Business: Human Rights

(asked on 26th November 2014) - View Source

Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what steps he plans to take to review the Government's Business and Human Rights Action Plan.


Answered by
David Lidington Portrait
David Lidington
This question was answered on 3rd December 2014
We are committed to reviewing our Action Plan in 2015. We will use a cross-Government approach, as we did when developing the National Action Plan, to reflect the fact that business and human rights runs across a broad range of Government activities and responsibilities. A cross-Government Steering Group, led by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) and the department for Business Innovation and Skills, and including around 10 other government departments, oversees delivery of the Action Plan. A detailed implementation plan sets out the action needed to deliver against each of the Action Plan commitments, and the departments responsible for taking this forward. This provides a mechanism for ensuring that all Whitehall departments understand their roles in delivering the Action Plan, and for monitoring progress and holding departments to account. We are committed to reporting on progress in the FCO’s Annual Human Rights and Democracy Report. We are working with business and civil society to ensure that the Action Plan delivers real impacts and contributes to preventing human rights abuses by companies wherever they operate, or providing remedy when they occur. We will continue to consult and collaborate with key stakeholders in monitoring delivery of this plan and helping to refresh and update it in future.
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