Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Merron on 21 October (HL1588), whether the public consultation on modern slavery in the NHS supply chain will include alternatives to the Modern Slavery Assessment tool, such as element-analysis processes.

The consultation will comprise of draft regulations which set out what public bodies will need to do to assess and mitigate the risk of modern slavery and human trafficking in all procurement for goods and services for the purposes of health care in the National Health Service. This will be accompanied by guidance on how to best comply with the regulations, including how to assess risk.

The guidance will refer to a risk assessment tool NHS England is currently developing based on the six characteristics to help assess modern slavery risks, as set out in the Public Procurement Policy Note 02/23 on identifying and managing modern slavery risks. These are:

• the industry type;
• the nature of the workforce;
• the supplier location;
• the context in which the supplier operates;
• the commodity type; and
• the business or supply chain model.

The Department would of course welcome ideas and suggestions on risk assessment tools and methodologies in responses to the consultation.