Home Office wrong in adopting a narrow definition of forced labour in trafficking case

The High Court found a reasonable grounds (first stage) decision in a trafficking case to be unlawful because the Home Office decision maker adopted a restrictive and rigid approach to the definition of forced labour. The case is SAC v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2025] EWHC 1400 (Admin).

Background

The claimant is an Algerian national who arrived in the UK in 2022 as a visitor. He overstayed his permission after receiving threats from Algeria that made him feel unsafe to return.

Once he ran out of savings, he was recruited by a man who offered him cash-in-hand work in construction. He was then moved between different construction sites and ended up working in very poor conditions.

He worked every day, 12 hours a day, for very low pay (£6-£7/hour), some of which was also kept from him. He did not have proper breaks or a proper place to sleep. As a result, he incurred various injuries and also developed a number of health problems. 

He was eventually able to seek assistance from the British Red Cross who provided him with support and safe housing. A referral to the National Referral Mechanism was made in July 2024.

The reasonable grounds decision

In September 2024, the Home Office made a negative reasonable grounds decision. Interestingly, the claimant’s account was accepted as broadly consistent. The decision found that the “action” part of the trafficking definition was satisfied as he had been recruited by a man and then transferred between different construction sites.

The “means” test was also deemed to be met as the Home Office accepted that the claimant was mistreated and threatened by his employers who took advantage of his vulnerability. In this part of the decision, importantly, it was accepted that his working conditions were very poor and that he was treated differently from other workers. It was also accepted that his employers mistreated him, withheld wages from him as punishment and threatened him that he would be left homeless with nowhere to go if he did not comply with what he was told to do.

Yet, despite accepting all of this, the Home Office found that the “purpose” part of the trafficking definition was not met as the claimant was not subjected to forced labour. In short, the decision found that the claimant chose to work voluntarily for his employers out of economic necessity and that he had been free to leave if he had wanted to.

A reconsideration request was submitted by the British Red Cross in October 2024, on the basis that the decision failed to correctly apply the definition of forced labour and was not compliant with the statutory guidance. The request was declined two days later on the basis that no new, material information had been provided. A pre-action letter was sent in November 2024 but the decision was maintained, leading to judicial review proceedings being raised.

The judicial review  

The court focuses its analysis on the legal definition of forced labour as introduced by the International Labour Organisation and later endorsed by ECAT (Council of Europe Convention on Action Against Trafficking) and developed in the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights. Forced labour is described as any work exacted from a person under the menace of a penalty and for which the person has not offered themselves voluntarily.

In terms of the penalty element, the court reinstated that threats do not necessarily need to be of physical violence but they can also be of subtler, more psychological nature. To assess whether the work was carried out under the threat of a penalty, a decision maker needs to consider the nature and conditions the work was undertaken under holistically.

The court also reiterated that, even if a person had initially consented to carry out the work, this does not prevent them from later becoming a victim of forced labour and that consent needs to be considered in the context of the conditions and the work carried out. The court noted that all of these principles were also reflected in different points of the statutory guidance.

Turning to this specific case, the court found that the decision maker made a number of material errors. Firstly, the decision failed to take into account of all the factors pointing to the fact that the claimant did not work voluntarily.  Under the “purpose” section of the reasonable grounds decision, no mention was made of his vulnerabilities and of the extremely poor conditions he was working in.

No consideration was given to the fact that the decision accepted that the “means” aspect of the definition was met on the basis that the employers did indeed take advantage of the claimant’s vulnerability. The court therefore found that the decision failed to take a holistic approach to the case, contrary to the statutory guidance.

Similarly, looking at whether the claimant had been working under threats of a penalty, the “purpose” section of the reasonable grounds decision failed to take into account of the threats made by the employers and of the fact that they had also already withheld some wages as punishment. In short, the court found that there were multiple indicators pointing to the fact that the claimant had indeed been subject to forced labour that the reasonable grounds decision failed to take into account.

The court also found that the Home Office had adopted an excessively restrictive definition of forced labour by focusing exclusively on whether the claimant had been working voluntarily out of economic necessity. The court found that this approach undermined the broader intention of the statutory guidance and of the jurisprudence in this area.

On this basis, the court found that both the reasonable grounds decision and the reconsideration decision were unlawful.

Conclusion

This is an interesting case that clearly outlines the legal definition of forced labour. It is, in my view, frustrating that the proceedings had to get to this point. The Home Office seems to be taking more and more of a tick box approach to trafficking decisions and reconsideration decisions. This case is striking in that sense as, within separate headings of the same decision, the Home Office picked and chose certain elements of the claimant’s account to give weight to. By adopting this approach, decisions do obviously run the risk of being unlawful as no holistic and adequate consideration is given to survivors’ accounts.