have led to the UK falling behind internationally

We can, and should, be doing much better than this.