New legislation that will call on large British businesses to identify and tackle modern slavery and labour abuses in their supply chains has been welcomed by campaign groups.
However, concerns remain over how the proposed law will clamp down on unfair employment practices among smaller operators and further down supply chains.
The government last week confirmed plans to legislate for a new, mandatory human rights due diligence regime, alongside powers to ban goods made with forced labour from the UK market. They will directly apply to businesses with a global turnover of over £350m, as well as non-UK businesses with a UK-generated turnover of over £350m and their supply chains.
The reforms come after the Joint Committee on Human Rights recently warned the UK was “falling behind international partners” in tackling forced labour in supply chains. The committee argued the country’s voluntary approach to due diligence was not creating a “level playing field” and recommended tougher measures to prevent goods linked to worker exploitation from reaching British consumers.
‘Weak link’ on slavery standards
With the US and EU both tightening supply chain rules, and tariff tensions reshaping global trade flows, ministers have faced mounting pressure to ensure the UK is not viewed as a weak link on labour standards.
The move follows an open letter published by the Ethical Trading Initiative, BRC and the Corporate Justice Coalition in October – supported by major retailers including Sainsbury’s, Asda, M&S, Lidl and Co-op and a number of suppliers – which called on the government “to commit, in this parliamentary session, to mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence (mHREDD) legislation”.
However, there were questions over how the regulations would be imposed beyond “first tier” business partners of companies in scope of the rules, said Nicole Pita, programme manager at the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food) – which published a report in October claiming powerful global food companies were “profiting from keeping labour cheap and workers powerless”.
While the legislation was “a major step forward in the fight against modern slavery”, a “key test” centred around enforcement, Pita stressed.
“If the UK forward this legislation without proper funding for inspections, and strong meaningful penalties for companies that fail to respect the fundamental human rights of the workers they rely on, it will be for naught,” she added.
Pita highlighted how the EU had already rowed back on its own due diligence standard, so it only applied to “first tier” immediate partners, rather than monitoring the whole supply chain.
This “significantly makes its power to clean up supply chains much less effective”, she added.
Her comments were echoed by Lucila Granada, of NGO Focus on Labour Exploitation (FLEX), who argued “we need to be clear about what happens next. If a product is removed but the workers who made it are left without support, and the business simply switches suppliers, we haven’t addressed the problem”.
Accountability urged
The legislation “must make sure companies are held accountable for the conditions in their supply chains and for putting things right when workers are harmed”, she urged.
“We need a clear and transparent process for identifying goods linked to forced labour, effective powers to investigate and remove them from sale, and a properly resourced regulator to enforce the rules.”
Regulations additionally needed to ensure that businesses “cannot simply shift their sourcing arrangements or look further down their supply chains to avoid scrutiny”, Granada stressed.
Concerns were also raised by the Fairtrade Foundation, which said it was “disappointed that the proposed legislation does not include environmental due diligence”.
Human rights and environmental harms “are often inseparable”, it added. “Climate change, deforestation, biodiversity loss and environmental degradation directly affect the rights, livelihoods and resilience of farmers and workers around the world.”
A law that addressed one without the other “risks failing to tackle the root causes of harm in global supply chains”, Fairtrade warned.
Commenting on the proposed new legislation, commons Business, Innovation, Science and Trade Committee chair Liam Byrne MP said: “For too long, it has been an outrage that our great country, which led the abolition of slavery, has had weaker defences against forced labour imports than either the EU or the United States.
“Now we need a clear timetable, a regulator with the resources to enforce the rules, and meaningful consequences for companies that fail to comply.”
No comments yet