The UK’s commitment to Business and Human Rights

On 4 November I had the pleasure of speaking in Bilbao about the importance of Business and Human Rights at the III Conference on “Gestión responsable en Derechos Humanos por parte de las empresas” which was organised by Sonrisas de Bombay, Business and Human Rights, The Rights Factory and Deusto Business School.

The UK Government’s commitment to the Business and Human Rights agenda is well known. I am proud to say the UK was the first country to produce a National Action Plan to implement the Guiding Principles produced by the UN in 2011.

Of course we want UK companies to succeed. But that success must be consistent with our deeply held values of human rights and individual dignity. Responsible action by the private sector on human rights is good for business and communities – because it helps create jobs, because fairness attracts customers and because it contributes towards market sustainability.

Progress on National Action Plans:

The Netherlands, Denmark, Finland and most recently Sweden have published National Action Plans. Many other countries are in the process of developing plans, including the US, Ireland, France, and Germany.

Since publication of our Action Plan the UK Government has taken a number of steps to fulfil the commitments made. For example:

• An amendment was made to the Companies Act to require all Listed Companies to report on their human rights impacts.
• We have issued guidance to all our embassies around the world on how to promote business and human rights and in particular how to advise UK companies. I have blogged about activity this Embassy has carried out on Business and Human Rights previously here.
• The Modern Slavery Act, which came into effect in March this year specifically addresses slavery and trafficking in the 21st century. This legislation includes a provision to encourage business to take action to ensure their end-to-end supply chains are slavery free.

There is also a huge amount being done by business. For example, guidance has been published for the Information and Communications Sector advising on how to assess the human rights risks of exporting their products and services.

The UK government is currently in the process of reviewing our Action Plan and we will update it by the end of this year.　 As with the development of our National Action Plan the review exercise is being done in close consultation with business and civil society.　 Since we published our Action Plan there have been new ideas, other National Action plans and best practice developed which we will take into consideration when we are developing our plan.

We will continue to support the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights and encourage other countries to develop their own actions plans through leading by example. This is not an issue we can solve quickly, whilst we have made excellent progress in the last few years, there is still a lot more to do.