Ms Marie Rimmer

I rise to speak in support of amendment 1, which appears in the name of the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith). The Bill is narrow, but it gives us an opportunity to raise this matter. Thanks to the work of this House, public bodies such as the Department of Health and Social Care are legally required to eradicate slavery in their supply chains under the Health and Care Act 2022 and the National Health Service (Procurement, Slavery and Human Trafficking) Regulations 2025. We also strengthened the safeguards to ensure that public money is free from forced labour in last year’s Great British Energy Act 2025. There was a little bit of fuss about that at the time, but no slavery or human trafficking is present in any part of Great British Energy’s supply chain. UK Export Finance still lacks those protections, but amendment 1 would fix that inconsistency. If we are increasing the financial limits available to UK Export Finance, we should ensure that British support for business abroad is never tied to exploitation. It would make the protection much bigger by covering everything across Government. We tried something like that with the Great British Energy Bill, and I was told I was right that this would not have been covered, but the Bill then went to the Lords and came back pretty quick. I thank the right hon. Member for tabling his amendment.