As we sit in the conference hall and wander around the exhibitions this year, a key message on everybody’s lips will be the need to make business more responsible. We will pledge to ban zero-hours contracts, fight for a living wage and reverse Tory attacks on health and safety.

No doubt there will be debate. On how far we go, how we force companies to take their responsibilities seriously and what we really want from our companies.

What we won’t be discussing is large, world-renowned British companies trafficking people to come and work in their factories or on the fields here in Britain. 

We won’t be discussing the accommodation for these workers living in squalor, sleeping on dirty, wet, bug-infested mattresses in hot, overcrowded conditions. We will not be discussing child labour in Britain.

We will not be discussing these things because they are simply far beyond the pale of what we expect for workers here in this country. 

If these things happen, as I am sure they do, they are not seen to be the work of major British companies. We must eradicate this exploitation and abuse, but we do not hold large British enterprises to account.

And yet, while our companies put on an innocent front for their activities here in Britain, in their supply chains abroad it is an entirely different story.

British American Tobacco should be condemned for its treatment of immigrant workers on the tobacco fields in North Carolina. 

My colleague Ian Lavery and I recently visited these fields and were shocked at what we saw.

Aside from their appalling living conditions, workers are out with the sun beating down in open fields with no shade, at temperatures upward of 35°C. 

They have no access to toilet facilities and many are suffering from green tobacco sickness, leading to nausea, headaches, vomiting and insomnia due to their employers not providing even basic health and safety equipment such as gloves.

Men work alongside women and children. Women are forced into relationships with contractors, with retaliation in terms of shifts and working conditions if they do not comply.

Workers do not receive their pay. It goes to traffickers who take their cut for accommodation, transportation and food. Those out on the tobacco fields can never be certain they receive the correct amount because they do not receive a pay cheque.

As only one other example of some of the disgusting human rights abuses in British supply chains we turn now to India, where workers climb across smoky kilns, hacking at clay and carrying heavy loads. 

It is described as modern-day slavery, with abuses of minimum wage rates and health and safety regulations. And they cannot escape, often tied to it due to bonded labour.

Workers produce over 1,500 bricks a day and are only able to leave after six months, with children suffering from severe respiratory problems.

According to Union Solidarity International, which has been running the Blood Bricks campaign against these abuses, any company that owns premises in India is potentially liable. 

It is a worldwide issue, where any sector can be implicated if they use new buildings in India. 

It is a pandemic problem and all global companies need to wake up to these horrendous abuses.

As Labour Party activists, we cannot close our eyes to what our companies are doing abroad. 

It is right that we campaign for better working conditions here in Britain, but we cannot neglect those abroad while we continue to buy products based on slave labour.

So when we discuss how to give our workers the rights they deserve here in Britain, let us also put pressure on our companies — and tell them that we will not accept human rights abuses abroad either.

Socialism is a global movement. Let’s stand up for our brothers and sisters abroad, and make sure British money is not funding what can only be described as slave labour.

Jim Sheridan is MP for Paisley and Renfrewshire North.