Modern Slavery Statement

Russell’s (Kirbymoorside) Limited Modern Slavery Statement issued pursuant to Section 54 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 for Financial Year ended 31^st October 2023

1. Structure, business and supply chain

Russells (Kirbymoorside) Limited is one of the largest suppliers of agricultural and groundcare equipment, support and servicing and related accessories in the United Kingdom. We are headquartered in the United Kingdom and sell our products predominantly within the United Kingdom and European Union.

We are serious about our brand because it is part of our identity and so is our commitment to corporate social responsibility. We believe transparency is the best way we can ensure the public that we are doing our best as an ethical corporate citizen. In that spirit, we have published our annual statement for slavery and human trafficking, made in compliance with section 54 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015, in which we explain how slavery and human trafficking can affect our business and the steps we are taking in the fight against it. This statement is intended to fulfil the legal requirement for a slavery and human trafficking statement on behalf of Russell’s (Kirbymoorside) Limited.

2. Slavery and human trafficking policies

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 in order to exploit them for personal or commercial gain.

We have a zero-tolerance approach to modern slavery and 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.

Notably, we updated our Supplier Code of Conduct which sets out clear objectives for our slavery and human trafficking plans around the following themes:

Relationships: Strengthening our supplier engagement process
Supplier collaboration: Encouraging suppliers to collaborate to address slavery and human trafficking issues
Feedback: Establishing grievance mechanisms and channels for individual worker feedback
Knowledge: Improving our knowledge base by collecting relevant data and improving product traceability

• Accountability: Establishing a framework for organisation accountability to allow for raising issues, making suggestions, voicing grievances and reporting slavery and human trafficking.

3. Due diligence procedures

Our Directors have overall responsibility for ensuring this policy complies with our legal and ethical obligations, and that all those under our control comply with it.

Senior management has primary and day-to-day responsibility for implementing this policy, monitoring its use and effectiveness, dealing with any queries about it, and auditing internal control systems and procedures to ensure they are effective in countering modern slavery.

We understand that our biggest exposure to modern slavery is in our product supply chains. As the company employs approximately 230 staff, we are unable to take an active, hands on approach to supply chain audits of external suppliers. As a result, we rely on the policies and procedures of our main suppliers in relation to potential breaches further down our supply chain as noted below

4. Identifying, assessing and managing risk

We purchase from over 400 different suppliers each year. These suppliers range from locally based small businesses through to large global organisations and the vast majority of our purchases are from suppliers based either in the UK or European Union. Where possible, we engage suppliers who have relationships with existing suppliers so that we can contain our supplier network and improve consistency in ethical practices throughout the supply chain.

The Walk Free Foundation (who campaign on modern slavery) have profiled modern slavery risks in the UK and UK based industrial supply chains are not a common source of modern slavery. Whilst we cannot categorically state that there is no modern slavery in our suppliers, we assess the risk of this being low.

Our main source of products, be it equipment or parts, continues to be the OEM with our main suppliers being CNH Industrial, Pottinger, McHale, McConnel and Reesink who are based in the European Union and Kubota and Takeuchi who are based in Japan. With regards to the above, the links below detail the policies in place in our main suppliers’ supply chains.

https://www1.cnhindustrial.com/en-US/governance/slavery_and_human_trafficking_statement

https://www.mcconnel.com/general/policies-and-legal-notices/

https://www.reesinkagriculture.co.uk/slavery-statement/

https://kuk.kubota-eu.com/corporate/corporate-social-responsibility/

https://www.takeuchi-mfg.co.uk/modern-slavery/

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 our disclosure obligations under the Modern Slavery Act 2015. We expect the same high standards from all of our contractors, suppliers and other business partners. We aim to encourage openness and will support anyone who raises genuine concerns in good faith under this policy, even if they turn out to be mistaken. We are committed to ensuring no one suffers any detrimental treatment as a result of reporting in good faith their suspicion that modern slavery of whatever form is or may be taking place in any part of our own business or in any of our supply chains.

The CEO is the person with overall responsibility for compliance on behalf of the business in relation to tackling Modern Slavery. Any concerns from suppliers, customers or staff or any third parties regarding Modern Slavery in relation to Russell’s (Kirbymoorside) Limited should be directed to Paul Russell, CEO, in the first instance.

This statement has been approved by the Board of Directors and will be reviewed annually.

As part of our ongoing commitment, we will continuously monitor our behaviour and those of our suppliers to minimise the risk of any form of Modern Slavery.

Paul Russell Chris Kellett

Chief Executive Officer Director

31^st May 2024