Two pieces of good news today where a combination of Liberal Democrat and some Conservatives in government have won out over the right of the Conservative Party.
First up, human trafficking – where the opposition of Conservative Euro-sceptics to Britain opting in to the new EU directive has been overcome. Co-Chair of the Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Committee on Home Affairs, Justice and Equality, Tom Brake said:
The Government’s intention to opt in to the EU’s Human Trafficking directive is an excellent step forward for the UK and for the victims – past, present and future – of traffickers.
The Liberal Democrats have been working very closely with the Home Office and the Home Secretary to secure the opt-in because we know UK can only continue to lead the fight against human trafficking by working closely with our neighbours.
Today’s decision will send a very strong message to traffickers that the UK will not waiver in the fight against their horrific crimes and will stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the European efforts to eradicate this practice.
Second up, visas – where plans for cutting back on foreign students have been significantly changed in the face of opposition from the Lib Dems, business and universities. Businesses had feared losing out on much needed skilled workers whilst universities had feared losing out on valuable fee income from foreign students.
Instead of ending the ability for foreign graduates to work here for two years, the government will let those who find a job paying at least £20,000 a year stay. Similarly, plans for a cap on foreign student numbers have been axed.
The Home Office has been allowed to save face with a rider that reserves the right to look again at a cap later. But the Lib Dems say that all of the spin this morning about numbers of students being slashed by 80,000 or 100,000 was “arbitrary” and based on dubious projections.
A senior Liberal Democrat source said: “Nick and Vince were absolutely adamant about this. The last thing we need to be doing when we are encouraging growth is to pull the rug out from under the feet of our great universities.
“We’ve got to get away from an obsession with numbers. Yes loopholes can and will be closed but Nick was very clear that we shouldn’t have a Dutch auction at the expense of one of the most vibrant and thriving sectors of the British economy.
“The draconian restrictions originally planned by the Home Office would have been a slap in the face for British colleges, universities and businesses. This is a victory for reason over prejudice.”
As an aside, I’ve pointed out before the media problem the party has in government in that good news stories are often reported without the political affiliation of the minister being named, so where it is Liberal Democrats achieving something it is easy for someone not that interested in politics to miss that it was Lib Dems. That was, for example, the fate of Chris Huhne’s micro op-ed in The Sun – good coverage, no mention of the party. This time The Sun did label as Liberal Democrat the relevant minister – Vince Cable – because this time it was reporting a story of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats disagreeing. A handy side-effect of having coalition disagreements show a little in public.
UPDATE: Nick Thornsby and Caron Lindsay have blogged with further details.
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5 Comments
I am so pleased we have won on these issues. It was daft for anyone to oppose common sense good policies because of ideological dogma.
Still a long way to go.
1) On trafficking
Given the number of statutory instruments already in place around trafficking I am not sure this was a priority. The ECAT (the Council of Europe Convention on Trafficking in Human Beings) came into force in 2008 after its 10th Member State ratification anyway and the UK could simply follow it.
The WMS contains telling phrase: “The new text still does not contain any measures that would significantly change the way the UK fights trafficking.” Precisely.
The following phrase is quite astonishing: ” However, the UK has always been a world leader in fighting trafficking…”. Really? And how pray tell, has this been measured, and over what time frame? ‘Always’ is a rather imprecise measure methinks.
Commenting as a London academic who has just spent 3 days marking and examining a PhD thesis on UK trafficking and health policy I am unaware of any world league tables that even give us an inkling on this. If one exists, anywhere in the world, please let me know.
The last government put in place some quite dreadful measures on trafficking which have caused needless misery, wasted vast amounts of money and police time, and continue to make the law an ass. So I do hope that this ratification it is not due to pressure from misinformed Labour MPs (whose party spent many a long year hiding their spuriously trumped up ‘trafficking’ figures) and who frequently pop up in Parliament asking such a similar question that one wonders if they are handed to them on the way in.
And please don’t mention the Olympics. I have on my desk 3 academic papers to read which explore how ‘trafficking’ figures refuse to go up despite moral panics that start up before large sporting events. Because of this moral panic, I have to wade through the data on the Summer Olympics in Greece, the Winter Olympics in Vancouver as well as 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany, the FIFA World Cup in South Africa – and I am not even a footie fan.
Most recently, London Councils have produced a report:
http://www.londoncouncils.gov.uk:80/news/current/pressdetail.htm?pk=1274
Here, although they reach broadly the right conclusions, the web page mentions the Olympics, and then moves onto trafficking for organ removal! That is a new relationship to me. Large sporting events are so heavily policed for terrorism, ticket touting etc., that many sex worker groups moan their business goes down.
Such hype and hysteria distracts resources from where they should be going. It also makes things very much less safe for ordinary sex workers (whose lives are already intruded upon), and those who don’t fit the social picture that council leaders want to show to the world (witness Westminster’s recent attempt to prevent food distribution to the hungry and homeless) in advance of the royal wedding.
Re visas for foreign graduates
A step forward but it still won’t help many post-doctoral researchers (speaking now as a councillor with hundreds of academics in my ward). Here is the latest ad. I have seen – the stipend is £17,500
http://www.corpus.cam.ac.uk/fellowship/research-fellowship
I would be a bit more cautious about jumping on this bandwagon with more enthusiasm than thought. I agree with Dr Brooks-Gordon that this is much more complex than might appear. ‘Trafficking’ is a construction that has been much abused and brought countless misery to those caught up in ill-considered measures. The WMS insists that this is to “send a powerful message to traffickers that the UK is not a soft touch, and that we are supportive of international efforts to tackle this crime.” I don’t think there was ever a message that the UK, or anywhere else was a soft touch, or unsupportive.
The problem is that the trafficking issue has been used to support all sorts of inhumane treatment of migrant workers without consideration of the determinants of the problem, and has sent many people back to the environments they were fleeing from in the first place. The UN DOC, hardly a conservative organisation, report for 2010 points out that trafficking in human beings is not very profitable, compared to commodities, is not organised, and would not thrive in a well regulated legal market. Nor should we focus our attention on trafficking for purposes of sexual exploitation, although this sells more newspapers than trafficking for any other form of coerced labour.
What we need is more thoughtful and humane immigration policies, a decriminalised sex market (prohibition attracts not deters crime) and more support for those who are caught up in what we would all agree is a morally abhorrent violation of human rights.
Dr Brooks-Gordon refers to the recent London Councils report. That report draws attention to the perspective that “there is a risk that anti-trafficking ‘hype’ or ‘hysteria’ around large sporting events can harm vulnerable groups such as sex workers and migrants. In addition, some feel that anti-trafficking organisations purposely exaggerate the 2012 Games and the issue of trafficking in order to increase their own funding. Other stakeholders argue that trafficking and the demand for prostitution are totally unrelated.” It concluded, inter alia “In most cases the media spread fear over huge numbers of predicted trafficking victims, which is not based on evidence.”
Michael Goodyear
Centre for Sex Work Research and Policy
Dalhousie University
@Geoffrey
“I am so pleased we have won on these issues. It was daft for anyone to oppose common sense good policies because of ideological dogma.”
but perhaps on visas we should opose becucase there is no evidence that yet another Directive will do any good?
And when, prey, will the Government replace sections 57-59 of the Sexual Offences Act with the wording of the Palermo Protocol to comply with our commitment to the international definition of sex trafficking? After more than ten years, there are those who would expect even the UK Home Office to have got off the Go square, but sadly no….