Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what estimate she has made of the number of organisations which have failed to publish a statement under section 54 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 within the timeframes set out in Government guidelines; and if she will make a statement.

The Government estimates that 9,000-11,000 businesses are required to publish statements. We do not have a definitive list of those businesses or a specific estimate of non-compliance. There are two independent websites which collate published statements at https://tiscreport.org and www.modernslaveryregistry.org

The Government is taking action to improve compliance. We recently wrote to over 10,000 businesses that may be required to publish statements reminding them of their obligations and pointing them towards relevant guidance. We have also strengthened the wording in our guidance to set out our expectations for these statements more clearly.

In October the Government also launched a new ‘Business Against Slavery Forum’. This aims to establish a new partnership between Government and business to accelerate progress in tackling modern slavery. It will focus on sharing best practice and building new initiatives to tackle modern slavery, including improving business engagement with the Modern Slavery Act 2015.