Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what discussions she has had with (a) Ministerial colleagues in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and (b) industry representatives on ensuring that supply chains are not reliant on forced labour overseas.

The Government is committed to eradicating the use of all forms of forced labour from global supply chains. This was recently reaffirmed in the G7 Trade Ministers' statement on forced labour. The UK was the first country to require businesses to report on steps taken to tackle modern slavery and we have committed to strengthening our Modern Slavery Act. There are regular discussions with all relevant Government departments to inform this. To create parity between the public and private sector, the 2020 HMG Modern Slavery Statement committed all Government departments to publish such statements. The FCDO's first modern slavery statement was published on 25 November 2021.

The Government works closely with industry to encourage best practice, understand the challenges businesses face and learn from their experience. In June 2021, the Home Secretary and the Minister for Safeguarding met with the Business Against Slavery (BAS) Forum, a partnership between Government and multinational businesses. They discussed opportunities for working together to accelerate progress in the fight against modern slavery. Government continues to engage with the Forum and the wider business community, as part of the ongoing review of the government's modern slavery strategy due to be published in Spring 2022.