Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what her planned timetable is for bringing forward legislative proposals to reduce the prevalence of modern slavery in supply chains.

The Government is committed to strengthening our approach to modern slavery and building on the world-leading legislation on modern slavery in supply chains introduced in the Modern Slavery Act 2015.

As part of its response to the 2018 Independent Review of the Modern slavery Act, the Home Office conducted a public consultation on potential changes to the Modern Slavery Act’s transparency legislation. Following the consultation, the government committed to taking forwards an ambitious package of measures to strengthen the Act’s transparency legislation, including:

• Extending the reporting requirement to public bodies with a budget of £36 million or more;
• Mandating the specific reporting topics statements must cover;
• Requiring organisations to publish their statement on the Government modern slavery statement registry.

In January 2021 the Government further committed to introduce financial penalties for organisations who fail to meet their statutory obligations to publish annual modern slavery statements.

These measures require primary legislation and as announced in the Queen’s Speech, a Modern Slavery Bill will be brought forward when parliamentary time allows.