North Ayrshire Council became the 50th local authority to sign up to the Charter Against Modern Slavery.

Councillors passed a motion, proposed by Cllr Donald Reid and seconded by Cllr Alex Gallagher, which stated that North Ayrshire Council pledges to ensure its corporate procurement team receive appropriate training in modern slavery.

NAC will also now require its contractors to comply fully with the Human Trafficking and Exploitation (Scotland) Act 2015 and the Modern Slavery Act 2015 wherever they apply, with contract termination as a potential sanction for non-compliance.

It will also challenge any abnormally low-cost tenders to ensure they do not rely upon the potential contractor practising modern slavery, and also publicise its whistleblowing system for staff.

Cllr Donald Reid said: “This is about doing what is right and protecting the human rights of everyone.

“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.”