Modern Slavery Bill — New Clause 1 — Expanding The Role of the Gangmasters Licensing Authority — 4 Nov 2014 at 17:45

The majority of MPs voted against expanding the role of the Gangmasters Licensing Authority which is currently restricted to regulating "gangmasters" involved in agriculture, gathering shellfish, and related processing and packaging work. The rejected proposal would have enabled the authority's role to be extended to cover other areas where abuse and exploitation of workers or modern slavery or trafficking may be taking place.

MPs were considering the Modern Slavery Bill^[1].

The motion rejected by the majority of MPs taking part in this vote was:

• That the clause be read a Second time

The rejected clause, titled, Enabling provision to enable the Gangmasters Licensing Authority to tackle modern day slavery stated:

• (1) The Secretary of State may by order amend section 3 of the Gangmasters (Licensing) Act 2004 to include other areas of work where the Secretary of State believes abuse and exploitation of workers or modern slavery or trafficking may be taking place.
• (2) An order under subsection (1) may not be made unless a draft of the Statutory Instrument containing it has been laid before each House of Parliament and been approved by a resolution in each House.”

Section 3 of the Gangmasters (Licensing) Act 2004 at the time of the vote permitted the extension, via regulations, of the Gangmasters Licensing Authority's role to cover "the gathering (by any manner) of wild creatures, or wild plants, of a prescribed description and the processing and packaging of anything so gathered" and to "the harvesting of fish from a fish farm".

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• [1] Parliament's webpage on the Modern Slavery Bill

Debate in Parliament | Source |