Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to eradicate modern slavery from centrally held procurement supply chains.

Modern slavery has no place in public supply chains.

We have taken action in the Procurement Act to strengthen the rules around excluding suppliers linked to modern slavery. The current rules require the supplier to have been convicted or there to have been a breach of international treaties banning forced labour, or evidence of grave professional misconduct.

We recognise that modern slavery often occurs in countries which are not party to international treaties on forced labour and which are unlikely to prosecute the perpetrators. Our changes will allow authorities to exclude suppliers and disregard their bids where there is sufficient evidence of modern slavery. This will apply whether or not there has been a conviction or a breach of an international treaty.

The Cabinet Office has also published a Procurement Policy Notice which sets out how UK Government departments must take action to ensure modern slavery risks are identified and managed in government supply chains.

Individual procurements and their contract management of course remain the responsibility of government departments.