Jonathan Reynolds has told MPs the government will legislate to keep goods made with forced labour out of British shops. In a letter published on Monday by the Business, Innovation, Science and Trade Committee, the business secretary says large firms will have to carry out human-rights due diligence and can be ordered to remove products linked to forced labour or modern slavery from sale. The duty would cover UK businesses with a global turnover above 350 million pounds, and non-UK businesses with more than 350 million pounds of UK turnover. Reynolds wrote that the package should protect the competitiveness of responsible firms, strengthen confidence in the market, and stop those goods reaching consumers.
The committee has been asking for this since a hearing with Shein in January 2025, when the retailer's representative repeatedly declined to say whether its products contained cotton from China, including Xinjiang. The hearing did not prove what was in the clothes. It showed that a company could refuse the question and keep selling. Liam Byrne, the committee chair, called Monday's letter a breakthrough, and said Britain had weaker defences against forced-labour imports than the European Union or the United States. He wants a timetable, a regulator with the resources to enforce the rules, and real consequences for firms that do not comply.
What ministers refused, and what they have now signed
On 4 July the committee told ministers that, without an update to the Modern Slavery Act, Britain risked becoming a dumping ground for goods made with exploitative labour. It said the gap had already been cited by the United States in arguments over tariffs. The government's formal reply did not promise a new statute. The review of responsible business conduct, published last week, moved the language. Reynolds's letter moves the commitment. The committee is publishing both the letter and that earlier response today, so the change of mind is on the record rather than in a briefing.
The Modern Slavery Act already asks large firms for a statement on slavery in their supply chains. Campaigners have long said a statement is not a ban, and that a ban without a duty to look is a press release. The letter accepts both points for firms above the 350 million pound line: a duty to identify and tackle abuse, and a power to take goods off sale. It does not, in the text described this morning, set the penalty, name the body that will use the power, or give a bill a slot. The Commons is in recess. There will be no first reading today.
What the Letter Commits To
- Mandatory human-rights due diligence for firms above 350 million pounds in turnover.
- A power to order goods linked to forced labour off sale.
- The same line for non-UK firms with more than 350 million pounds of UK sales.
- No timetable, no named regulator and no set penalty in Monday's account of the letter.
- The promise follows a Shein hearing in January 2025 and a committee report on 4 July.
A different door in the same Home Office week
This is a trade statute, not an immigration one, but it lands in a fortnight when the Home Office is already being asked who is allowed to stay. Turkish business-route settlement grants fell 78 per cent in the first half of the year. Shabana Mahmood has kept a five-year path for care workers already here and lengthened it for almost everyone else. Reynolds's letter is about what may be sold, not who may settle. Byrne's test is whether the bill, when it exists, can take a product off a shelf. Until there is a date, the law on the shelf is still the one that asks for a statement.
The committee's promise is to hold ministers to the letter. That is the right use of a recess Monday: publish the commitment while nobody can hide it in a Commons answer. The next useful document is a timetable. Without one, a firm above 350 million pounds knows the direction of travel and not the day it has to be ready.