The House of Lords Modern Slavery Act 2015 Committee has recently published a report, ‘The Modern Slavery Act 2015: becoming world-leading again’. The report suggests that the UK has fallen behind the rest of the world in the measures it takes to tackle modern slavery and recommends that the government should make various changes to improve the impact and effectiveness of the Modern Slavery Act.
The report makes a number of key recommendations, including amongst many other things:
- The extension of mandatory modern slavery reports to large public bodies
- Mandating the contents of modern slavery statements – to include as a minimum detail of the steps the company/body uses to identify risks and tackle modern slavery in its supply chains
- Requiring modern slavery statements to be published on a public registry
- Mandatory supply chain due diligence for larger companies/bodies
- The introduction of proportionate sanctions for non-compliance
- Various measures for the social care sector to reduce the vulnerability of workers in that sector
- Improved information and data sharing mechanisms across multiple agencies, including between the police and the NHS
- Increased proactive enforcement activity in connection with modern slavery
- Creation of a single enforcement agency to include modern slavery enforcement
- Better cooperation between government departments
- Wider use of Slavery and Trafficking Risk Orders and Slavery and Trafficking Prevention Orders
- Better alignment between the UKs modern slavery regime and international regimes
The government is expected to respond to the report by mid-December. We will report any developments.
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For further information, please contact:
Emma Ahmed, Hill Dickinson
emma.ahmed@hilldickinson.com
