Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of introducing a statutory mandatory human rights and due diligence responsibility for the textile and clothing industry.

The Modern Slavery Act specifically requires UK large businesses to publish transparency in supply chains statements in a prominent place on their website.

The Government expects all companies operating within the UK to put measures in place to protect their supply chains from labour exploitation. Following changes to the Modern Slavery Act – where timelines are to be confirmed - organisations will be required to include information about their organisation’s structure and supply chains in their modern slavery statement or to explicitly state that their statement omits this information.

The Home Office announced a series of measures to strengthen the Modern Slavery Act, including introducing fines for businesses that do not comply with their transparency obligations. We will introduce the necessary legislation, setting out the level of those fines, as soon as parliamentary time allows.

The Government provides advice to businesses on human rights issues across their supply chains, including pressing them to undertake appropriate due diligence to satisfy themselves that their activities do not support, or risk being seen to support, any human rights violations or abuses. BEIS has reinforced this message through engagement with businesses, industry groups and other stakeholders.

UK listed companies are required to report on social and environmental impacts material to their business, including information about supply chains, where this is necessary for an understanding of the business as part of annual reports.