Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, whether he has made an assessment of (a) the prevalence of unfair trading practices in the UK clothing supply chain and (b) the potential merits of establishing a Garment Trading Adjudicator to provide redress for affected suppliers.

The government expects all UK businesses to respect human rights and the environment throughout their supply chains in line with the OECD Guidelines and UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. Section 54 of the UK’s Modern Slavery Act 2015 requires businesses with a turnover of £36m or more to publish modern slavery statements.

The Office for Responsible Business Conduct promotes the OECD Guidelines and provides a non-judicial grievance mechanism for complaints of non-observance by UK businesses. The government also launched a review, through the Trade Strategy, into the UK’s approach to responsible business conduct (RBC), focused on tackling human rights and labour abuses and environmental harms in global supply chains. While concerns have been raised about unfair practices, there are currently no plans to introduce a Garment Trading Adjudicator, however other measures are under consideration as part of the RBC review. We shall update the House when the review is complete.