On 30 July the Home Office published an optional international reporting template to help companies attain modern slavery, forced labour and child labour reporting requirements across the UK, Australia and Canada – as the aims of the legislation in place in each of these jurisdictions is similar. It is still essential for UK companies to comply with UK legislation and official guidance.
While this is aimed at large multinationals with overlapping obligations across jurisdictions, it may also sm who export to these regions, where customers require suppliers to demonstrate compliance with modern slavery requirements.
The House of Commons Joint Committee on Human Rights has published a report on forced labour in global supply chains, which confirms that goods produced wholly or partly with forced labour are being imported to the UK. The report recommends that:
- Section 54 of the Modern Slavery Act should be strengthened to include a duty to publish a modern slavery and human trafficking statement and establishing an effective mechanism to ensure accountability for non-compliance, prohibiting companies from reporting they have taken no action and extending the duty to public organisations.
- Impose UK import bans on goods linked to forced labour.
- Consider whether there are any forced labour risks in any future UK trade deals.
- Legislate for human rights via due diligence obligations incorporated into supply chains with penalties for non-compliance – implement this after proper consultation with business.
- Create a new right to make a civil claims for failure to prevent forced labour which allows victims to raise claims with the burden of proof resting with companies to demonstrate they had adequate protections in place.
Scottish Engineering will advise members if any of the provisions of the report are enacted into legislation.
