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Baroness Prosser: My Lords, it is with great pride and pleasure and not a little humility that I rise to address your Lordships' House for the first time. Like others before me, I have been both delighted and heartened by the warm welcome, the unfailing politeness and the generous assistance I have received from Peers and from the staff of this House. This is a far more gentle world than that to which I have been accustomed.
In my preparations to enter this House, I attended, as required, the office of Garter Kings of Arms. I was thrilled when he agreed that my full title could be the Baroness Prosser, of Battersea in the London Borough of Wandsworth. I was born in Battersea, as were my three sisters, my father and my grandfather. For a while, my grandfather ran a greengrocer's shop. Such shops are hard to find in Battersea nowadays. As if by osmosis, they have become estate agents and bijoux restaurants.
The changes that have taken place in Battersea since my family and I were there can be seen as a microcosm of the changes that have taken place in society generally and, indeed, in my own fortunes. For almost three-quarters of the last century, Battersea was a travel-to-work area. Morgan's Carbon and Gartons glue factories, the Rank Hovis mill and Price's candles were only some of the sites and plants providing work
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for thousands of local people. Now there is a Price's candle shop, but the main sites are predominantly up-market housing.
Battersea Power Station, dejected and downcast, reminds us of the industrial past. Hundreds of men were employed there, almost all of whom were members of my union—the Transport and General Workers' Union. Many plans for the future of the power station have been discussed over the years. Who knows, my Lords? It may be one of the "lucky eight" to become a USA-style casino. If that does become the case, I am sure that the T&G will want to be in there, recognising change and organising a very different kind of worker.
At the beginning of the 20th century, Battersea became politically famous. In 1913, a British-born man of Barbardian and Irish parentage became the first black mayor ever to be elected in Britain. John Archer made history himself and then, in 1922, he acted as agent for an Indian man named Shapurji Saklatvala, who became the first black Member of Parliament, taking his seat on the Labour Benches in the other place as the Member for Battersea North. After such a promising start, one wonders why so little progress has been made in changing the face of the British political scene.
I moved away from Battersea before starting school, returning briefly in the 1960s with my young family to live on the sixteenth floor of a GLC tower block, right opposite Morgan's Carbon. The views across the river and Battersea Park were splendid, but that is about the only good thing which could be said about my tower-block-living experience. With all due respect to the previous speaker, the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, perhaps I may say that if he had spent time living in a tower block in an industrial wasteland he might have a rather different view of an ASBO.
I have always had an urge to involve myself in public life. My involvement in various parts of south London with tenants groups, playground associations and so on led to my gaining employment and all-important training, which, in turn, enabled me to gain professional employment with the Southwark Law Project. We were a newly established Home Office-funded community law centre, and we discussed avidly which trade union we should join, plumping for the then 2 million-strong T&G. My frustration with the union's lack of interest in any issues of particular importance to women workers made me more and more determined to get involved and to bring about change. My career with the T&G has been varied, tough, fruitful and, most of all, enjoyable and educational.
Throughout that period, some social change has been for the good and some for the not so good. The reduction in locally available manual work has been accompanied by an increase in cleaner jobs and, of course, cleaner air. The river has been opened up to more people but the roads are choked with traffic. The demography of Battersea has changed enormously, by both class and ethnicity, but there remain pockets of poverty and poor social housing. Upward social mobility has not been for all.
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My reference to social mobility brings me to my point of substance in this home affairs debate. There is social mobility of another kind—a social mobility which starts with hope and aspiration and ends in forced mobility: forced mobility of men as cheap labour and of women and children for the purpose, in the main, of prostitution.
The trafficking of human beings is one of the fastest growing and most heinous of crimes. People trafficking is defined by the Home Office as,
It is estimated by the International Organization for Migration on 2001 figures that between 700,000 and 2 million women and children are trafficked each year. In 1998, the United Nations estimated global profits from trafficking to be a massive 7 billion dollars annually.
Women's organisations in the UK have provided evidence to the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women, a UN convention adopted by the General Assembly in 1979 and ratified by 175 states, including the UK. The evidence was based upon the belief that trafficking of women for the purposes of prostitution amounts to violence against women. In a Written Answer on 18 October this year in another place, the Government expressed their support for international co-operation:
"We are participating fully in the development of the draft Council of Europe Convention on Action Against Trafficking in Human Beings, which has a clear victim focus and will build upon existing instruments".—[Official Report, Commons, 18/10/04; col. 484W.]
Other organisations, such as the POPPY Project, which provides housing and support for trafficked women, and CHASTE, a faith-based group, are working to provide and promote information and action.
I am aware that Her Majesty's Government have done much to try to deal with this dreadful situation. The announcement that the Government intend to establish a serious organised crime agency is a welcome one, and such a body will assist with national and international co-ordination of work currently taking place. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Roberts of Llandudno, for raising this issue by way of a Question earlier this afternoon because, while the role of Government is crucial, we must all play our part by ensuring that the issues are made clear and that the British public are aware of, and share our abhorrence of, such terrible crimes.
Lord Cobbold: My Lords, it is an honour to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Prosser, and to be able to congratulate her on an interesting speech and, in particular, on her eulogy of Battersea. Her experience is certainly a valuable addition to your Lordships' House, and we look forward to hearing from her many times in the future. I am also happy to note from her CV that we are of the same vintage—I hope she finds that it was a good year.
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I also strongly support the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick, on visa applications for foreign students attending British universities. I speak as a governor of the University of Hertfordshire. It is of vital importance that we make the provision of visas for such students as simple as possible. I wholly support the noble Baroness's argument.
In the gracious Speech, the Government committed themselves to strengthening,
While such a policy may seem obvious and attractive at first sight, on further reflection it is fraught with dangers. The police force in this country has earned the rare and admirable reputation of being the citizen's friend. "If in difficulty, ask a policeman", is advice that any parent would traditionally be willing to give a child. The police were proud to be the protectors of personal liberty. It will be a sad day if that is no longer the case and if policemen and policewomen are being trained to intrude on personal liberty.
The story in yesterday's Sunday Telegraph is a disturbing case in point. The person in question is reported to have been driving along the Embankment towards Westminster when he was flagged down by two policemen. They claimed to be doing random checks and to be training two of the new category of police community support officers (CSOs), who were also present. The driver agreed to their request to search his car, during which process a Swiss multi-tool penknife and a small collapsible baton were found in his briefcase. He was promptly arrested for possessing offensive weapons and for carrying a bladed instrument in public. He was forced to abandon his car, which later received a parking ticket, and marched off to Charing Cross police station where he was charged.
If true, that is a horrifying story. How many times have we all carried knives for a picnic lunch or garden hedge clippers in the boots of our cars? Even the tools required to change a flat tyre could be regarded as offensive weapons. Whatever the risks of international terrorism, we must not allow this country to drift into becoming a police state. Police community support officers (CSOs) are now to be followed by the serious organised crime agency (SOCA). It all seems to be eerily reminiscent of other well-known acronyms like STASI or NKVD.
We in this House have a special duty to defend personal liberty as a human right. We must take special care to ensure that the wholly justifiable efforts to fight organised crime and anti-social behaviour do not become a threat to personal liberty and to the proud freedom for which generations of our forebears have fought.
I turn to the problem of drug use and the crime that flares from it. It is a global problem and a subject on which strong and often emotive views are held. I am one of those who believe that it is the fact of prohibition itself that is the principal cause of the problem. I was brought up on stories of Al Capone,
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and it is a complete mystery to me why the lessons of alcohol prohibition in the US in the 1920s and 1930s have not been applied to the drug problem.
Current policies, it is estimated, cost this country more than £10 billion a year, whereas if drugs were decriminalised, controlled and taxed, as is the case with alcohol and tobacco, the Exchequer would have the tax revenue to pay for harm reduction and treatment programmes and to finance all-important publicity campaigns against drug misuse.
"Prohibition goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control man's appetite by legislation, and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes".
Those addicted to drugs, like those addicted to alcohol, are sick. They are not basically criminals. They become criminals only when they steal or cause damage or injury to others. They need treatment, not prison sentences. Sadly, that is heresy in official circles and, as we know, our Government are intent on creating the new serious organised crime agency to conduct the next round in the war on drugs.
The hope that I wish to express is that, alongside this new initiative—in case, like its predecessors, it turns out to be a failure—the Government will instigate an open-minded, global debate on the merits and demerits of prohibition. In that context I recommend that they, and all noble Lords, study an excellent and balanced recent report produced by Transform Drug Policy Foundation, entitled After the War on Drugs—Options for Control. That report offers no miracle cures, but it examines the global situation and the practical problems and comes up with a road map for reform.
To sum up, therefore, I believe that we must stand up for the protection of personal liberty and human rights in the war against international terrorism and domestic anti-social behaviour and, in the case of the drugs problem, we should support a global reassessment of the merits of prohibition.
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