Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, whether his Department is taking steps to audit overseas factories that import into the UK for the same (a) social and (b) ethical compliance standards applied to domestic manufacturers.

The UK supports voluntary due diligence approaches taken by UK businesses to identify and prevent exploitation of workers and prevent environmental harms across their operations and supply chains, in line with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) and the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises.

To promote the OECD Guidelines, the UK also operates an independent UK National Contact Point (NCP). The UK NCP engages bilaterally and multilaterally with the 51 other NCPs around the world, to ensure a consistent application, awareness and understanding of the OECD Guidelines.