Member

The Procurement Act, which the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and I happily debated, will strengthen public sector contracting authorities to exclude suppliers and disregard their bids where there is sufficient evidence of modern slavery, which extends to supply chains across all countries, including China. This will apply whether or not there has been a conviction. GBE will also be committed to building supply chain activity in the UK to accelerate the deployment of key UK energy projects. Under the Procurement Act, where Great British Energy is a contracting authority, it will be able to disregard tenders where it is aware of forced labour or modern slavery existing in the supply chain. In addition, Section 54 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 requires companies with a turnover of £36 million or more to publish an annual modern slavery statement setting out steps which they have taken to prevent modern slavery in both their operations and supply chains.