Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government whether they have consulted voluntary sector organisations working with victims of modern slavery on the text of the draft guidance for Modern Slavery Reasonable Grounds decision making referred to by the Minister for Immigration in his Written Ministerial Statement of 13 December 2022; and when this revised guidance will come into effect.

The Modern Slavery Unit has consulted with key stakeholders and modern slavery first responders throughout the development process for the updated Reasonable Grounds Statutory Guidance update.

The updated Reasonable Grounds Guidance was published on 30 January 2023 as part of the Modern Slavery: Statutory Guidance for England and Wales (under s49 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015) and Non-Statutory Guidance for Scotland and Northern Ireland.

This change in guidance builds on and simplifies much of the current guidance to ensure decision making at the Reasonable Grounds stage is robust and consistent while still providing scope to consider instances where a referral may be received with very little additional information.