Largest businesses to face mandatory human rights checks on their supply chains
The Government will legislate for a due diligence regime covering businesses with turnover above £350 million, with powers to take goods made with forced labour off the market in Great Britain.
Britain's biggest companies are to be placed under a legal duty to root out human rights abuse in their supply chains, under plans the Government set out in a written statement to Parliament on 4 November. The statement reported the outcome of a review of responsible business conduct, a review promised in the Trade Strategy. Its conclusion was blunt: the arrangements for stopping forced labour are fragmented and lean too heavily on voluntary action and company reporting. The Modern Slavery Act 2015 led the world when it was passed, the review found, but standards elsewhere have since moved on, and the UK now sits out of step with its G7 partners.
The new regime is deliberately aimed at the largest operators only. British companies will be caught if their worldwide turnover tops £350 million; overseas companies will be caught if the turnover they generate in the UK passes the same line. Firms in scope will have to hunt for, weigh up and act on risks of human rights abuse and labour exploitation, both in their own operations and throughout their supply chains. The Government promises a risk based and proportionate regime, drawn along the lines of the OECD Guidelines for Responsible Business Conduct and the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.
There will also be an enforcement edge aimed at goods. Ministers intend to create a power under which products made using forced labour can be ordered off the shelves in Great Britain. A regulator will be able to open an investigation where it suspects such products are on sale and, if the business has failed its due diligence duties and forced labour is established, can direct that the products be withdrawn. In the Government's telling, that is a focused weapon against the worst abuses in world trade, and one that stops honest firms being undercut by competitors who look the other way.
A £350 million threshold decides which supply chains the new law will reach into.British Journal analysis
Northern Ireland is treated separately. There, the EU's Forced Labour Regulation will be applied under the Windsor Framework, and the Government says the two regimes share the same practical object, that goods produced by forced labour can be pulled from sale. Businesses new to this kind of checking will be pointed to a single hub on GOV.UK, where the guidance, tools and templates are to be gathered in one place. Ministers say they will work with stakeholders on the detail and legislate as soon as parliamentary time allows.
The direction of travel had already been set by the Government's own watchdog in this field. The Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner's annual report for 2025 to 2026, presented to Parliament in June 2026, records that the Commissioner had published a proposed regulatory framework for forced labour and human rights, aimed at exploitation in global value chains. The November statement moves the argument from proposal to a government commitment to legislate, though the bill itself, and the identity and powers of the regulator in final form, are still to come.
Campaigners who have spent years pressing for exactly this kind of law welcomed the announcement, then argued it stops short. The Corporate Justice Coalition, a network of more than 70 civil society organisations, called it a major step forward, but objected that environmental harm is left outside the framework, and that a £350 million threshold is far higher than the £36 million line used in the Modern Slavery Act. Its co-director, Eleanor Rosenbach, said: "The announcement today sends a strong message: corporate impunity is coming to an end."
Anti-Slavery International struck the same balance of welcome and pressure. It wants environmental protection brought into the law rather than treated as separate, and wants the ban on forced labour goods to run across the whole of the United Kingdom rather than on two different legal footings. Its business and human rights manager, Craig Bradshaw, said: "Comprehensive, dedicated and robust legislation is essential to ensure UK supply chains are free from forced labour and other human rights abuses." The Government's own closing test for the reform is that goods on sale in Britain should carry no taint of forced labour.
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