Recommendation 9

HM Government Not Addressed

The Transparency in Supply Chains legislation in the Modern Slavery Act 2015 established the UK as the first country in the world to require businesses to report annually on their work to prevent and address risks of modern slavery in their operations and global supply chains. No business can consider themselves immune from the risks of modern slavery and, given the complexities of global supply chains, the Government expects companies to be constantly vigilant in assessing and addressing their risk exposure. The Transparency in Supply Chains legislation was designed to incentivise businesses to demonstrate annual progress in the actions they are taking to understand and tackle their modern slavery risks. By requiring businesses to report openly on their websites, the legislation enables consumers, civil society, investors and others to hold businesses to account and helps create a level playing field for responsible business. In September 2020, the Government committed to strengthen the legislation and the reporting requirements on businesses. These are set out in the response to recommendations 11 and 12. The Government supports the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, the voluntary international framework which set out steps to guide businesses to undertake human rights due diligence to identify, prevent, mitigate and account for impacts on human rights, including modern slavery and forced labour. Legislation exists to hold businesses to account on these issues. Quoted companies must cover material human rights issues as part of their annual corporate reporting, alongside the requirements for large businesses to publish modern slavery statements in accordance with the Modern Slavery Act 2015; and, in both contexts, businesses can report where they apply due diligence. The Government encourages companies to take a targeted approach to due diligence and to monitor their supply chains with rigour, so they can uncover and remedy any associations they may find with forced labour. Some businesses, particularly large multinationals, can have complex, multi-tiered global supply chains, which creates significant challenges in having visibility over working conditions across all their supply chains. Therefore, Government expects businesses to determine the most appropriate methods to assess and tackle modern slavery based on the nature of their operations and supply chains to ensure the greatest impact in protecting vulnerable workers. The Home Office’s statutory guidance to businesses on the transparency in supply chains provisions in the Modern Slavery Act suggests that their modern slavery statements should include the risk assessment and due diligence they undertook, and show their progress, year-on-year, by setting and reporting against clear targets.