Human Rights: Supply Chains

Debate between Iain Duncan Smith and Kate Dearden

Thursday 18th June 2026 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Kate Dearden)]

It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. I join hon. Members in thanking you for chairing today’s debate at short notice.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Southgate and Wood Green (Bambos Charalambous) for securing a debate on this deeply important subject. He made some excellent points, particularly about how fundamental supply chain resilience is to our economic security, and the importance of the public sector procurement regime to ensuring that public bodies do not inadvertently support international labour and humanitarian abuses. He and the other Members here today continue to be excellent and thoughtful advocates on these matters, and I thank all colleagues for their important contributions.

Human rights are just that: they are fundamental, and they exist to protect us all. Infractions cannot be ignored or dismissed simply because they occurred far enough back in a supply chain for us to feel insulated and not responsible for supporting exploitative practices. Never has this issue been more important now that more than 70% of global trade runs through complex global supply chains. Although globalisation has driven productivity, innovation and technological advances that have lifted billions out of poverty and created the life that we depend on, it has also made supply chains more complex and opaque and has reduced the transparency and accountability that consumers, retailers and the Government need to protect workers and the natural world from exploitation.

Members have rightly drawn attention to the egregious human rights abuses that come with forced labour. In 2026, more than 27 million people remain in the shackles of modern slavery across all six inhabited continents, often enduring imprisonment, abuse and coercion, and being exploited for profit. As we approach the 200th anniversary of the Slavery Abolition Act 1833, which abolished slavery in much of the British empire, it is right that I reaffirm this Government’s commitment to tackling this vile practice, which continues to generate nearly £176 billion in illegal profits each year, in all its forms, including non-payment or underpayment of wages, excessive working hours and unsafe working conditions. There is also clear evidence of severe environmental harm in our global supply chains, as we lose the equivalent of 11 football pitches of tropical rainforest every minute, and threaten nearly 1 million animal and plant species with extinction.

As we have heard, the UK has a proud record of pioneering global advances to support human and workers’ rights. We put this issue on the international stage with the Modern Slavery Act 2015, which the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Alison Griffiths) spoke about. That legislation was world leading and crucial in solidifying our place as a global leader on this issue. For the first time, businesses were made to report how they tackled the modern slavery that might be present in their supply chains. However, as Members have rightly said, although the Modern Slavery Act was world leading at the time, it is now more than a decade old and in need of review if we are to tackle the many violations that still occur globally.

Although many UK businesses respect human rights and the environment throughout their supply chains, unethical international violations undercut the vast majority of UK businesses that support fair international supply chains. That will only increase as geopolitical, industrial and technological shocks continue to transform how and where goods are produced and extracted. That is why we must take a more strategic approach by working with our global allies and trading partners to secure forced labour provisions in our free trade agreements, and by using the developing countries trading scheme to suspend preferential trading arrangements on the ground of serious violation of labour rights.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Southgate and Wood Green noted, I travelled last week to the 114th International Labour Conference in Geneva, where I met trade union delegations and labour and employment Ministers from across the world, alongside some of the most significant manufacturers, extractors and business hubs. This issue is close to my heart, and I worked closely on it before I was elected to this place. Last week, we talked a lot about the work we are proudly doing in Government on the Employment Rights Act and the domestic agenda, and I thank Members for raising that today. We are clear that a collaborative, holistic and cross-border approach is the only way to drive the change that exploited workers and environments need, alongside our recognition of other international transitions from voluntary to mandatory measures, such as human rights and environmental due diligence laws.

In the trade strategy, the Government underlined how responsible business conduct is a positive part of our mission to grow the economy, and we launched a review of our approach to responsible business, focusing on the global supply chains of businesses operating in the UK. It is an evidence-based review of our policy framework and alternative measures to enhance it, including mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence measures and forced labour bans. It naturally also considers the approaches of our international trading partners and the best way to promote a co-ordinated approach that minimises costs, consistent with the Government’s commitment to reduce the administrative costs of complying with regulation by 25% over the course of this Parliament.

So far, we have engaged with more than 200 organisations through the review, including businesses, investors, civil society, trade unions and academic institutions. We have learnt from international partners and met communities affected by supply chain harms. I heard many hon. Members stress the need for urgency today, and I reassure them that we will update Parliament on the review in due course. I thank Members for raising that pressing issue, and we will of course work closely with all those at the debate today.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

Could we get a commitment today that the Government will look carefully at what countries that are well in advance of us, such as the United States and some European countries, are doing, to make sure that we urgently get on to resolving this issue, rather than delaying with another review and more debates? We know what needs to be done, and surely we can get on with it pretty quickly.

[Kate Dearden]

I thank the right hon. Member for that and his contributions today. I reassure him that we are working closely with the US on the review, updating the Americans on all the work we are doing and understanding their practices too. I will turn soon to the other important points he raised throughout the debate.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) highlighted our work with the Treasury as part of this review, and I thank him for that. We are doing the review economy-wide, and as well as working with the Treasury, we have engaged with investors. We will of course keep him updated, as I know he is interested in—indeed, passionate about—this subject.

We took another key step in the trade strategy by launching the Office for Responsible Business Conduct to provide UK businesses, trade unions and charities with a simpler route to compliance, supporting the integration of responsible business practices and helping victims of corporate malpractice by providing a non-judicial grievance mechanism. Alongside the broader RBC review, we are considering how to strengthen the section 54 transparency regime, which lots of Members mentioned today—I thank them for it—including mandatory reporting requirements that extend to the public sector and penalties for non-compliance. We published updated statutory guidance on transparency in supply chains in March 2025, calling on businesses to go further and faster.

I thank the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Tom Gordon), for his contribution today, his work in the Joint Committee on Human Rights and his engagement in and focus on this vital issue. I mentioned our work and relationship with the US. I hope that he is reassured by those comments and by our continued and regular engagement with the US Administration as part of our negotiations.

As a proudly internationalist and pro-worker Government, we have a responsibility to remain a world leader in tackling modern slavery, clearances and human rights abuses wherever they rear their ugly head. The Government stand firm on human rights, including in Xinjiang, where China continues to persecute and arbitrarily detain Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim minorities. Lots of Members raised that, and I thank them for it. I hope they know that we raise these concerns with China at the highest levels. That was done recently by the Prime Minister himself and the former Foreign Secretary. We continue to co-ordinate efforts with our international partners to hold China to account—for example, by joining a UN statement in October 2024 and co-signing a joint statement with the US and others in November 2025.

I respect the work done by the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) and thank him for his consistency in raising this issue today and outside the House. He also spoke about GB Energy, as did the shadow Minister. As a publicly owned energy company, GB Energy is of course expected to demonstrate leading practice in complying with the UK modern slavery legislation and aligning with the UN guiding principles on business and human rights. We have established an ethical supply chain advisory group to review and inform GBE’s approach to ethical supply chains in its investments and operations; its chair is Baroness O’Grady. Representatives of my Department will serve on that group, and it meets for the first time next week, which I am sure the right hon. Member will welcome.

We must continue working with our international counterparts, and key stakeholders across the international trade union movement and business community to take action against those who illegally destroy families, communities and our natural world for profit. As Members have outlined, this action cannot be singular or a patchwork of separate policy decisions. Only co-ordinated, root-and-branch decisions will enable our constituents to know that they can trust that the T-shirt they are wearing, the bag they are carrying and the food they are eating did not arrive in our country at the expense of exploited people and areas thousands of miles away. Delivering that confidence for British people is good for business and good for growth, and re-cements our position as a world leader on these matters.

I again thank all right hon. and hon. Members for their contributions. We look forward to working closely with them on the review and more widely to ensure that we continue to focus on this issue, which is a priority for our Government. I will end, Mr Dowd, by wishing you a very happy birthday for Saturday and thanking you again for chairing the debate.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Iain Duncan Smith and Kate Dearden

Thursday 12th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Kate Dearden]

My hon. Friend is a real champion for her local breweries, especially Moot Brew in Halling, which produces excellent beer—I know she visits regularly. We recognise the importance of independent breweries and pubs, and we are of course committed to ensuring that the sector remains diverse, competitive and rooted in local communities. We have reviewed the beer market to assess any barriers, and I will keep my hon. Friend updated.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

Small-volume business manufacturers in the automotive sector are having a terrible time at the moment. They rely on exports, and exports to the US are critical. Although I welcome the agreement the Government struck, costs are still four times what they were before President Trump introduced his tariffs, and those businesses are also being squeezed by business rates and national insurance at home. Will the Secretary of State make urgent representations to the Chancellor? The market is very delicate, and something must be done to reduce costs.