North Ayrshire Council became the 50th Council across Britain to sign up to the Charter Against Modern Slavery and I was proud to move the motion at the full council meeting.

I want to pay tribute to the work of the Co-operative Group in highlighting this issue and working to provide real jobs for victims of human trafficking. I am proud to be a Co-operative Party Councillor putting forward this policy but I also want to point to cross party support elsewhere in Scotland when this charter has been agreed in the City of Edinburgh, Dundee City and Renfrewshire Councils, as there was in North Ayrshire.

This is about doing what is right and protecting the human rights of everyone and recognising that we need to make sure that our procurement processes encourage good work place practices. We must be concerned about the treatment of everyone in our supply chains whether that is about the Living Wage, trade unions rights or in this case human trafficking.

Over the last couple of months the Co-operative Party has worked with the wider co-operative movement to address human trafficking, which is an issue our members have raised with us.

This has demonstrated the real difference that Co-operative Party elected representatives make. I will be keeping a close eye on how North Ayrshire implements this policy. I will also be listening to the co-operative movement and looking for ways to promote more co-op policies.