My Lords, it is a great privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, in what was a powerful, disturbing and very thoughtful speech. I think all of us who are privileged to be in the Committee today are indebted to him for that and the way he introduced this group of amendments, to which I am a signatory, along with the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, and my noble friend Lady Finlay of Llandaff. She sends her apologies for not being able to be physically present today, but she strongly supports the amendment, as does the noble Lord, Lord Ribeiro. It is worth bearing in mind that both of those noble Lords have held very high office in the medical institutions in this country and it is good that their names are attached either to the amendment or to the arguments that go with it.
I declare interests as vice-chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Uyghurs, who the noble Lord referred to, and on Hong Kong, as patron of Hong Kong Watch and as a member of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China. This amendment deals with a gruesome and barbaric lethal practice that has been prevalent in China. Last Thursday, here in the Moses Room, a debate was held on the International Relations and Defence Select Committee report on China, trade and security. The noble Viscount, Lord Younger of Leckie, was present throughout proceedings and the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, was present and contributed to those proceedings, during the course of which a number of
us referred to the levels of trade and, inter alia, the level of procurement that is carried out with China by the United Kingdom.
The noble Lord, Lord Purvis, pointed out that we have a £40 billion deficit in trade with the People’s Republic of China. That would be reason enough for considering, in the context of resilience and dependency, why procurement policies with a country designated by the Government as recently as last month as “a threat” to the United Kingdom should be radically readdressed. During the debate last Thursday in the Moses Room, I referred to earlier debates in this Committee on the Bill specifically about Hikvision. It is worth recalling that the noble Lord, Lord True, was gracious enough to have several meetings in his office to discuss this, as well as dealing with it at that stage. I know the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, well enough—I congratulate her, as others have done, on her appointment as Minister—to know that she will take this as seriously as he did.
The company Hikvision is responsible for the surveillance cameras in Xinjiang referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt. But these cameras were purchased through our procurement policies by great departments of state and are used in local government and by public authorities up and down the length and breadth of this country. These cameras are used to impose the surveillance state on the Uighur Muslims referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt.
At the conclusion of our debate last Thursday, the noble Lord, Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park, promised he would write to me in response to my question specifically about whether, during the next set of proceedings on the Bill—therefore, on Report—the amendments that many of us argued for at earlier stages will be agreed by the Government. I hope that the noble Baroness’s officials will talk to his officials before he writes that letter, so that we genuinely get joined-up government on this.
I hope they will also look at the Biden Administration’s legislation on goods made by slave labour, something that the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, and I have raised in other legislation and that we both, as well as other members of the Committee, feel very strongly about. They should also look at legislation the Biden Administration introduced called the CHIPS Act and the Inflation Reduction Act, which draw together the prioritisations of investing in domestic industry, tackling climate change and reducing dependency on authoritarian regimes. All those things should be done in the context of this Bill.
In parentheses, I remind the Committee that we bought 1 billion—not 1 million, but 1 billion—lateral flow tests from the People’s Republic of China and 24 billion items of personal protective equipment where China was recorded as the country of origin. The cost to the United Kingdom was a staggering £10.9 billion—about the equivalent of our now reduced overseas aid and development budget. This is British taxpayers’ money pouring through our procurements into the pockets of a country that stands accused of the appalling barbarism identified in Amendment 185, and indeed of genocide.
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On Friday, I will seek to move the Second Reading of my Private Member’s Bill on genocide determination. I will have more to say on those monstrous crimes against the Uighur Muslims then, but today, in supporting the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, I will focus on one aspect of the genocidal practices of a country that figures over and again in our procurement policies. That aspect, as described by the noble Lord, is forced organ harvesting.
Just last month, a Japanese man, Ushio Sugawara, spoke out for the first time about his experience in August 2007, saying that he was a witness of China’s live organ trade, having seen an anaesthetised Falun Gong adherent, with tendons cut to prevent his flight, shortly before the man was placed on an operating table to have his liver carved out. In his testimony, Sugawara said that his friend’s brother was desperate for a new liver and a Chinese broker who facilitated transplant tourism with people in Japan put the brother in touch with Beijing’s general hospital of the armed police forces, a state-run military hospital. Within a month, they had a suitable donor, telling him to fly over for surgery “anytime” for the price of 30 million yen.
The day before the scheduled surgery, Sugawara visited his friend’s brother and learned that the donor was in the next room. A Chinese doctor, fluent in Japanese, asked him if he would like to have a look, drawing back the curtain to reveal a 21 year-old man. The man was unresponsive due to being anaesthetised. The doctor told Sugawara, “He’s very young. The liver is very healthy”. The doctor claimed the man to be a “bad person” and a death row prisoner, and said, according to Sugawara’s testimony, “He will die sooner or later, and this way, he can make some more contribution before his death.” He then branded the man as a “terrorist group member”. Pressed by Sugawara on what the man did, the doctor answered that he was Falun Gong.
During the Uyghur Tribunal hearings, which the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, referred to and which were chaired by the eminent lawyer Sir Geoffrey Nice KC, Sayragul Sauytbay testified that she had discovered medical files detailing Uighur detainees’ blood types and results of liver tests while she was working at a Uighur camp. In her statement about the Uighur camps, she says:
“They took blood samples from detainees, they drew blood periodically. I didn’t experience medical examination, but all the detainees did. Each detainee had a medical file. There were times that I was ordered to organise the medical files. And while doing that I saw the information in the file with my own eyes. In the medical file, the blood type, any infectious disease, 5 different test results of the liver, detailed results of blood tests, x-ray results … Basically whatever the information related to one’s health all clearly recorded in the file.”
A recent European Parliament resolution on reports of continued organ harvesting in China, which passed only in May this year, acknowledges that the China Tribunal concluded that
“forced organ harvesting had been committed for years throughout China on a significant scale and that Falun Gong practitioners had been one—and probably the main—source of organ supply”.
As noble Lords have heard many times, the China Tribunal also concluded:
“In regard to the Uyghurs the Tribunal had evidence of medical testing on a scale that could allow them, amongst other uses, to become an ‘organ bank’.”
The recent European Parliament resolution calls on the Chinese authorities
“to promptly respond to the allegations of organ harvesting and to allow independent monitoring by international human rights mechanisms”.
It also includes a call to “relevant institutions” in EU member states
“to evaluate and revisit the terms of their collaborations with Chinese institutions on transplant medicine, research and training”.
I am grateful to the Government, as the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, has already said that he is, that they have begun to legislate on this issue. It is in many respects thanks to his work that those pieces of legislation have been bicameral, and bipartisan across all parts of your Lordships’ House. I am glad that the Government have legislated on extraterritorial provisions to the Human Tissue Act but, like him, I would like to see more done. That is what this amendment is about.
In 2016, the UK signed a £300 million UK-China hospital partnership, unveiling a
“10 year exclusive global hospital partnership that includes involvement in building and managing the new 200 bed IHG Qingdao International Hospital and future projects in Shanghai and Chengdu”.
The press release on the government website goes on to say this:
“Wanda says it will invest up to £1.5 billion in the first three projects, with IHG targeting revenue of at least £300 million—another tangible example of benefits from the UK-China global partnership. Trade and investment between the UK and China has hit historic highs with up to £40 billion in deals signed during President Xi’s … State Visit to the UK.
The UK enjoys a global reputation for a high quality medical system and service. UK expertise is sought-after by Chinese companies seeking commercial healthcare partnerships from medical training to hospital operation, medical investment and specific disease treatment.”
This is a country that we have just identified as a threat to the United Kingdom, and we are boasting about a £1.5 billion investment there. I ask the Minister whether that £300 million partnership is continuing, considering the abundance of evidence that forced organ harvesting is happening in China. Does the UK-China hospital project include facilities for organ transplantation surgery?
The latest business and human rights legal advisory report by the international law firm Global Rights Compliance, entitled Do No Harm: Mitigating Human Rights Risks when Interacting with International Medical Institutions & Professionals in Transplant Medicine, says that
“the provision of medical tools, equipment and technology specifically used for organ transplantation to Chinese medical facilities or detention centres that are likely engaged in forced organ harvesting may attract criminal responsibility for complicity”—
I repeat, criminal responsibility—and that
“clinical researchers that enter research collaborations using human organs with the knowledge and intentional disregard of the fact that these organs are sourced from persons who were killed for the purpose of organ removal could likely face criminal charges”.
Further action is urgently needed. This forced organ harvesting amendment to the Bill is essential to protect United Kingdom citizens. It will send a clear message to the Chinese Communist Party that the United Kingdom is a country that upholds medical and business ethics to the highest possible standards, and that we will speak out when we see the interests of Chinese people also being compromised in the way in which they have been.