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Slavery

Answer

No civil injunctions have been sought or issued against businesses for non-compliance with section 54 of Modern Slavery Act 2015.

The Act requires businesses to report annually on steps taken to prevent modern slavery in their operations and supply chains. To comply with the requirement, statements must be:

• Published annually via a prominent link on the organisation's homepage;
• Approved by the Board of Directors or equivalent;
• Signed by a Director or equivalent.

To assess levels of compliance with the legal requirements, the Home Office contracted the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre (BHRRC) to undertake an audit on the Home Office’s behalf. The audit findings on levels of compliance were published on 17 September 2020 in the Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner’s annual report (available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/independent-anti-slavery-commissioners-annual-report-2019-to-2020).

The Government has committed to strengthen section 54 of the Modern Slavery Act. As set out in the Government response to the transparency in supply chains consultation, published on 22 September 2020, these changes include introducing mandatory reporting topics; a single reporting deadline; and a central Government-run modern slavery statement registry to enable Government and others to monitor compliance.

In addition, to enforce compliance with the Act, the Foreign Secretary announced in January 2021 that financial penalties will be introduced for organisations who fail to meet their statutory obligations to publish annual modern slavery statements. These measures require primary legislation and will be introduced when parliamentary time allows.

The Government modern slavery statement registry launched in March 2021. Since establishment, over 7,000 statements have been submitted covering over 23,350 organisations. The modern slavery statement registry has radically enhanced transparency by bringing together modern slavery statements on a single platform, empowering investors, consumers and civil society to scrutinise the action organisations are taking to prevent modern slavery in supply chains. We maintain that this collective approach to encourage ever greater transparency is the right one.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

133960

Session

2021-22

Grouped for answer

Yes

Subjects

Business Fines Injunctions Slavery Supply chains

Legislation

Modern Slavery Act 2015

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

View this Written question on www.parliament.uk