Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what plans she has to amend the Modern Slavery Act 2015 to prevent UK companies from using forced Uyghur labour in their supply chains.

The Government has serious concerns about the gross human rights violations being perpetrated against Uyghurs and other minorities in Xinjiang.

In January 2021, the Foreign Secretary announced a package of cross-Government policy measures seeking to ensure that UK private and public bodies are not complicit in, nor profiting from, the human rights violations in Xinjiang.

These measures included strengthening the Overseas Business Risk guidance; a review of export controls; increasing support for UK government bodies to exclude suppliers complicit in violations or abuses; and a commitment to introduce financial penalties under the Modern Slavery Act.

The commitment to introduce financial penalties for organisations which fail to meet their statutory obligations under the Modern Slavery Act builds on a wider package of measures to strengthen section 54 of the Act, including plans to extend transparency to large public bodies, mandate the specific reporting topics statements must cover, such as due diligence, and require organisations to submit their statements to a new centralised Government registry. These measures require legislative change and will be introduced when parliamentary time allows.

The Government continues to encourage businesses to monitor their supply chains, including any links to Xinjiang, with rigour and conduct appropriate due diligence to uncover and remedy any associations they find with modern slavery, including forced labour.