The UK Department for Business, Innovation and Skills is consulting on proposals to improve enforcement measures to tackle labour exploitation. This includes:

  • establishing a statutory Director of Labour Market Enforcement
  • creating a new offence of an aggravated breach of labour market legislation
  • increasing intelligence and data sharing between the existing enforcement bodies
  • widening the remit, increasing the powers and changing the name of the Gangmasters Licensing Authority to enable it to deal with serious exploitation

This IHRB submission offers comments and recommendations to the UK Government to ensure the proposals are as robust and coherent as possible in implementing the Government's duty to protect against business-related human rights impacts.

IHRB has also joined a submission by numerous organisations representing businesses, labour providers, civil society, workers and victims of exploitation, in support of a strong, licensed system for labour providers.

Latest IHRB Publications

How should businesses respond to an age of conflict and uncertainty?

As 2024 began, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen aptly summed up our deeply worrying collective moment. As she put it, speaking at the annual World Economic Forum in Switzerland, we are moving through “an era of conflict and...

Bulldozer Injustice: how a company’s product is being used to violate rights in India

Bulldozers have been linked to human rights violations for many years, at least since 2003 when the US activist Rachel Corrie was crushed to death by a Caterpillar bulldozer while protesting against the demolition of a Palestinian home with a family...

The state of just transitions in the cocoa sector

The mounting impacts of the climate crisis are seen starkly in the lives of agricultural workers, most often in developing countries. Discussions around just transitions understandably focus on energy, but agriculture and deforestation are also huge...

{/exp:channel:entries}