Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office, what steps he has taken to ensure the Government does not procure (a) cotton from Xinjiang and (b) other unethically sourced products.

The UK has taken a leading international role in holding China to account for its entirely unacceptable human rights violations and in Xinjiang in particular, including in respect of credible evidence of forced labour. The UK led the first international joint statements on this issue at the UN Human Rights Council in June.

The Government is committed to working to improve action to tackle modern slavery in supply chains, and has published commercial policy and guidance which advocates a systematic approach to identifying and tackling modern slavery and labour abuses in government supply chains, focussing on areas of the highest risk. We are keeping this matter under close review.