Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what checks they undertake into the potential incidence of modern slavery in the supply chains of each recipient of Official Development Assistance.

The UK Government is committed to tackling all forms of modern slavery and achieving Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 8.7. We are taking active steps to identify and prevent modern slavery in government and partners' supply chains. In March 2020, we published the world's first Government Modern Slavery Statement, setting out steps taken to eradicate modern slavery from our supply chains.

The FCDO's Supply Partner Code of Conduct requires ODA-funded commercially contracted supply partners to go through a comprehensive code compliance process. This process considers supply chain risk and requires compliance with the Modern Slavery Act 2015. The FCDO is exploring applying the Code more broadly to other funded partners, such as accountable grants and Memorandum of Understandings. The FCDO encourages supply partners to use the Her Majesty's Government Modern Slavery Assessment Tool, which provides tailored recommendations to improve anti-slavery management and due diligence activity in their supply chains, including conducting risk assessments to reduce the risk of exploitation. From 2021, all Ministerial government departments, including the FCDO, will publish annual modern slavery statements, reporting on specific steps taken to tackle modern slavery in commercial supply chains.