Recommendation 5

HM Government · verbatim extract Acknowledged

Section 54 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 established the UK as the first country in the world to require businesses to report on how they are tackling modern slavery in their operations and supply chains. Section 54 has helped bring greater awareness of modern slavery in boardrooms across the country but it is clear a decade after the Act, the UK’s approach needs to evolve. The Home Office is actively considering legislative vehicles to strengthen the Act. Alongside the DBT-led Responsible Business Conduct Review, the Government will continue to consider how it may strengthen the Section 54 regime, including the reporting requirements, turnover threshold, penalties for non-compliance and regime’s application to public bodies. Significant long-term reform will take time. In the interim the Home Office has recently published updated Transparency in Supply Chains statutory guidance, which is now more comprehensive, practical and ambitious–calling on businesses to go further and faster in their efforts to eliminate modern slavery from their operations and supply chains. The UK has spearheaded collaboration with the Australian and Canadian governments to publish a new transparency reporting template which supports businesses to produce one modern slavery statement for all three countries. This optional template will help reduce the administrative burden in all three countries for businesses subject to supply chain reporting requirements. It provides businesses with one clear and consistent message on what good practice reporting looks like.