Companies: Human Rights

(asked on 19th March 2021) - View Source

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 creating a whitelist and blacklist of companies that do and do not meet their obligations to uphold human rights throughout their supply chains.


Answered by
Paul Scully Portrait
Paul Scully
This question was answered on 29th March 2021

BEIS thanks the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Select Committee for its report on ‘Uyghur forced labour in Xinjiang and UK value chains’, published on 17 March 2021. The Government takes very seriously the concerns that the report highlights. On Tuesday 22 March, the UK Government, alongside the EU, US and Canada, placed sanctions on four Chinese officials and one public entity that are responsible for the egregious human rights violations taking place in Xinjiang. We have backed up our international action by robust domestic measures that help ensure that British businesses are not complicit in human rights violations in Xinjiang. The Government will formally respond to the report and its recommendations by 17 May 2021.

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