Oral Answers to Questions

Michael Connarty Excerpts

Thursday 21st March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Michael Fallon]

It certainly is. The purpose of the regional growth fund is to help better balance our economy by encouraging manufacturing, especially in those regions that have been over-dependent either on public sector employment or single types of employment.

[Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)]

4. If he will bring forward proposals to require companies to include supply chain issues in their annual narrative reporting.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Jo Swinson)]

The Department has no plans to require companies to report specifically on supply chains. However, responsible supply chain management is an important issue, which good businesses should understand and take seriously. From October, listed companies will be required to report on community, employee and human rights issues. Later this year, we will publish a framework for action on corporate responsibility, which will consider supply chain management.

[Michael Connarty]

I thank the Minister for that reply. We found out yesterday in a press release that businesses are being urged to sign a human trafficking charter. That came not from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills but from the Home Office. It appears that the Minister for Immigration is taking over the responsibilities of Business, Innovation and Skills Ministers. He is proposing that businesses should sign up to a charter that seems very similar to the contents of my private Member’s Bill, the Transparency in UK Company Supply Chains (Eradication of Slavery) Bill. Surely it is up to BIS to include human trafficking in the narrative reporting of companies in its proposed statutory instrument. If the Minister for Immigration wants that requirement on human trafficking, surely BIS Ministers do too.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. We are grateful. We have got the point.