Fears US-UK trade deal 'may open door to food made with slave labour'
Under terms reaffirmed by the UK and US governments on Tuesday, up to 13,000 metric tonnes of American beef can be imported into Britain tariff-free each year.
Though the Labour Government has said this US beef will meet current UK food safety standards – so it will not be hormone-treated – it will not take an active hand in ensuring that goods produced with forced labour do not enter the UK, instead leaving it up to individual companies.
However, Justine Carter, the director of strategy at the influential anti-slavery charity Unseen, said that although there were provisions in place to compel companies to comply with UK modern slavery regulations, punishments had 'never' been levied.
READ MORE: Record high modern slavery referrals 'shows shocking scale' of issue in UK
Last year in the US, AP published a two-year investigation which found that food produced with prison labour was "on the shelves of virtually every supermarket in the country' and had also been exported abroad – including to 'countries that have had products blocked from entering the US for using forced or prison labour'.
According to conventions from the United Nations' International Labour Organization (ILO), forced labour is all work extracted under a threat of penalty and not undertaken voluntarily. While there is an exemption for labour imposed as a penalty following a court conviction, using that labour for economic benefit is prohibited.
Prisoners at sites including Angola, the Louisiana State Penitentiary on the site of a former slave plantation, reported being beaten if they refused to work the fields, or being given toilet paper and menstrual pads in lieu of pay.
AP further reported that forced-labour goods entered 'intricate, invisible webs' of supply chains which made it near-impossible to trace them back to their prison origin. The outlet had to resort to literally following trucks of cows from prisons in order to establish where their meat ended up.
Beef produced with forced or prison labour was found to be widespread in the US supply chainThe lack of transparency in the US supply chain, and poor enforcement of anti-slavery regulations in the UK, raise fears that meat produced using forced labour could enter British supermarkets – as was recently found to have happened with China-produced tomatoes.
Carter – who led the development of the Modern Slavery Act during her time working as a policy advisor in the Home Office – said that prison labour 'can tip into modern slavery, where inmates really have no choice around doing the work and there's no means for them to refuse to do the work without receiving some kind of penalty'.
'It's dependent on the context, on the conditions that they're working in, and really on the kind of legal framework,' she added, suggesting that such legal complexities mean it may be possible for prison-produced beef to enter the UK legally.
Her charity Unseen notes that the 2015 UK Modern Slavery Act places 'obligations on companies with a turnover of £36 million or more to publish what they are doing to ensure their business and supply chains are free from slavery'. However, as of July 2022, some 5551 UK companies had failed to do so without any consequence.
READ MORE: Labour set to bin anti-slavery policy in GB Energy Bill
Carter said that while the exact figure 'goes up and down' and was likely now closer to 4000, that is 'the sad reality'.
'The penalty is a bit convoluted,' she went on. 'The Home Secretary has to take an injunction out on a business that's failed to comply, and if they then continue to fail to comply, the court could award a fine, an unlimited fine, but that process has never been gone through.
'So although we know there are all these cases – and we've raised these with the Home Office – no action has been taken.'
Carter pointed to legislation developments abroad, including in Canada, Australia, France, and the EU's 2024 Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive.
She said these laws were 'very much looking at financial penalties as a percentage of global turnover etc', adding: 'There's a real push for the UK to follow suit.'
The Home Office has never fined a company for failing its modern slavery obligations (Image: Alamy/PA) 'At the moment, [in the UK] we've got businesses who are ticking boxes, who are putting out statements – even if they do put out a statement – and it's just been tweaked from the year before. It's not a real effort to make sure that their supply chains are free from slavery.'
Sian Lea, the head of UK and European advocacy at Anti-Slavery International, urged the UK Government to bring in more robust anti-slavery regulations.
'We must all be able to purchase food without fear that they have been sourced and produced with forced labour,' she told the Sunday National.
'While the UK Government expects UK companies to do everything in their power to remove forced labour from their supply chains, there are no laws that compel them to do that.
'Through this trade deal [with the US], the UK Government has the opportunity to drive better business practices and more adequately address forced labour risks.
READ MORE: Commissioner: Modern slavery no longer Home Office priority
'With import controls, the UK could ensure that products being imported from anywhere are not reliant on forced labour. And this should be complemented by a due diligence law which requires UK companies to prevent harm in their supply chains.'
Carter said that a drive to push down costs could lead to forced labour entering the supply chain, and urged companies to be diligent.
'If you're pressing down on cost, time, quality, to the extent that you know it's going to have some implication down the supply chain, then you can only expect to be called out on that when forced labour is found,' she said.
'I've always talked about legislation being a bit of a blunt instrument because it does provide the framework, but the framework has to be strong, it has to be resilient, it has to be robust – and then there has to be also an enforcement of that.'
READ MORE: MP hits outs at supermarkets selling products linked to slave labour
'Unfortunately, when you're in these times of austerity when people are struggling, high interest rates, high costs of food, etc, you know people cut corners, consumers are less interested in where it's come from and how it's arrived on the shelf and more interested in the price.
'This is why maybe the onus is put on businesses a bit. There's almost an expectation that as a consumer, I'm expecting that business to have done its due diligence.'
A UK Government spokesperson said: 'No company in the UK should have forced labour in its supply chain and we expect UK businesses to do everything in their power to remove any instances of forced labour from their supply chains. Any evidence of businesses not doing so is highly concerning.
"British farmers produce some of the best food in the world and this is a great deal as we have opened up access to a huge American market, but without any weakening of UK food standards on imports."
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