Human Rights: Supply Chains

[Relevant documents: Sixth Report of the Joint Committee on Human Rights of Session 2024-25, Forced Labour in UK Supply Chains, HC 633, and the Government response, HC 1404.]

I beg to move, That this House has considered the matter of safeguarding human rights in supply chains.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Dowd, particularly as you had such short notice. Globalisation and technological advances over the last few years have given us the ability to better connect across the world and improved our ability to trade globally. With increased connectivity comes increased awareness of issues and events around the world, and one issue that that increased awareness has brought into sharp focus is human rights in our country’s supply chains. From the Boohoo scandal, involving the exploitation of workers paid £3.50 an hour in a factory in Leicester, to the Bangladesh sweatshops making our clothes, to state imposed forced labour for the Uyghur community in China, we have never been more aware of the need to ensure that our supply chains do not involve human rights violations and the exploitation of workers at home and abroad.

Supply chains run our daily lives, but the uncertainty over where many of our daily products originate and whether they have been produced through forced labour and in inhumane conditions has wide ranging ethical and national security implications. Here is an example to illustrate the point. This morning, a nurse in the UK woke up to prepare for her NHS shift. She wears a cotton uniform, the fibres of which were produced with Uyghur forced labour. For breakfast, she eats a banana grown by workers facing union busting in Costa Rica. She checks her smartphone, built with cobalt mined by children in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. She makes her journey to work in a car fuelled by petrol from companies linked to threats against environmental defenders and indigenous communities in Nigeria. At hospital, she puts on gloves made in a union busting factory in Sri Lanka, under lights powered by solar panels made with Uyghur forced labour in China, and uses surgical tools linked to child labour in Pakistan. On her break, she gets a cup of tea with a biscuit containing palm oil from Indonesia, where communities and forests have been swept away to be replaced with palm oil plantations.

First, Mr Dowd, I commend you for taking the Chair and saving the debate. It is said that you never go home, so perhaps that is why you were able to get here.

I thank the hon. Member for Southgate and Wood Green (Bambos Charalambous) for securing this incredibly important debate. He has outlined a number of countries where the problems are acute, but does he agree that China is the worst of all? Its abuses—of human rights in particular—are on an industrial scale. Some 70 million Christians are abused in terms of their human rights, including their right to believe, as are millions of Uyghur Muslims and between 7 million and 20 million Falun Gong. China must be taken to task. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, in summing up the debate, the Minister needs to outline a number of methods to take China on? It has done some 13.75 million forced labour transactions, and it is time for those to stop.

The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point. I am sure many colleagues in the Chamber will focus on the Uyghurs in their contributions, but he is right to highlight the abuse in China and the need to address it.

That is the reality in UK supply chains: these products, which we use every day, are integrated into our lives. We need legislation to fix that, to prevent the abuse of human rights and the degradation of the environment.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for securing the debate. As a long time trade unionist, I am proud of the work this Government have done to secure employment rights in our country, but last year the International Trade Union Confederation global rights index found that more than 80% of countries restricted the right to collective bargaining, and 75% denied the right to establish or join a trade union. Does my hon. Friend agree that our duty is to promote human and labour rights wherever we can and to regulate our global supply chains so that workers across the world can enjoy the protections we have?

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. The lack of trade union rights globally is seriously worrying. I am a proud trade unionist, and we need to ensure that trade union rights are respected in our UK supply chains. I will come on to that shortly in my speech.

Our country is the birthplace of the trade union movement. We pride ourselves on championing workers’ rights, human rights and our democratic values. Our Labour Government recently passed the Employment Rights Act 2025, the biggest reform of workers’ rights in a generation, bringing more security to millions of workers and making work pay. Our freedoms of association and collective bargaining—some of the most important rights we have—allow workers to have representation in the face of unfair treatment and to advocate for fair pay and protections against dismissal, discrimination and other unfair and inhumane conditions.

The same cannot be said for workers around the world. Workers in 75% of countries are denied the right to freedom of association. In many countries, it is illegal to be a trade unionist. Coupled with attacks on freedom of speech, we have countless reports of human rights activists and environmental defenders being threatened, or even killed, when challenging or opposing abuses by large corporations. With 50 million people trapped in modern slavery globally—a number that is growing every year—and labour rights under threat almost everywhere, it has never been more critical to tackle this issue head on.

Without those freedoms, workers have no power to challenge inhumane conditions that exacerbate inequality and poverty, particularly for women and children. The UK was once a leader on safeguarding human rights and supply chains, but we are now falling behind. Currently, we have a patchwork of narrow legislation and guidelines on businesses and human rights that are not enforcing our moral duty to ensure that our supply chains are free from human rights abuses.

My hon. Friend will know that I am a member of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, which recently published a report called “Forced Labour in the UK’s Supply Chains”. One of our recommendations was that the Government need to strengthen section 54 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015, and specifically the reporting duty, in a way that reflects the size and capacity of the business in question. Does my hon. Friend agree with that recommendation? Would he like to see more done to strengthen the Modern Slavery Act?

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point, which I will come to in just a moment. I strongly support the strengthening of section 54 and its application.

With the UK importing £20 billion worth of high risk goods every year, our current framework is not effective enough in preventing goods made with forced labour from entering the UK market, despite the Government’s stated position that no company operating in the UK should have forced labour in its supply chains. The Modern Slavery Act was considered world leading legislation, as the UK was the first country in the world to introduce such legislation. However, the current transparency and supply chain reporting, as set out in section 54 of the Act, is wholly inadequate, applying only to organisations with a turnover of more than £36 million, and excluding public bodies, meaning many businesses and organisations fall through the cracks.

The exclusion of public bodies from the duty to report on transparency in their supply chains can leave our country’s most important agencies vulnerable to being complicit in horrific human rights abuses, which affect not only the welfare of workers globally, but the stability and growth of our economy. In addition, the transparency reporting duty can be met by an organisation simply declaring that it has taken no steps to address forced labour in its supply chains; that is simply not good enough. Corporate giants with big money are given a free pass to escape their moral responsibilities by not even looking for any abuses present in their supply chains.

At present, businesses are able to voluntarily identify, mitigate or prevent any forced labour risks found in their supply chains. Many responsible businesses in the UK want to do the right thing, but are being undercut by corporate giants and less responsible companies. Clear and enforceable rules are needed in order to provide the right guidance for businesses and level the playing field for all. We can address that by introducing mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence legislation to hold all businesses, across all sectors, including financial institutions and the public sector, legally accountable for preventing human rights abuses and environmental harm in their supply chains. Mandatory due diligence would compel corporations to undertake proactive processes to minimise and manage the risk of violations within their operations by, for example, conducting risk assessments, requiring their suppliers to fulfil certain conditions or carrying out unannounced audits.

Internationally, we are far behind our allies and partners. All other G7 nations have introduced or plan to introduce mandatory due diligence laws or import bans on goods made by forced labour. The EU is doing both. With the UK seeking a closer relationship and alignment with the EU, we must catch up.

Businesses themselves have also spoken up. In the last few years, more than 150 businesses and investors, representing more than £4.5 trillion in UK assets, have publicly demanded mandatory standards. The Trades Union Congress, the Ethical Trading Initiative, the British Retail Consortium and the Corporate Justice Coalition, which collectively represent more than 350 high street brands with £800 billion in turnover, have called on the Government to introduce mandatory due diligence laws.

Public support shows that people value companies that responsibly source and produce products we use every day, with four in five adults supporting new laws. By failing to update the current patchwork of legislation and guidelines, and delaying the introduction of human rights and environmental due diligence laws, we are failing workers, communities and environments integrated into our supply chains, failing UK businesses that want to do the right thing and ultimately risking the complicity of the UK economy, as well as our national security.

The Government have already made it clear that supply chain resilience is critical to the UK’s economic security. In June last year, the trade strategy committed to a new supply chain centre within the Department for Business and Trade, which will play a role in supporting businesses to address the risks of forced labour in supply chains. The strategy also launched the responsible business conduct review—the UK’s implementation of the UN guiding principles on business and human rights. A year later, Parliament is still waiting for the review to be published and scrutinised, although I very much welcome yesterday’s publication of the action plan for the supply chain centre.

The trade strategy rightly recognised that strengthening responsible business conduct “is not only a moral imperative”, but “a positive part of the Government’s mission to grow the economy.”

Supply chains and the need to ensure that they are free of abuses and harm are embedded in our growth mission. With modern slavery costing the UK economy £60 billion every year, we urgently need to ensure that we do not lose out on more growth, and we can do that by simply introducing new legislation.

The resilience of our economy goes hand in hand with our energy security. The conflict in the middle east and the ongoing Ukraine Russia war, which have significantly contributed to the cost of living crisis for our constituents, have shown more clearly than ever that the UK must become energy independent and continue focusing on renewable sources of energy.

However, the security of home grown energy is exposed when we look further into its supply chain. An estimated 98% of solar panels in the UK are produced in China, predominantly in the Xinjiang region, with forced labour from the Uyghur community. Therefore, the UK is at risk of being a dumping ground for slave labour produced solar panels. We must ensure that, with new legislation on Great British Energy, home grown energy is produced through ethical means, so that in producing energy to heat our homes, we do not contribute to the inhumane treatment of workers and communities around the world.

In addressing those challenges, we cannot overlook the unbreakable link between safeguarding human rights and protecting the environment in supply chains; when there is a failure to protect one, the other suffers. UK imports of beef, soya, cocoa, rubber and palm oil—also known as forest risk commodities—have wiped out forests the size of our major cities. The UK’s deforestation footprint linked to those imports has increased to 39,000 hectares in the last few years and is likely to be higher. The biggest culprit is corned beef from Brazilian companies such as JBS, which have been linked to the destruction of the Amazon rainforest, the lungs of the earth. When communities lose vital access to clean water because of corporate contamination, when indigenous communities lose access to ancestral lands or when environmental defenders are threatened or killed for speaking out against mega projects that destroy our environment, it becomes a human rights issue.

New legislation must address all human rights and environmental harms in a way that provides clarity to businesses in ensuring that they are conducting themselves responsibly. The legislation needed to address those issues would protect the workers, communities and vital environments involved in producing our everyday goods. Consumers in the UK could be sure that they were shopping responsibly and not contributing to abuses around the world, and businesses could have the clarity they need in order to do the right thing.

I have a few asks of the Government. Parliament continues to await the publication of two reviews set out in the trade strategy last year. Can the Minister confirm when the responsible business conduct review and the national baseline assessment will be published, the key outcomes that should be expected from those reviews, and a timeline for moving from review to action on the recommendations of each report? Given the interconnectedness of human rights, labour rights and environmental harm, can she confirm that the Government will engage in meaningful action to address this issue by adopting a thorough and holistic, rather than narrow, approach to responsible business conduct?

Do the Government agree that we need cross cutting and holistic legislation to provide clarity and certainty to UK businesses, rather than a patchwork approach that burdens businesses that act responsibly while enabling irresponsible businesses to undercut them? Failure to act on human rights abuses and environmental harm will damage the resilience of our supply chains and our economy. Introducing the human rights and environmental safeguards to UK supply chains set out in my speech is not just the right thing to do economically; it is our ethical and moral duty to ensure that the protections that we enjoy in the UK are shared across the world.

I remind Members that we have about five or six minutes, give or take, per person. Just bear that in mind. I also remind Members that they should bob if they wish to be called.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Dowd. I am sure I speak for us all in extending warm thanks to you for stepping into the breach at the last minute to enable us to have this timely and important debate, and I thank the hon. Member for Southgate and Wood Green (Bambos Charalambous) for securing it.

It is clear that UK business has global environmental and human rights impacts. UK business has impacts on climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution, waste management, deforestation, and of course on human rights and labour rights, as we have already discussed. The Government have acknowledged those concerns.

This debate comes at a particularly timely moment because, as the hon. Member for Southgate and Wood Green pointed out, we await with bated breath the Government release of announcements. I note that the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Martin Rhodes) tabled a question to the Secretary of State in January asking when the responsible business conduct review would be published. The Minister for Trade responded with one word: “Soon.” It is now five months later, so perhaps today’s Minister could assure us in her wind up that soon really will mean soon. We would very much appreciate seeing that review.

Although we have some parts of an existing legal framework—for example, the Modern Slavery Act and the Environment Act 2021—they are too narrow to meet internationally accepted standards. Single issue measures such as robust legislation to prevent and address modern slavery, including through import and export restrictions of goods and services that involve forced labour, are useful but not in themselves sufficient to address the full range of human rights and environmental risks and harms. In particular, if they require companies only to report, rather than to take action, they do not have the force that we need.

The UK risks falling behind its international partners. The UK was once a frontrunner on environmental and human rights legislation, but progress has stalled. The EU’s corporate sustainability due diligence directive will apply, of course, to UK companies that generate significant turnover in EU markets, meaning that UK businesses will face mandatory due diligence obligations abroad without equivalent domestic standards at home. That does not make sense. The UK would be better able to produce and sell goods and services in the EU single market, as well as continue to position itself strongly as a global leader on human rights, if we had our own mandatory environmental and human rights due diligence legislation.

It is not just campaigners who are calling for that; business is calling for a new law. A clear majority of businesses surveyed by the British Institute of International and Comparative Law believe that current UK laws do not provide clarity or sufficient legal certainty on human rights obligations. Nearly three quarters of UK businesses believe that additional regulation would provide benefits, including greater legal certainty and a level playing field. Indeed, I met with people from a large business in my own constituency just a couple of weeks ago who made exactly that point. A level playing field is needed. Business is calling for it.

As has already been reflected, major businesses including the British Retail Consortium, John Lewis Partnership, Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Twinings are all calling for new mandatory due diligence laws on human rights and the environment. As we have also heard, over 160 businesses and investors representing trillions of pounds of investment are calling for the failure to prevent liability model. That failure to prevent model is what underpins the Bribery Act 2010. We already have the legal model in UK legislation that we can adopt in the same way. We do not have to reinvent the wheel; it is simply about applying the wheel more consistently. Three parliamentary Committees have already recommended this. Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights has specifically recommended legislation modelled on the failure to prevent framework of the Bribery Act 2010.

We have business calling for that legislation. We have parliamentary Committees and parliamentarians calling for it. The Good Business Matters pledge has secured cross party support from over 80 MPs and peers from eight different political parties. We also have public support: 145,000 citizens have signed a petition calling for such legislation, and a YouGov survey indicates that three quarters of the British population support stronger legislation in this area.

In summary, introducing mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence legislation is not only the right thing to do to protect the environment and human rights around the world and to be consistent; it is good for our economy. We miss out on opportunities by not adopting such legislation. It is called for urgently by major businesses that want the Government to support them in showing leadership in this area. It is strongly called for by British citizens, who care—people in this country really care about the standards under which our goods and services are produced. We see that in the strong outcry about the continued import of goods and services from stolen land in Israeli settlements in the west bank; in the outcry over the import of goods that are produced under slave labour conditions by Uyghurs in China; and in the outcry over the import of goods and services that result in deforestation, environmental devastation and climate damage. It is time for the Government to act, and I very much hope that the Minister will assure us that they will do so soon.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Southgate and Wood Green (Bambos Charalambous) for securing the debate, which is much needed. Also, it is not often that I thank an Everton supporter for anything, but thank you very much, Mr Dowd, for stepping into the breach.

A number of organisations have been working incredibly hard with me and other Members on a number of fronts relating to this issue for some time. I thank the Corporate Justice Coalition, which is a large coalition of organisations. I thank the TUC and my own union, Unison, for circulating briefings. I also thank Anti Slavery International; ActionAid; Sarah Benn Gordon, who put together a range of information for me; and the wonderful House of Commons Library.

The report of the Joint Committee on Human Rights is an excellent piece of work, not surprisingly. My hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell (Peter Swallow) has gone, but he is a specialist in Aristotle, and we can see the logic in the report. I have read the Government’s response and want to make sure that I have it clear; the Minister can clarify later in the debate. First, the response says that the Government share the Committee’s concerns and accept that there are real worries about global supply chains and that we have to ensure that, as a country, we are not complicit. Secondly, it states that “the Government is actively exploring options to strengthen protections.”

Thirdly, it states—as hon. Members have noted—that their response will be based on the trade strategy review that was launched some time ago, which aims to ensure that we have responsible business conduct in supply chains and companies operating in the UK.

I found it interesting that the Government’s response listed exactly the same concerns, about “human rights, labour rights, the environment, and anti corruption”

and said that there has to be due regard to the costs of implementation. It then listed the Departments engaged in the review as “the Home Office, the Department for Business and Trade (DBT), the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) and Cabinet Office”.

There was no reference to the Treasury whatsoever—nor, seemingly, to the Financial Conduct Authority or the Bank of England.

The small point I want to make is that the finance sector seems to have been excluded from the whole debate. It is certainly not covered in any of the reports so far. We need to be concerned. It is not just about goods in; our concern is about finance out and the scale of investment by the City and by our finance sector, unfortunately, in abusive business practices around the globe. That investment is sometimes funded by money that has been laundered into the City and then laundered out. I remind people that only a few years ago the City of London was described as the “Russian laundromat” due to the Russian oligarchs’ money that was coming in and then invested in a whole range of schemes that abused human rights and brought about environmental degradation.

That is why I want to know whether the finance sector will be included in the overall review. At the moment, we largely rely on the EU’s corporate sustainability due diligence directive to cover the finance sector. The problem is that the omnibus proposed in 2025 watered down the role that would play and the requirements within it. There is also a finance exemption. A large section of the finance sector is completely exempt, so investment and lending are largely exempt in terms of the requirements on due diligence. It also excludes down- stream partners—the companies they invest in.

Additionally, there is no reference to shadow banking at all. Shadow banking is going on at the moment virtually unregulated. There is other legislation, such as the EU sustainable finance disclosure regulation, but there are various interpretations of how asset managers could comply with that. In addition, we have a situation where compliance is virtually voluntary. Certainly, it is unclear and unmonitored.

We then rely on treaties and memoranda of understanding, but the standards that relate to human rights abuse and labour rights abuse are not consistently applied in treaties. A report from the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, which I served on at the time, found that treaties and memoranda of understanding are virtually devoid of parliamentary scrutiny. We never debate treaties on the Floor of the House. There is no central register of memoranda of understanding from which we could get some comprehension of what they cover and so on.

As a result of that, there are numerous examples of the implications of the unregulated nature of our finance sector with regard to human rights abuse and environmental degradation. My questions are: will any new supply chain regulation cover the finance sector; if it does, what consultations will take place to ensure the sector is included; who will be involved in those consultations; and as my hon. Friend the Member for Southgate and Wood Green asked, what will the timescale be? We are waiting—the “soon” we heard is becoming a long soon.

I do not want to take up too much of the debate so I will shut up at this point, but there is always this argument that finance regulation somehow restrains the animal spirits and as a result undermines growth. Actually, in the finance sector, my word is my bond, and nothing is more important that trust and confidence. As a result, proper regulation is required to maintain that trust.

I am pleased that the right hon. Member referred to my generosity, which extends even to Liverpool supporters.

It is always a blessing to have you chairing a meeting, Mr Dowd. It is particularly a blessing today, as we would not have this debate were you not here, so thank you.

I have been active on this subject for some time. I have been sanctioned by China because of the issues that we raised over modern day slavery. I remind Members that it was the Centre for Social Justice, which I set up, that first published the paper “It Happens Here”. We were then able to get the Government to initiate the Modern Slavery Act—the first legislation of its kind in the world. We were all very proud of that Act, but sadly it really has no enforcement. Government and suppliers have no obligation to check. They are supposed to make a declaration, but we know that many of those declarations are in fact deliberately false—they know they will not be checked, and therefore they do not have to worry about it—so while the Act is great, it is rather toothless.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Southgate and Wood Green (Bambos Charalambous) on securing this debate and making such a good opening speech. I will not repeat all he said, although I agree with so much of it. In the limited time I have, I want to focus on certain issues.

First, the reality is that slave labour is not only a massive punishment and a human rights abuse on a scale, like genocide, wider than anything else; it is also commercial. Countries such as China use slave labour as a way to undercut markets, compete unfairly and drive businesses out of business—particularly here in the UK, as we have experienced. One of the big issues is the net zero determination and what we wish to do to clean up the environment because the biggest providers of solar arrays, wind farms and the technology are, in fact, based in China.

The big problem is that the Government have two conflicting requirements. Quite rightly, they want to get on with cleaning up the environment; but they also know that if they cannot buy from China without a clear set of supply chains that are without slave labour, that will cost more money. That impacts the pace and the way in which they can provide a cleaner atmosphere.

We have to say that one thing is more important than the other, and that is the human rights of those people being abused in places such as China. At the end of the day, we cannot go to bed at night with any grace if we say that we put up more solar arrays and wind farms but those were supplied by factories where people may have died, been abused, or had their lives and families destroyed.

We know that China, in the case of Xinjiang, is committing a well established genocide on such a scale that children are now in forced education camps. Millions of adult males are in forced labour, many producing the polysilicon that goes into arrays made in and around Xinjiang. The women, unbelievably, are being forcibly sterilised. The birth rate in Xinjiang has gone off the edge of a cliff. China is going to eradicate an ethnic group; it is very much the policy of the Chinese Communist party to have Han Chinese in charge of China, and nobody else. It also makes money from the fact that people in slave labour, as I said earlier, are producing goods much more cheaply than anyone else can.

Look at what we are not doing: we are not checking supply chains. On this issue, I have been in opposition to whatever Government have been in power—neither the last Government nor this one have made a big effort to check those company declarations. I have had responses from this and the previous Government saying that they were doing their best and trying hard. It is not good enough to do one’s best or try hard; the question is: what is the best?

Look at what is happening in other places. I point to the USA’s Act, which basically outlawed all use of slave labour anywhere in supply chains and put the means in place to check that. The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act in the United States creates a rebuttable presumption that goods produced wholly or partly in Xinjiang, and other places using slave labour, are made with forced labour unless importers can prove otherwise.

That is how it is done—we tell importers, “You must now prove to us that you have avoided any slave labour in your products. Failure to do that has you banned and fined.” It is immediate. They do not simply sit there saying, “Well, other bits of Government are helping us”, because to be honest, the Government do not have the ability to check themselves. They do not have what it takes, but there are companies out there that do this regularly.

I have met the representatives of one such company. Forensic companies such as Oritain, based in New Zealand, specialise in using forensic science to check where goods were made. From that, it knows the footprint and the likelihood of slave labour. It will immediately investigate a company’s declaration and can challenge it. If it challenges it, the US Government will ban and fine the company. That has led to a whole rerouting of supply chains across China for the US market. Sadly, it has also meant efforts have been redoubled to put slave labour products into markets such as the UK, because it is known that the UK is a soft option.

When we look around the countryside of the east of England and elsewhere, we see a load of arrays. I would bet that the vast majority were made with slave labour because no checks were carried out. The reality is that we have to do more. The Modern Slavery Act 2015, which I greatly supported, has now become toothless. Section 54 needs to be upgraded. There needs to be a punishment. Government need the ability to prosecute immediately, and supply chain checks must take place.

I end with this. The reality is that the legislation is a mess. With colleagues on both sides of the House, I successfully tabled an amendment to the Great British Energy Act 2025, to ban the use of products made with slave labour. It was a classic rebellion, and we got it done. Yet when I checked, I saw that next to nothing had resulted from it. There is that offence in the legislation, but the Government have done nothing to call out any of the companies still selling those products. We put a similar obligation into the Health and Care Act 2022, but next to nothing has been done on that—no declarations and no speeches to Parliament about what the Government have done.

We cannot go on addressing this issue in a piecemeal way: it has to be done across the board. That is why I support the hon. Member for Southgate and Wood Green in his call for the Modern Slavery Act to have teeth and for section 54 to be implemented. Any business that, having been checked properly, is found to have misdeclared itself and its supply chain should be punished—it should be banished from importing to the UK and face financial and even criminal penalties. That way, we will stop this practice.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Dowd. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Southgate and Wood Green (Bambos Charalambous) on securing this important debate, which has implications for human rights everywhere—whether here at home or in Malaysia, China, the Democratic Republic of Congo or elsewhere.

I will focus my remarks first on Bangladesh. In May, the all party parliamentary group on Bangladesh, which I chair, held a meeting on workers’ rights and labour conditions in Bangladesh following the 13th anniversary of the Rana Plaza collapse; we were joined by the Rana Plaza Solidarity Collective, the International Centre for Trade Union Rights and human rights lawyers. On 24 April 2013, 1,134 garment workers lost their lives in what trade unions at the time described as a “mass industrial homicide”.

The incident exposed the brutality of the global production system, in which labour rights are constantly under attack. I want to be clear: those Bangladeshi lives would not have been taken if workers’ rights, which are human rights, were respected in global supply chains. Before the Rana Plaza collapse, workers’ safety concerns were unheard by managers and their attempts to organise unions to address their unsafe working conditions were suppressed.

A global outrage followed the collapse of Rana Plaza, and it is true that there have been welcome advances in workers’ rights in Bangladesh since then, but the truth is that the gains have been slow and partial, and unevenly distributed across industries. That is in part due to a failure to implement universal mandatory responsibilities for human rights and labour rights. Instead, we have seen the spread of voluntary mechanisms for safeguarding rights. Brands in the global north that want to avoid reputational risk are the ones that implement safeguards themselves.

Many garment industry workers supplying the likes of Zara or Walmart do benefit from some of the measures introduced on labour rights, but that is not universal. For those in sectors less exposed to reputational damage, it is a different story. For example, in Chittagong’s deadly shipbreaking industry, workers, including child labourers, still face highly dangerous conditions without safety equipment or compensation on death. Shipping being what it is, that affects nearly every supply chain in the world.

We cannot pretend that Bangladesh’s garment or exporting factories are now all safe. As Labour Behind the Label has pointed out, fires at two separate factories last autumn, in which 17 people were killed, have shown the glaring gaps in protections between firms that have adopted the international accord and those that have not. In the years since Rana Plaza, Bangladesh has seen another 7,160 deaths in the workplace—a figure that is likely a gross undercount. That figure alone should tell us that we have long moved past the point where voluntary corporate responsibilities alone can be considered sufficient.

As we explored in the APPG on Bangladesh, in response to the Rana Plaza collapse France introduced its duty of vigilance law, requiring companies to establish, publish and effectively implement measures to prevent severe abuses of human rights in their supply chains. We have also seen the EU move to bring in a due diligence directive; Members have already pointed out how that has been watered down. None the less, I think its existence has created a legal pathway, absent in the UK, to provide victims of corporate abuse with a path to actually seek justice.

As I have mentioned, in the UK we still rely mostly on voluntary measures that offer little protection to billions of workers globally who work for unscrupulous employers or sectors. In that context, market forces will continue to drive down labour rights in a race to the bottom that rewards bad business practices and exploits or even kills workers. As civil society organisations, including those here today, have pointed out, mandatory due diligence laws are already in force in many European nations and are being advanced in Asia. If the UK fails to keep pace, we risk becoming a dumping ground for tainted goods, with our market enabling abhorrent rights violations.

In the same vein, it cannot be said that it is anywhere near sufficient for the Government to offer new business risk guidance to firms undertaking business with settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. That does not meet the demands of the International Court of Justice’s advisory opinion on the occupation, and offers tacit permission, dressed in strong wording, for firms to continue to do business with illegal settlements. That settlement trade serves to entrench the settlements’ unlawful presence, while the importing of goods and produce justifies their continued expansion.

I want to be clear that that expansion is a violent process of ethnic cleansing undertaken by means of horrific settler attacks, hand in hand with a military occupation that stifles Palestinian people’s livelihoods and demolishes their homes. UK trade policy enables those rights abuses. I note the words of ActionAid, which states that the business guidance “is effectively outsourcing the UK’s compliance with international law to private actors.”

All this shows how all encompassing the issue of human rights in supply chains is. There is no doubt that if the UK Government are serious about protecting people’s human rights, including labour rights, in supply chains, strong legislation must be brought in. I note that at present a model is being advanced in the other place. I hope that all Members will support the calls from trade unions, lawyers and civil society organisations in the Corporate Justice Coalition to bring forward a new business, human rights and environmental Bill.

To be meaningful, protections for human rights, including workers’ rights, must be enshrined in law. We can say that we take human rights seriously only when we take seriously accountability for the abuses committed to bring goods to our markets. That is important because every worker deserves dignity and equality, and upholding those rights is a collective responsibility. We fail in those duties if the rights that we enjoy are denied to those in other parts of the world.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd; thank you for stepping in to chair the debate. I congratulate my constituency neighbour and hon. Friend the Member for Southgate and Wood Green (Bambos Charalambous) on securing this debate. He has a long standing commitment to human rights. He is right to emphasise the international nature of trade and the risks of human rights abuses, for example, from China, as the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) has said.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Apsana Begum) has said, south east Asia, Bangladesh, India and Pakistan are areas where we do a lot of trade but we often do not know enough about what is going on.

I want to add some brief remarks about the UK fashion and textiles industry and human rights here in the UK. I know that the Minister has a background in understanding the potential for human rights abuses. She also understands manufacturing and the scope within the UK to augment that particular sector and produce more jobs for local people. There is the potential for international trade, best practice and home grown industries to sit side by side. I note that when my right hon. Friend the Member for Rawmarsh and Conisbrough (John Healey) was reflecting on defence spending a couple of weeks ago, he said there should be more defence money spent locally, certainly when it comes to uniforms.

When I led a previous debate in Westminster Hall, I detailed the potential that exists to enhance supply chain understanding here in the UK. In parts of the UK like Leicester, much more could be done to support the many women who want high quality jobs in that area. Local authorities and universities are ready to work on that, and it seems a pity not to be enhancing that by being more organised when it comes to how our supply chains work.

Very briefly, I welcome the supply chain centre’s announcement of the 14-point action plan yesterday. I have not yet had time to digest it, but I am sure the Minister will refer to it in her remarks. We know that onshoring in the fashion and textiles industry could unlock £3.1 billion in GDP, 64,000 new jobs and £1.2 billion in tax receipts. That is not throwing away the whole system of international trade; it is just saying that, with some political will, we could be making more with jobs here in the UK. We know that the 2025 Budget included new measures to stop overseas online firms undercutting UK bricks and mortar businesses by ensuring that customs duties apply to parcels of any value. I would be interested in the preparation for introducing those measures, which I believe are coming into force in 2028-29. Will the Minister briefly reflect on that in her remarks?

There are costs to producing in the UK, but what about the benefits? It could mean more flexibility and agility from local suppliers, faster turnaround times that global competitors cannot match due to distance, and more transparency, as customers will know exactly where their clothes are made. “Made in the UK” is a point of pride, so why not have, “Made in the UK, under fair conditions”?

It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Mr Dowd, and thank you again for joining us to allow this important debate to take place. I start by congratulating the hon. Member for Southgate and Wood Green (Bambos Charalambous) on introducing this debate so emphatically and wonderfully—I could not have done it better myself.

I am a member of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, and as we have already heard, last year the Committee published its report, “Forced Labour in the UK’s Supply Chains”. Our inquiry found that, despite Ministers’ repeated assurances that no company operating in the UK should have any forced labour whatsoever in its supply chain, that simply is not happening in practice. Goods made, or at least partly made, with forced labour are still reaching our shelves here in the UK. In fact, we report billions of pounds of goods a year from sectors where forced labour is rife, yet companies are still not required to map their supply chains or prove that their goods are clean.

Nowhere was the gap between rhetoric and reality more clearly seen than in the Government’s China audit. That was a genuine opportunity to set out, transparently in public, exactly how Britain intends to tackle state imposed forced labour against Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang and other minority groups across China. Instead, the Foreign Secretary offered us “shining a spotlight” and described the audit as an “ongoing exercise”. When our Committee pressed for concrete measures behind that language, the answers amounted to export controls and sanctions that already existed. This is not a strategy; it is a missed opportunity.

Over 95% of the world’s solar panels rely on polysilicon, and over half the world’s polysilicon comes from Xinjiang, so it was unsurprising that the Government’s own evidence to our Committee accepted that there is credible evidence that companies in solar supply chains may be linked to forced labour against people in China. Thanks to the great work of my Liberal Democrat colleagues in Parliament in holding the Government to account, GB Energy’s sourcing rules were strengthened. However, well over a year later, we still will not see panels guaranteed to be free of forced labour, and the issue will only be tackled “as far as possible”. Our Committee found that the industry’s own solar stewardship initiative offers thin reassurance. Certification applies to individual sites, not whole companies, so a firm with mostly uncertified factories can still wear the badge of membership. If we do not get a proper grip on this, it will be the new Achilles heel of the green transition.

This is not only about solar; our inquiry also heard evidence about North Korean workers on Chinese fishing vessels. Last year, I visited the Falkland Islands as part of the armed forces parliamentary scheme. When we met Members of the Legislative Assembly there, we heard about how the Chinese fishing fleet in the south Atlantic was causing problems, and some of the horrific instances where the regime of the Chinese Communist party was selling and buying labour from North Korea.

We have also heard today about tomatoes being processed in China that now sit on British supermarket shelves, which have been documented by the BBC as recently as last year, as well as critical minerals like cobalt from the DRC. We know that the International Labour Organisation estimates that 27.6 million people are trapped in forced labour globally, two thirds of which is linked to commercial supply chains. This is a systemic, cross sector and growing issue.

What have the Government done with the JCHR report recommendations? In October, Ministers published their response and launched a responsible business conduct review. To be fair, that is a start, but they have deferred almost everything to the review. Will the UK introduce mandatory human rights due diligence? “We are waiting on the review.” Will the UK introduce an import ban on goods linked to forced labour? “We are waiting on the review.” Will there be a stronger use of the powers in the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, which Border Force and the National Crime Agency are deploying far too rarely? Well, the Government told us that they “cannot direct how the POCA powers are used”.

Although that may technically be correct, Governments can resource enforcement, set priorities and fund agencies to act. Choosing not to do so is a policy choice.

Earlier in the debate, the hon. Member for Bracknell (Peter Swallow) talked about section 54 of the Modern Slavery Act. It requires large companies to publish supply chain transparency statements, yet we know that a significant number of companies are not complying, and those that do can satisfy their legal obligations simply by reporting that they have taken no action whatever. That is not an obligation to ensure transparency in any meaningful sense of the word. Our Committee recommended strengthening section 54, and the Government’s response is under consideration as part of the review.

Next week, I will be holding the inaugural general meeting of the APPG for coffee, tea and spices, if anyone is interested—I hope to see Members there. The APPG will look at how supply chains impact women and girls working in those sectors. We heard earlier in the debate from the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) about the actions that other countries have taken on slavery in supply chains. He pointed particularly to the United States and its Uyghur Forced Labour Prevention Act, which established a rebuttable presumption that anything from Xinjiang was made with forced labour, unless a company can prove otherwise. We also heard about the European Union and its forced labour regulations; we simply have a review.

Our Committee recommended that the Government introduce new legislation within one year of the publication of our report. That deadline is in July 2026, just next month. Will the Government meet that deadline? I ask the Minister to take three other things from that report. First, I ask that the Government introduce mandatory human rights due diligence for UK companies. Voluntary reporting is not creating a level playing field, and businesses told our Committee as much. Secondly, will the Minister follow the United States and the European Union and introduce a proper import ban on goods linked to forced labour, rather than relying on the occasional under used application of Proceeds of Crime Act powers? Thirdly, will the Government use the China audit for what it should have been—a public account of exactly what the UK will do to keep state imposed forced labour out of our supply chains, starting with solar power?

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd, and I join other Members in thanking you for chairing this debate. Also, if your Wikipedia page is correct, may I be the first to wish you a very happy birthday for Saturday?

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Southgate and Wood Green (Bambos Charalambous) for securing this debate and to Members from across the House for the thoughtful and serious way they have approached it. The hon. Gentleman really brought to life the way that globally sourced products are infiltrating every part of our daily lives, and I thank him for that. I also thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) for sharing the benefit of his many years working on this issue. I thank the hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Dr Chowns), the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), and the hon. Members for Poplar and Limehouse (Apsana Begum) and for Hornsey and Friern Barnet (Catherine West); they all brought different perspectives, for which I am grateful.

There have been differences in opinion this afternoon about the causes of the problem, the strength of the enforcement required and the precise tools the Government should use, but there should be no disagreement on one central point: goods produced through forced labour, modern slavery or serious human rights abuses have no place in UK supply chains. The question is whether the Government are prepared to deliver serious enforcement, potentially with the support of new technologies and businesses such as Oritain; or whether they will simply pile fresh cost and complexity on to responsible British businesses while the worst offenders continue to evade accountability.

The Joint Committee on Human Rights was right to highlight the fact that goods produced wholly or partly through forced labour are being sold in this country. It is also correct that the current framework has not been enforced strongly or consistently enough to stop that happening.

The overwhelming majority of firms—responsible retailers, manufacturers, importers and investors—want to do the right thing. They invest time, money and effort into understanding their supply chains and meeting their responsibilities. They should not find themselves being undercut and placed at a competitive disadvantage by organisations willing to look the other way, nor should they be buried under layers of poorly designed and duplicative new obligations, which create cost and complexity without improving outcomes or catching the individuals who break the law.

The Modern Slavery Act, which was introduced by Baroness May of Maidenhead when she was Home Secretary, was a landmark piece of legislation and placed the issue of modern slavery firmly on the national agenda. It was also Conservative Governments that imposed sanctions on those responsible for the persecution of Uyghurs, strengthened export controls, and introduced tougher penalties for businesses that fail to meet their obligations.

Those achievements should not be diminished, but equally we should not pretend that enforcement cannot be strengthened. We support enforcing the laws that we already have. The first test for the Minister is whether she is prepared to make the existing framework bite on the bad actors. The task for the Government is to strike the right balance between being strong where enforcement is needed, being clear where expectations must be met, being proportionate where businesses are already acting responsibly, and being practical enough to work in the real world.

Public procurement—I include in that Great British Energy, which was raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green—has an important role to play in this effort. Government must lead the way. Taxpayers rightly expect that public money is not rewarding forced labour, serious exploitation or suppliers whose conduct falls far below the legally prescribed standards. The challenge is making that principle work in practice, with rules that are clear, usable and targeted at those who break them.

The risks exist across apparel, food and manufacturing, and they exist in sectors that are becoming increasingly important to our future economic and national security. Global supply chains were once viewed mainly through the lens of cost and efficiency; the assumption was that they would deliver cheaper goods and greater prosperity. We now understand that they can also create strategic vulnerabilities when too much control is concentrated in too few hands.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green has been particularly persistent in drawing attention to concerns around Xinjiang, polysilicon and critical minerals. He is right to do so. Growth and trade must never come at the price of our values, and pursuit of warmer relations with Beijing must not mean going soft on human rights or turning a blind eye to slave made goods entering our market.

If our standards apply only when the politics are convenient for them to apply, then they are not really standards at all. The framework must address risk wherever it appears, it must apply consistently, it must be based on evidence, and it must be enforced fairly.

The Minister has heard the points raised in this debate and no doubt she will address them directly. After the Government’s jobs tax, the Employment Rights Act and a surge of new regulation, businesses are entitled to ask whether labour supply chain plans will be properly thought through and will address their actual needs.

I have some straightforward questions for the Minister. When will the Government’s review of responsible business conduct conclude? What steps does she intend to take to strengthen enforcement? How will she improve traceability in high risk and newly emerging sectors? How will she protect legitimate businesses from unnecessary burdens while ensuring that bad actors and the worst offenders face meaningful consequences? What lessons has she drawn from allies, including the United States, the European Union and others, about what works in practice? How will she ensure that the United Kingdom remains a leader, rather than a follower, in confronting modern slavery and forced labour?

Warm words, statements and reviews on their own will not solve this problem. The Modern Slavery Act was a significant Conservative achievement, and we are rightly proud of it. The challenge now is to ensure it is enforced as seriously, practically and effectively as possible. That is the standard that Parliament should expect, and it is the standard against which we will judge the Government’s response.

Thank you reminding me that I am almost a year older.

It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. I join hon. Members in thanking you for chairing today’s debate at short notice.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Southgate and Wood Green (Bambos Charalambous) for securing a debate on this deeply important subject. He made some excellent points, particularly about how fundamental supply chain resilience is to our economic security, and the importance of the public sector procurement regime to ensuring that public bodies do not inadvertently support international labour and humanitarian abuses. He and the other Members here today continue to be excellent and thoughtful advocates on these matters, and I thank all colleagues for their important contributions.

Human rights are just that: they are fundamental, and they exist to protect us all. Infractions cannot be ignored or dismissed simply because they occurred far enough back in a supply chain for us to feel insulated and not responsible for supporting exploitative practices. Never has this issue been more important now that more than 70% of global trade runs through complex global supply chains. Although globalisation has driven productivity, innovation and technological advances that have lifted billions out of poverty and created the life that we depend on, it has also made supply chains more complex and opaque and has reduced the transparency and accountability that consumers, retailers and the Government need to protect workers and the natural world from exploitation.

Members have rightly drawn attention to the egregious human rights abuses that come with forced labour. In 2026, more than 27 million people remain in the shackles of modern slavery across all six inhabited continents, often enduring imprisonment, abuse and coercion, and being exploited for profit. As we approach the 200th anniversary of the Slavery Abolition Act 1833, which abolished slavery in much of the British empire, it is right that I reaffirm this Government’s commitment to tackling this vile practice, which continues to generate nearly £176 billion in illegal profits each year, in all its forms, including non payment or underpayment of wages, excessive working hours and unsafe working conditions. There is also clear evidence of severe environmental harm in our global supply chains, as we lose the equivalent of 11 football pitches of tropical rainforest every minute, and threaten nearly 1 million animal and plant species with extinction.

As we have heard, the UK has a proud record of pioneering global advances to support human and workers’ rights. We put this issue on the international stage with the Modern Slavery Act 2015, which the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Alison Griffiths) spoke about. That legislation was world leading and crucial in solidifying our place as a global leader on this issue. For the first time, businesses were made to report how they tackled the modern slavery that might be present in their supply chains. However, as Members have rightly said, although the Modern Slavery Act was world leading at the time, it is now more than a decade old and in need of review if we are to tackle the many violations that still occur globally.

Although many UK businesses respect human rights and the environment throughout their supply chains, unethical international violations undercut the vast majority of UK businesses that support fair international supply chains. That will only increase as geopolitical, industrial and technological shocks continue to transform how and where goods are produced and extracted. That is why we must take a more strategic approach by working with our global allies and trading partners to secure forced labour provisions in our free trade agreements, and by using the developing countries trading scheme to suspend preferential trading arrangements on the ground of serious violation of labour rights.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Southgate and Wood Green noted, I travelled last week to the 114th International Labour Conference in Geneva, where I met trade union delegations and labour and employment Ministers from across the world, alongside some of the most significant manufacturers, extractors and business hubs. This issue is close to my heart, and I worked closely on it before I was elected to this place. Last week, we talked a lot about the work we are proudly doing in Government on the Employment Rights Act and the domestic agenda, and I thank Members for raising that today. We are clear that a collaborative, holistic and cross border approach is the only way to drive the change that exploited workers and environments need, alongside our recognition of other international transitions from voluntary to mandatory measures, such as human rights and environmental due diligence laws.

In the trade strategy, the Government underlined how responsible business conduct is a positive part of our mission to grow the economy, and we launched a review of our approach to responsible business, focusing on the global supply chains of businesses operating in the UK. It is an evidence based review of our policy framework and alternative measures to enhance it, including mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence measures and forced labour bans. It naturally also considers the approaches of our international trading partners and the best way to promote a co ordinated approach that minimises costs, consistent with the Government’s commitment to reduce the administrative costs of complying with regulation by 25% over the course of this Parliament.

So far, we have engaged with more than 200 organisations through the review, including businesses, investors, civil society, trade unions and academic institutions. We have learnt from international partners and met communities affected by supply chain harms. I heard many hon. Members stress the need for urgency today, and I reassure them that we will update Parliament on the review in due course. I thank Members for raising that pressing issue, and we will of course work closely with all those at the debate today.

Could we get a commitment today that the Government will look carefully at what countries that are well in advance of us, such as the United States and some European countries, are doing, to make sure that we urgently get on to resolving this issue, rather than delaying with another review and more debates? We know what needs to be done, and surely we can get on with it pretty quickly.

I thank the right hon. Member for that and his contributions today. I reassure him that we are working closely with the US on the review, updating the Americans on all the work we are doing and understanding their practices too. I will turn soon to the other important points he raised throughout the debate.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) highlighted our work with the Treasury as part of this review, and I thank him for that. We are doing the review economy wide, and as well as working with the Treasury, we have engaged with investors. We will of course keep him updated, as I know he is interested in—indeed, passionate about—this subject.

We took another key step in the trade strategy by launching the Office for Responsible Business Conduct to provide UK businesses, trade unions and charities with a simpler route to compliance, supporting the integration of responsible business practices and helping victims of corporate malpractice by providing a non judicial grievance mechanism. Alongside the broader RBC review, we are considering how to strengthen the section 54 transparency regime, which lots of Members mentioned today—I thank them for it—including mandatory reporting requirements that extend to the public sector and penalties for non compliance. We published updated statutory guidance on transparency in supply chains in March 2025, calling on businesses to go further and faster.

I thank the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Tom Gordon), for his contribution today, his work in the Joint Committee on Human Rights and his engagement in and focus on this vital issue. I mentioned our work and relationship with the US. I hope that he is reassured by those comments and by our continued and regular engagement with the US Administration as part of our negotiations.

As a proudly internationalist and pro worker Government, we have a responsibility to remain a world leader in tackling modern slavery, clearances and human rights abuses wherever they rear their ugly head. The Government stand firm on human rights, including in Xinjiang, where China continues to persecute and arbitrarily detain Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim minorities. Lots of Members raised that, and I thank them for it. I hope they know that we raise these concerns with China at the highest levels. That was done recently by the Prime Minister himself and the former Foreign Secretary. We continue to co ordinate efforts with our international partners to hold China to account—for example, by joining a UN statement in October 2024 and co signing a joint statement with the US and others in November 2025.

I respect the work done by the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) and thank him for his consistency in raising this issue today and outside the House. He also spoke about GB Energy, as did the shadow Minister. As a publicly owned energy company, GB Energy is of course expected to demonstrate leading practice in complying with the UK modern slavery legislation and aligning with the UN guiding principles on business and human rights. We have established an ethical supply chain advisory group to review and inform GBE’s approach to ethical supply chains in its investments and operations; its chair is Baroness O’Grady. Representatives of my Department will serve on that group, and it meets for the first time next week, which I am sure the right hon. Member will welcome.

We must continue working with our international counterparts, and key stakeholders across the international trade union movement and business community to take action against those who illegally destroy families, communities and our natural world for profit. As Members have outlined, this action cannot be singular or a patchwork of separate policy decisions. Only co ordinated, root and branch decisions will enable our constituents to know that they can trust that the T shirt they are wearing, the bag they are carrying and the food they are eating did not arrive in our country at the expense of exploited people and areas thousands of miles away. Delivering that confidence for British people is good for business and good for growth, and re cements our position as a world leader on these matters.

I again thank all right hon. and hon. Members for their contributions. We look forward to working closely with them on the review and more widely to ensure that we continue to focus on this issue, which is a priority for our Government. I will end, Mr Dowd, by wishing you a very happy birthday for Saturday and thanking you again for chairing the debate.

We have had a great debate. There has been lots of agreement in the room, and I am sure the Minister heard the strength of feeling about what needs to be done. We would very much welcome the responsible business conduct review happening as quickly as possible. I know that it is not in the Minister’s direct brief and I know that she is a champion of international labour rights, but we need it to happen as quickly as possible. We also need to ensure that section 54 is strengthened. That has cross party support and I am sure that we will get there eventually, but it needs to happen quickly. I look forward to having a more detailed response from the Department in due course.

Mr Dowd, thank you again for stepping into the breach at the last minute and allowing this debate to proceed. We could not have done it without you. I hope you have a very happy birthday as well.

Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House has considered the matter of safeguarding human rights in supply chains.

Sitting suspended.