Voluntary modern slavery and human trafficking statement

About us

Airport Bus Express Limited (ABE) is a provider of airport coach travel in the infrastructure sector. We are a part of the Autostradale Group, which is owned by STAR Group, who have their head offices in Italy. ABE is an SME and employs around 60 staff. ABE operates in the UK and the STAR Group businesses operate in Italy.

ABE's annual turnover is under £36 million. Although we are not required to make a modern slavery statement under section 54 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015, we are making this voluntary statement to show our commitment to ethical trading principles and to set out the steps we are taking to identify risks and tackle modern slavery and human trafficking in our business and in our supply chains.

Policy

Our Modern Slavery Policy reflects our commitment to acting ethically and with integrity in all our business relationships and to implementing and enforcing effective systems and controls to ensure slavery and human trafficking is not taking place anywhere in our supply chains. We will keep our Modern Slavery Policy under continuous review.

Policy statement

Modern slavery is a crime and a violation of fundamental human rights. It takes various forms, such as slavery, servitude, forced and compulsory labour and human trafficking, all of which have in common the deprivation of a person's liberty by another to exploit them for personal or commercial gain. We have a zero-tolerance approach to modern slavery. We are committed to acting ethically and with integrity in all our business dealings and relationships and to implementing and enforcing effective systems and controls to ensure modern slavery is not taking place anywhere in our own business or in any of our supply chains.

We are also committed to ensuring there is transparency in our own business and in our approach to tackling modern slavery throughout our supply chains, consistent with the disclosure obligations under the Modern Slavery Act 2015. We expect the same high standards from all of our contractors, suppliers and other business partners.

Governance

In relation to the UK Modern Slavery Act 2015, our ownership group will require ABE to:

• respect both the letter and spirit of law
• uphold high standards of care, diligence, objectivity, accuracy in all our work and business relationships
• conduct business relationships with honesty, respect and integrity
• support and contribute positively to the communities and local environment in which we work
• demonstrate, on an annual basis, the extent of our compliance.

Due diligence and risk assessment

To help identify and monitor the risk of slavery and human trafficking in our supply chain in FY 2024/25 we will strengthen the due diligence we undertake on our suppliers and we will carry out further risk assessments. This is to ensure transparency and continuity in preventing any form of modern slavery and human trafficking from permeating into our supply chains. We will engage with suppliers and sub-contractors to ensure that they are committed to ethical labour practices.

We will obtain modern slavery statements from those suppliers who are required to make a statement under section 54 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 (or who have made a voluntary statement). If a supplier does not have its own statement, we will provide them with our own voluntary slavery and human trafficking statement and policy. This is to ensure transparency and continuity in preventing any form of modern slavery and human trafficking from permeating into our supply chains.

Training

To ensure a high level of understanding of the risks of modern slavery and human trafficking in our supply chains and our business, we will be providing training to our staff. We may also require our business partners to provide training to their staff and suppliers and providers.

Summary of Actions

In FY 2024/25 we will:

• continue to review and assess the risks of modern slavery in our supply chain
• extend our awareness training for those in the Company that procure suppliers in areas and industries that we have identified as having a higher risk of modern slavery
• commence a review of our supplier process and procurement policy including embedding the identification of potential or actual human rights impacts linked to the products and services we procure.

This statement is made pursuant to section 54(1) of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 and constitutes the Company’s slavery and human trafficking statement for the financial year ending 31 March 2025.

This voluntary modern slavery and human trafficking statement was approved by the UK Director or Airport Bus Express Limited

Date: 15th July 2024