Today, the Government’s new Immigration and Asylum Bill will have a second reading in parliament. Within it are proposed amendments to the company obligations currently laid out in section 54 of the Modern Slavery Act. These amendments would add specificity to existing supply chain transparency requirements for UK businesses, extend reporting obligations to public authorities and strengthen enforcement of these rules. However, while CJC welcomes the Government’s recognition that the UK must strengthen corporate obligations to prevent harm, we have serious concerns about the proposed approach.
Firstly, the proposals in the Immigration and Asylum Bill will weaken protections for victims of modern slavery. Efforts to protect human rights and tackle modern slavery and forced labour cannot and should not be delivered within a Bill that is primarily focused on immigration control. As civil society groups and the Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner have already outlined, core aspects of this Bill will deny protection, support and recovery to survivors of trafficking and modern slavery, penalising and punishing survivors whilst emboldening traffickers.
Secondly, reporting requirements alone do not work to prevent modern slavery or change corporate behaviour. Transparency is important, but it is not enough to prevent harm. To drive real changes in corporate behaviour and level the playing field for businesses engaging in responsible practice, the Government must introduce clear mandatory duties to ensure companies identify, prevent and address risks before harm occurs.
The Immigration and Asylum Bill’s proposed reforms ignore multiple evidence-based recommendations for the Government to introduce mandatory human rights due diligence obligations, and introduce a duty to prevent human rights abuses by applying the ‘failure to prevent’ mechanism used in the 2010 Bribery Act. Nor does it align with international developments, including the growing adoption of mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence regimes around the world.
Indeed, the Trade Minister himself agreed on June 30th that mandatory due diligence is the most effective solution, and has previously confirmed that mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence measures are being actively considered under the ongoing Responsible Business Conduct Review. Similarly, recent Government announcements on forest risk commodities further demonstrate the government’s belief in the utility of due diligence frameworks to tackle harms.
Despite this, proposals in the Immigration and Asylum Bill would continue to permit companies to state that they have not implemented any due diligence, provided they explain why they have not done so. Thus, businesses would remain under no legal obligation to take any concrete action to prevent forced labour or other human rights harms in their supply chains.
Thirdly, this ad-hoc approach fails to recognise and address the intersectionality of corporate harms or provide certainty to businesses. Attempting to tackle the grave issue of modern slavery through ad hoc legislative amendments related to immigration risks diminishing the priority that the UK Government attaches to tackling this serious human rights abuse. It also misses the opportunity to cohesively address the full range of intersecting human rights, labour rights and environmental harms that are present in the UK’s global supply chains. This approach does not recognise the way different harms intersect and multiply the risk of modern slavery itself, and leaves other severe issues such as union-busting, dangerous working conditions, water contamination, environmental destruction, land grabbing, attacks on human rights and environmental defenders, and violations of the rights of Indigenous peoples and local communities around the world unaddressed.
A limited and ad-hoc approach to responsible business conduct legislation not only fails victims of corporate harms, it also fails to provide the clarity and certainty that businesses and investors are requesting, given the strong likelihood that further action will be needed for the Government to implement insights gained through its own reviews and to bring the UK in line with international developments.
CJC, together with our partners, is calling for a Business Human Rights and Environment Act: mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence legislation that introduces a clear legal duty for businesses and public bodies to prevent human rights and environmental harm in their business operations, subsidiaries and value chains. This model law has also been proposed as a Private Members Bill by Baroness Lola Young under the title: the “Commercial Organisations and Public Authorities Duty (Human Rights and Environment) Bill”.
Developed through global consultation with rights holders and legal experts, CJC’s Business, Human Rights and Environment would prevent harm before it happens, provide the legal certainty that businesses are calling for, act on recommendations from businesses and investors, parliamentary committees, and trade unions and ensure victims of harm have meaningful access to justice. This proposal reflects emerging international best practice and establishes a coherent legal framework covering all internationally recognised human rights, labour rights and environmental harms in one piece of legislation.
CJC urges the Government not to delay further in publishing the outcomes of its review of Responsible Business Conduct and Its National Baseline Assessment on Business and Human Rights and to choose a robust and holistic approach to responsible business conduct, rather than an ineffective and reactive approach. Comprehensive legislation modelled on the Business Human Rights and Environment Act would provide much-needed clarity and a level playing field for UK businesses that want to do the right thing. It would help build a more resilient and inclusive UK economy that delivers for working people and it would protect communities and the environment here in the UK and around the world.
Posted by: CJC Team | Tagged as: Analysis