Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the report Car Wash Code of Practice Project Report: Home Office Modern Slavery Prevention Fund, published by Nottingham Trent University and submitted to the Home Office in October 2022.

The Home Office funded the evaluation report conducted by the Responsible Car Wash Scheme and Nottingham Trent University, as part of its grant funding under the Modern Slavery Prevention Fund, a one-off pot of funding to build the evidence base on what interventions work to prevent modern slavery.

The Home Office has shared the evaluation of this project with the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority so the lessons from this project can be incorporated into operational activity to improve standards within the hand car wash sector. The Government has no plans to respond directly to the report.

In addition, the Director of Labour Market Enforcement (DLME) sets out the scale and nature of labour exploitation in their annual strategy to ensure the three labour market enforcement bodies are targeting the highest-risk industries. The most recent 23-24 DLME strategy highlights hand car washes as a sector at risk of labour exploitation.