Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of bringing forward legislative proposals to require companies to conduct (a) human rights and (b) environmental due diligence assessments across their (i) operations, (ii) subsidiaries and (iii) value chains.

The Government supports and encourages the current voluntary approach to due diligence by UK businesses as set out in international frameworks such as the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and the OECD Guidelines on Multinational Enterprises.

Whilst the Government keeps this approach under review, we currently have no plans to require companies to conduct due diligence assessments for human rights and environmental protection on top of their existing corporate annual reporting on these issues.