My Lords, as we move to Amendment 108, I should declare my interests as set out in the register: my involvement in a number of all-party parliamentary groups, and the fact that I am patron of the Coalition for Genocide Response. I should also declare my support for the other two amendments in the group, Amendments 162 and 173, which will be spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, who has trenchantly and consistently pursued the arguments around forced organ harvesting and the public exhibition of anonymous cadavers from Chinese jails. I have spoken in favour of those amendments previously and will not repeat my arguments today.
Like those two amendments, Amendment 108 is an all-party amendment, which was tabled in Committee by the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, by the noble Baronesses, Lady Hodgson of Abinger and Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, and by myself, and supported by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, who is a sponsor today. It would have been moved by the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, but he has had to self-isolate in Cumbria with Covid, and we all wish him a speedy return to his place.
Yesterday the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, was able to attend an online meeting with the noble Earl, Lord Howe, and the noble Lord, Lord Kamall, and he asked me to move the amendment in his place. I thank both Ministers for their constructive engagement, and perhaps I might pursue further with them some of the arguments and issues raised yesterday. During our discussion the department told me that it had found no evidence of child labour, forced labour or unethical behaviour. Indeed, that was a repeat of a statement made to me in a parliamentary reply by the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, when he was a Minister.
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How does that square with reports to the contrary in the public domain? On what basis was a c grade given to the companies which have been buying merchandise from China? Who went into the Xinjiang factories and forced labour camps? I should say that today at 4.34 pm I was sent a letter from the department saying that 13 performance areas were asked about according to something called amfori BSCI monitoring —it is not explained in the letter what that is and perhaps the noble Earl will be able to tell us—and that they had reached “an acceptable level of maturity.” What does that mean? What is an acceptable level of maturity and how does that square with the so-called c grade that these 13 performance areas had previously been given? Were these in Xinjiang? What were these performance areas? Where were they? Did we look at forced labour camps and what did we see? How was the judgment arrived at? I asked about this in Committee and again during yesterday’s meeting. This is an issue that should go on the public record, and I hope the noble Earl will agree to put the letter that I was sent just before today’s proceedings into the Library of your Lordships’ House so that everyone will be able to study it.
The issues underlining the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, were aired at length in Committee, building on his consistent complaint that we are insufficiently self-reliant and have become too dependent on goods made by slave labour which by their very definition will always be cheaper and therefore destroy competitiveness both here and elsewhere.
In Committee I asked specifically about a Guardian report concerning MedPro. All I have received are coveralls about commercial sensitivity and mediation processes, and that is reiterated in the letter today. That does not give enough information for the House about vast sums of public money and even more importantly about where the goods originated.
To avoid repetition of all the arguments, the signatories of this amendment have circulated an article on yesterday’s edition of PoliticsHome setting out the arguments in favour of the amendment. In summary, the amendment
is about the procurement of merchandise for the National Health Service from states credibly accused of genocide. Why is it needed? It is because of the possibility that perpetrators of this crime above all crimes are benefitting from procurement by the UK Government and because spending taxpayers’ money on the proceeds of genocide and slave labour is unacceptable and should be unconscionable.
Although the amendment is generic and does not name any country, the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, made it clear in Committee that this would have a significant effect on the procurement of goods from Xinjiang, where both the Foreign Secretary and the House of Commons after a vote declared that a genocide is under way. For the avoidance of doubt, the Department for Health and Social Care’s records show that over the course of the pandemic the department generated orders for 36.9 billion items of personal protective equipment and that of these, 24.1 billion items have a country of origin recorded as China, including 10.7 billion gloves.
In a reply I received last year I was told that we had bought 1 billion lateral flow tests from China. Curiously, the letter I have received today—perhaps again the noble Earl will be able to amplify this—on one hand says it would be commercially sensitive to tell me what has been spent on these items of PPE and specifically on lateral flow tests, but elsewhere tells me that £4.8 billion has been spent. So, it is either commercially sensitive or it is not, and I do not understand what the figure therefore relates to.
So how does the amendment address this? What is its purpose? In the light of reports of slave labour-made PPE entering our supply chains, it meets the clear and urgent need to address health procurement. Recall that Dominic Raab rightly described the industrialisation of more than 1 million incarcerated Uighurs in Xinjiang. The amendment requires the Government to address our heavy dependence upon regions which, in whole or part, produce slave-made PPE and which too often goes unaddressed. This House is being consistent with its earlier decisions in urging the Government to come forward with a comprehensive policy on genocide which is long overdue.
As the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, said in Committee, in comparison with the bipartisan legislation in the United States, with its rebuttable presumption on all trade with China, this amendment is modest. In a proportionate and balanced way, it does not circumnavigate the Government’s position that a determination of genocide is for competent courts only. It only requires a response where serious risk of genocide is said to occur. If the Foreign Secretary is right, how can we justify spending billions of pounds on billions of items made by slave labour in a state that she has accused of genocide? The amendment lays a duty on a Minister of the Crown to assess whether there is a risk of genocide in the sourcing region if the chair of a relevant Select Committee of either House requests such an assessment to be made.
It is worth reminding the House that the list of those supporting the amendment includes the British Medical Association, Accountability Unit, atrocity prevention organisations such as the World Uyghur Congress and many others. I also drew the attention of the seminar about this amendment held in your Lordships’
House two days ago to the valued support of my noble friend Lord Stevens of Birmingham, the former chief executive of the National Health Service.
Why would anyone want to oppose this? The department tells us that it is not appropriate to address genocide in a health Bill. However, not only is there a specific and huge issue centred on National Health Service procurement—very much a Department of Health and Social Care issue—but genocide is not a narrow departmental matter. It is something which, under the 1948 convention on the crime of genocide, we are all required to address, in whatever capacity and right across government. The department is also bound by the law. The requirements are set out in Theresa May’s landmark legislation, the Modern Slavery Act, which I gave my total support to when it passed through your Lordships’ House in 2015. There are legal duties here.
I also take this opportunity respectfully to suggest to the noble Earl that we must not make sweeping claims about the good state of our health supply chains. There is much more to this than the Telegraph report which linked £150 million of PPE directly to Xinjiang. I mentioned to the noble Earl in conversation that Professor Laura Murphy’s seminal report In Broad Daylight details various NHS providers who are heavily implicated in China’s labour transfer schemes, which are widely acknowledged to be involuntary work schemes targeted at ethnic minorities.
I am also aware that analyses are under way of NHS-procured PPE, which is highly likely to show that many constituents originate in Xinjiang. I particularly draw the attention of the House to the extraordinary and remarkable speech the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, made in Committee, where he talked about the work of Oritain and how it can determine right down to the last shred the origins of cotton. That is obviously very significant in this context, and I was grateful that the final paragraph of the letter I have referred to says that the department’s officials will be happy to meet Oritain. That is extremely welcome.
While I am at it, I also refer the noble Earl to the House of Commons Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee’s fifth report of Session 2019-21, which said:
“We were disappointed by the Government’s statement, as it introduced no significant new measures to prohibit UK businesses from profiting from the forced labour of Uyghurs in Xinjiang and other parts of China. We are also deeply concerned about reports that the Government procured personal protective equipment from factories in Xinjiang and other parts of China implicated in modern slavery during the early part of the Covid-19 pandemic.”
So, this is not scaremongering on the part of noble Lords or people who are perceived to be hostile to the Chinese Communist Party. This is a reputable report from a House of Commons Select Committee for people of high academic distinction. The noble Earl will perhaps want to study it in more detail.
The department tells us it is not appropriate to address genocide in a health Bill, but not only is there a specific and huge issue centred on NHS procurement—very much a health department issue—but genocide is not a narrow departmental matter: it is, as I said, something that every department in government needs to address, and the House needs to reach decisions on this and on the other two amendments in this group.
I end by simply citing public support: two-thirds of those polled, some 65%, say they would support preventing the Government from procuring health equipment for the National Health Service from regions where they believe there is a serious risk of genocide. So there is widespread public support for what the promoters of this all-party amendment are asking the House to do. The House should seize this opportunity to ensure that our National Health Service is free from slave labour and, on behalf of the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, I beg to move.