Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what steps his Department takes to verify the anti-slavery declarations made by companies within the defence supply chain that have procurement contracts with his Department.

All defence contracts are subject to Government level guidance regarding the tackling of modern slavery in Government supply chains, the Ministry of Defence (MOD) has also created supplementary guidance to bolster our approach. Current policy sets the expectation that all MOD suppliers comply with the Modern Slavery Act 2015. To support the verification of this, the government wide Modern Slavery Assessment Tool (MSAT) is used by major suppliers to assess their risk exposure and identify areas of weakness for further action. The MOD has access to this tool and can view the results of this assessment once completed.