Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment her Department has made of whether Xinjiang cotton made in forced labour camps by Uighur detainees is a product of modern slavery.

The Government has serious concerns about the human rights situation in Xinjiang, with credible reports of forced labour. It has always been the case that, where we have concerns, we raise them, as we did on this issue on 6 October in a joint statement signed by 39 countries at the UN Third Committee. We urge all UK businesses to conduct appropriate due diligence to ensure their supply chains are free of forced labour.

The Modern Slavery Act 2015 made the UK the first country to require businesses to report how they tackle modern slavery in their operations and supply chains. Section 54 of the Act was designed to empower consumers, investors, civil society and others to scrutinise the action that businesses are taking to identify and address modern slavery in their operations and supply chains.

On 22 September, the Government published our response to the Transparency in Supply Chains consultation, and committed to taking forward an ambitious package of changes to strengthen the Act’s transparency legislation, including:

• Mandating the specific reporting topics statements must cover;
• Requiring organisations to publish their statement on the new Government digital reporting service;
• Setting a single reporting deadline on which all modern slavery statements must be published;
• Extending the reporting requirement to public bodies with a budget of £36 million or more;

Taking enforcement options forward in line with the ongoing development of the Single Enforcement Body for Employment rights.