Business of the House

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Thursday 23rd May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Watts (Lab)]

My Lords, yesterday’s debate was very interesting. I raised the issue of a woman whose daughter had been murdered in a hit and run and who had made a complaint to IPSO. That complaint was not dealt with properly and there was no redress for that woman. I asked the Minister what protection the Bill would give to such people—ordinary people who face abuse by the press and have no way of getting justice.

This is a very controversial Bill that should not be included in the wash-up, and I support those proposing that this clause should be removed.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, before we leave this issue, I will briefly raise Private Members’ Bills and the way in which they are dealt with in wash-up. The noble Lord is well aware that there is a Bill in the House of Commons on making permanent the position of the Prime Minister’s Special Envoy on Freedom of Religion or Belief. It passed all its stages in the Commons with the support of His Majesty’s loyal Opposition, with Front-Bench support. It has the support of the Lord Privy Seal’s noble friends, the noble Lords, Lord Ahmad and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton.

In the circumstances, will the noble Lord look again at the number of Private Members’ Bills and how they are being dealt with? If one has all-party support and has completed all its stages in another place, it still might be possible to accommodate it, even at this late stage.

Iran and Israel

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Monday 15th April 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, for highlighting the development of a nuclear capability in Iran and calling for the proscription of the IRGC, the Minister’s noble friend Lord Polak and I were sanctioned by the Iranian regime; therefore, it is not passing strange that we would press again about the proscription of the IRGC. However, can I ask specifically, first, about the 25 attempts over the past two years to kill British nationals or Iranians dissidents in this country, as recently as last month, leading to an Iranian dissident journalist bleeding on the streets of London and his three assailants able simply to leave this country immediately afterwards? How could that happen? Secondly, on the question of sanctions, companies that are making Shahed drones that are going to Moscow and then being used against Ukrainian civilians have western links. What are we doing to ensure that they are sanctioned? We look as though we are doing far too little in the face of a country that has aligned itself with North Korea, China and Russia in an axis that threatens the democracy and freedoms that we enjoy.

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, I agree with much that the noble Lord said. Indeed, he is right to say that since January 2022 we have identified at least 15 threats towards the lives of UK-based individuals. We are stepping up our response to Iranian regime activities. Last December, my noble friend Lord Cameron summoned Iran’s most senior diplomat to the Foreign Office in relation to reports of Iranian plots to kill two Iran International employees. We will not tolerate these kinds of threats. The Foreign Secretary reiterated to the Iranian Foreign Minister that these threats are unacceptable and must stop.

So far as drones and Russia and Ukraine are concerned, we have sanctioned 18 Iranian individuals and three entities for their involvement in the manufacture and transfer of drones used in Ukraine, as referred to briefly by the noble Lord, Lord Newby, adding to our existing sanctions on the Iranian drone programme. I referred to the illegality of assisting with these threats to our national security. At the Wassenaar Arrangement meeting in October last year, we called out Iran and Russia’s unacceptable collaboration in proliferating weapons, and as recently as last December we held Iran and Russia to account at the Security Council for this unacceptable collaboration, sharing evidence of the drones that Iran has provided to Russia to other Security Council members, and in meetings on Resolution 2231. We will continue to expose this rather desperate and, frankly, despicable alliance and to press this issue at the United Nations and elsewhere.

Long-Term Strategic Challenges Posed by China

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Thursday 19th October 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I begin by thanking the Leader of the House, the noble Lord, Lord True, for delivering on the promise he gave the House that this debate on the Intelligence and Security Committee report would take place in your Lordships’ Chamber. I also thank the noble Earl for the way he opened the debate and the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, who will wind up for the Government at its conclusion. All the speeches made so far speak for themselves. They show the breadth and depth of the knowledge about these issues in your Lordships’ House.

I declare some non-financial interests: as co-chair of the All-Party Group on North Korea, as vice-chair of the all-party groups on the Uyghurs and on Hong Kong, and as a patron of Hong Kong Watch. I am not sure whether it qualifies as an interest but, as others have referred to, and for the purpose of transparency, I should say that I have been sanctioned by the People’s Republic of China and, for good measure, by Iran now as well.

The debate is taking place at a time of great darkness in the world and against the backdrop of Putin’s illegal war in Ukraine and the Hamas terror attacks in Israel. Putin and the Chinese Communist Party chairman Xi Jinping have told us that they have “no limits” in their partnership. Both Xi and Putin are aligned with Khamenei in Iran, whose theocratic regime has been bankrolling and arming Hamas and Hezbollah.

Not to be outdone, in recent weeks North Korea’s dictator, Kim Jong-un, has delivered millions of artillery shells and rockets to Russia for use in Ukraine. China and North Korea have a mutual aid and co-operation treaty, signed in 1961, which is currently the only defence treaty either country has with any nation. I have written to the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, about the decision taken only last week by the PRC to forcibly repatriate North Koreans, who have been sent back to Pyongyang, in contravention of the 1951 convention on the treatment of refugees. Can the Minister tell us whether that is an issue we will be raising in the United Nations Human Rights Council, to which the People’s Republic of China, ironically, was re-elected just a few days ago?

Beyond North Korea, this new and deadly axis wants to replace the rules-based order—which has been referred to by the noble Lords, Lord Howell, Lord Alderdice and Lord Collins, and my noble and gallant friend—and the global stability that has been delivered pretty much since World War II, with rule by force and by diktat. It would be a mistake to see this alliance of dictators, theocrats, authoritarians and jihadists as separate threats. Their ideological differences will be parked temporarily as they use one another to pursue their shared hatred of the free world and its democracies. Xi Jinping sees us as weak and has frequently attacked Western values and multi-party democracy. His declared ambition is for the CCP regime to become the dominant world power by 2049, when his Communist Party will be 100 years old.

Dictators protect one another and exploit geopolitical chaos. Xi thinks nothing of making alliances and deals with Iran or, for that matter, with the Taliban in Afghanistan. Simultaneously, he secures the compliance of dependent countries—a point referred to by earlier speakers—by indebting them through belt and road projects and then demanding the votes of those countries at the United Nations. That too has implications, of course, for global order and security. I would be particularly keen to hear what assessment the Minister is making of the CCP’s current activities across Africa, a point made regularly in the International Relations and Defence Select Committee—on which I was proud to serve with my noble and gallant friend—by the noble Lord, Lord Boateng, who is in his place.

It is against this disturbing international backdrop that the House is considering some of the key observations of the Intelligence and Security Committee. Let us remember what that report begins with:

“China’s national imperative continues to be the continuing dominance and governance of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). However, it is its ambition at a global level – to become a technological and economic superpower, on which other countries are reliant – that represents the greatest risk to the UK.”


It explores what it calls

“the multifaceted nature of the intelligence threat posed by China”

and warns us that China pursues a “whole-of-state” approach, meaning that

“Chinese state-owned and non-state-owned companies, as well as academic and cultural establishments and ordinary Chinese citizens, are liable to be (willingly or unwillingly) co-opted into espionage and interference operations overseas”.

Most alarmingly, though, for me, the committee concludes that China has been able to

“successfully penetrate every sector of the UK’s economy”;

that

“Chinese money was readily accepted by HMG with few questions asked”;

and that external experts concluded

“very strongly that HMG did not have any strategy on China, let alone an effective one”.

The lack of action to identify and protect UK assets from a known threat was, the report argues,

“a serious failure, and one that the UK may feel the consequences of for years to come”.

Furthermore, the committee found there is “no evidence” that government departments tasked with countering Chinese interference have the necessary resources, expertise or knowledge. The level of resource dedicated to tackling the threat “has been completely inadequate”, and

“The slow speed at which strategies, and policies, are developed and implemented also leaves a lot to be desired”.


The committee added:

“Without swift and decisive action”


a “nightmare scenario” could emerge whereby China represented not just a

“commercial challenge, but … an existential threat to liberal democratic systems”.

That is not hawks speaking, of the kind referred to in the preceding speech, but a serious committee of Parliament.

In their response published last month, His Majesty’s Government pointed out that the committee’s inquiry related to evidence primarily presented in 2020 and that the Government’s integrated review of security, defence, development and foreign policy in 2021 and its refresh in 2023, which was referred to by the noble Earl, strengthened the United Kingdom’s position on China, recognising what it calls the

“epoch-defining and systemic challenge”

posed by China, and making it clear that

“national security will always come first”.

That was echoed by the noble Earl.

I welcome that progress and look forward to hearing the Minister set out what that means in terms of practical action, which the noble Lord, Lord Collins, referred to. But even since 2021 there have continued to be inconsistencies, mixed messaging and inadequate government responses to the threats posed by the CCP regime.

What is not in contention—here, I again echo what the noble Earl said—is that it is perfectly possible to admire the people, culture and civilisation of China while opposing the brutal dictatorship that rules China, currently led by Xi Jinping. But that is not the position of the Government, who pursue a Pushmi-Pullyu approach worthy of Dr Doolittle and believe you can make more trade deals with a regime accused of genocide against Muslim Uighurs.

That approach was in evidence again this week in reports about the reconvening of JETCO. Would it not be better to reduce our dependency on a regime with which we have a trade deficit of around £40 billion —a point the noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed, often makes—increase own resilience, especially in manufacturing, and enhance trade with countries that broadly share our values and beliefs? Here I echo what the noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guildford, said about the importance of the Commonwealth. But instead, we ignore the threats and seek deals with a regime which despises and threatens the world.

This is a regime that is intensifying atrocities in Tibet and that dismantled Hong Kong’s promised freedoms and autonomy, in total breach of the international treaty, the Sino-British joint declaration. It is a regime that stands accused of severe persecution of Christians, Falun Gong practitioners and other minorities, of committing the crime against humanity of forced organ harvesting and of unleashing a crackdown on civil society, lawyers, bloggers, journalists and dissidents across China. It is a regime that has escalated threats to Taiwan. It is a regime that, at least twice in the past year, has been accused of infiltrating this very Parliament with influencers and alleged spies. It is a regime that the head of MI5 has on multiple occasions—as recently as this week describing the threats to British businesses, as my noble and gallant friend said—warned poses a significant threat. The writing has been on the Great Wall of China for years.

We recall that in 2020, the Government were poised to invite the Chinese telecommunications company Huawei into our 5G network. The noble Earl made a virtue of the decision not to proceed with that, but it was only as a result of amendments here and a serious rebellion in the House of Commons, combined with pressure from the United States, Australia and other allies who saw the dangers, that the Government changed their mind. That failure to act in concert with our allies cost this country significant sums of money and damaged its reputation.

The same thing happened with Hikvision’s surveillance cameras. Since January 2020 I have raised this issue on more than 25 occasions in your Lordships’ House, describing them as tools of genocide because of the way surveillance cameras have been used in Xinjiang to facilitate the atrocity crimes perpetrated against the Uighurs. As I said in a previous debate,

“A negligent procurement policy means that we will ultimately end up stripping them out, as we did with Huawei, at huge public cost”.—[Official Report, 25/5/22; col. 878.]


That is exactly what we have ended up doing.

Sometimes the Government have done the right thing but very late in the day. The decision to force a Chinese-owned tech firm to sell at least 86% of its stake in Britain’s largest microchip company, Newport Wafer Fab, because of fears about the national security risks involved was the right one, but why did we allow China to invest in such a critical sector in the first place? The mixed messaging continues. I applaud His Majesty’s Government for joining the US and Australia in forming AUKUS, our security alliance, but while this is the right response, there is plenty that is not.

During our International Relations and Defence Committee inquiry into China, the noble Lord, Lord Patten of Barnes, using a word that my noble and gallant friend used himself in his remarks today, described our approach to China as “cakeism”—wanting to be more secure while simultaneously wanting more trade deals. An example of that is the failure to sanction Hong Kong officials responsible for their involvement in some of the events described by the noble Lord, Lord Patten. In January, two submissions on sanctions were made to the FCDO by Stand with Hong Kong via the All-Party Group on Hong Kong and by Hong Kong Watch. In February, FCDO officials said the submissions would be reviewed and a decision made by April. There has still been no response. Perhaps the Minister, particularly in the light of the growing number of political prisoners—there are more than 1,000 in prison in Hong Kong—will speak to his right honourable friend Anne-Marie Trevelyan MP to establish when a response will be forthcoming.

I have some other questions for the Minister—I will try to be brief. Why was the governor of Xinjiang invited to meet Foreign Office officials earlier this year, and why did it have to take public pressure for the visit to be cancelled? Why have not one but two Hong Kong Ministers—the Secretary for Financial Services, Christopher Hui, and then the Financial Secretary, Paul Chan—been in London this year? When the CCP has completely dismantled Hong Kong’s freedoms and autonomy and undermined its rule of law, is that appropriate?

Why was the first ministerial visit in five years by a British Minister to Hong Kong made by the Trade Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Johnson, with no apparent agenda to discuss human rights, during the continued imprisonment of British citizen Jimmy Lai—whose son Sebastien has been here in Parliament again this week? When will the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary follow the example of the US Administration, the European Union Parliament and the United Nations special rapporteurs and call for the immediate release of Mr Lai? Why did the noble Lord, Lord Johnson, speak at the Chinese embassy’s celebration of the 74th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China earlier this month? What kind of message does that send to a regime that the Government themselves say poses an “epoch-defining and systemic challenge”?

The Prime Minister gave a personal pledge to shut down the CCP’s Confucius Institutes in our universities and schools. Why do we not work with the Government of Taiwan for language and culture studies rather than with the CCP? In January this year the Times, following research by Civitas, highlighted the fact that more than 40 of our universities have links with institutions that are tools of the Chinese state, including institutions complicit with, facilitating or directly involved with the Uighur genocide, nuclear development, military research, espionage and hacking. What are we thinking of? What steps are being taken to help British universities reduce dependency and diversify their funding sources?

What are the Government doing to address concerns highlighted by Charles Parton, a fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, and others that Chinese-made electric cars—or even simply Chinese-made cellular modules that are components in non-Chinese-made cars and other electronic equipment—could be used to spy on us? What assessment has been made of those security risks?

Why, following the physical assault by the Chinese consul-general in Manchester and several Chinese diplomats on Hong Kongers peacefully protesting outside the consulate, with the consul-general claiming it was his “duty”, did the Government not immediately expel those diplomats and declare them persona non grata?

It was instructive that Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, a former British diplomat who until recently was HSBC’s head of public affairs, described Britain as “weak” for siding with the United States against China. But we have been too weak in failing to stand up to the CCP. If UK businesses are in doubt about the nature of the regime with which they are dealing, they should meet Peter Humphrey, the British businessman and journalist who at a meeting here recently described his two and a half years in Chinese jails, some of the time with 12 men in a cell.

In response to this damning indictment from the Intelligence and Security Committee, we need to completely review our procurement policies, our university sector, our critical infrastructure and our diplomatic messaging. We need to ensure that we have the resources to counter the threat from the CCP, and that we are consistent and robust in defending our values of human rights, our national interests and our national security.

Security Update

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Monday 11th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, the noble Lord will be aware that I, along with the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, and our families, have been sanctioned by the Chinese Communist Party for, among other things, speaking out against the treatment of the Uighurs in Xinjiang, the atrocities committed in Tibet, the threats almost daily to Taiwan and the terrible destruction of democracy and incarceration of lawmakers and pro-democracy advocates in Hong Kong, including the British citizen, Jimmy Lai. Here at home, we have spoken—as many have today in the House in the preceding debates—about issues such as forced organ harvesting and the surveillance state that comes through the installation of cameras by companies such as Hikvision and Dahua, in which the noble Lord himself has taken such a keen interest.

In the light of all that, the Leader of the House will not be surprised to hear me reiterate a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Newby. In another place earlier today, my good friend Tim Loughton MP, who is also one of those who has been sanctioned, expressed surprise that those of us who had been put in this invidious position were not told anything about the activities that were said to be taking place across the Parliamentary Estate. Will the Leader look at that issue again and have some regard to those who obviously have a direct interest in this?

The foreign influence registration scheme contains a power to place a foreign power in the enhanced tier. That will require parliamentary approval. What is the proposed timetable? Can it be accelerated? Will the Chinese Communist Party regime be on that list? The Leader referred to the “very shortly” assurance that he was asked to give concerning the excellent report from the Intelligence and Security Committee, which says that China has penetrated

“every sector of the UK’s economy”.

This House’s Select Committee on International Relations and Defence has also said that China is not a strategic competitor but a threat. Although it cannot be reduced to one word, as the Leader of the House said, surely it is time for us to schedule a debate. I hope that, as soon as the response from the Government is forthcoming, we will have in government time the chance to discuss the Intelligence and Security Committee’s report, along with our own reports.

Finally, will the Leader urgently consider establishing a small Joint Committee of both Houses to review infiltration, espionage, the subversion of our democratic institutions, the effects on places such as our universities, and these attempts to silence those of us who have been sanctioned by the CCP and our families?

Ukraine

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Thursday 24th February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness. Before I answer her points, I should say that I was a bit out of touch. It looks as if the football tournament has already been moved. I was not aware of that. This is good news. I hope that my noble friend is pleased.

As the Statement mentioned, we are setting up a new, dedicated combating kleptocracy cell within the National Crime Agency. We have ensured that it is staffed with both the resources and the people it needs to do its important work. We have done a lot in this area. For instance, the Criminal Finances Act 2017 has allowed us massively to step up our recovery of criminal assets. We seized £1.3 billion between April 2015 and 2021. We have also conducted around 7,900 investigations. There have been 2,000 prosecutions and 1,400 convictions annually for stand-alone money laundering or where it was the principal offence. Our record shows that we are committed to putting money into this area. We have also committed £400 million to tackling economic crime during the next three years through our new anti-money laundering levy.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, just three hours ago, at a meeting with the Ukrainian ambassador, he reported fighting in the government district of Kyiv. What more can we do to ensure the safety of President Zelensky, his family and his cabinet, not least because of our long and honourable record in providing, where necessary, a place of safety for Governments in exile?

When we respond to Putin’s illegal actions, will the Leader bear in mind that, in addition to economic sanctions, in 2000 Ukraine signed the Rome statute, which established the International Criminal Court? Will the Government urgently discuss with our law officers and the ICC how we can invoke its powers to prosecute war crimes committed on the sovereign territory of Ukraine, so that Russia’s military and political leaders understand that they can be brought to justice within the ICC’s jurisdiction without any veto at the Security Council, and that they can be prosecuted for atrocities committed on Ukrainian soil? Will the political leaders in the Duma who voted for these war crimes have sanctions imposed upon them as well?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

In relation to the noble Lord’s comment about war crimes, conversations are ongoing within the discussions that are being had internationally. I cannot go further and give specifics in this Statement, but I can certainly say that conversations are being had across a whole array of issues. Yes, we are looking at imposing sanctions on individual members of the Russian assembly.

Ukraine Update

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, has the Leader had a chance to reflect on the request I made to her some weeks ago that there should be a full-scale parliamentary debate, in your Lordships’ House, about the situation in Ukraine? Can she tell us anything about the position of UK nationals in Ukraine? Will she answer the question put to her by the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, about the SWIFT financial system? I do not think she referred to it in her response. Does she not agree that, under the cover of this darkness, other authoritarian regimes will take their opportunistic chances? I think particularly of the situation in Taiwan. Was Churchill not right when he said that, if you go on feeding the crocodile, one day, the crocodile will feed on you?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

Our advice to British nationals is that they should leave Ukraine now. In the event of any military incursion, commercial routes out of Ukraine are likely to be severely disrupted and roads across Ukraine closed. British nationals should leave while commercial travel options remain open, as they are likely to close or become severely limited if an incursion takes place. In addition to any Statements, Questions, debates on statutory instruments and other things we will be doing over the coming weeks—including, no doubt, on Ukraine—we will make time available for a general debate on progress by the middle of March. That will take place in Grand Committee.

Living with Covid-19

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, will the noble Baroness return to a question put to her by the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, about the number of lateral flow tests that have come from the People’s Republic of China? Is she aware that by the summer of last year over a billion such tests had been bought by the United Kingdom? This week in another place, it was confirmed that we have bought 24.1 billion PPE items with China registered as their country of origin, including 10.7 billion gloves. Before we consider this further during the course of the Health and Care Bill, on an amendment from her noble friend Lord Blencathra, will the noble Baroness undertake to tell us how much has been spent on these items and what we are doing to build up our own resilience and reduce dependency?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

As I said in response to the noble Baroness, we are working with manufacturers in the UK to encourage the build-up of supply and capability in this country and we will continue to do so because we want resilience in this area.

Health and Care Bill

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Committee stage
Friday 4th February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, has introduced Amendments 265 and 282 on this appalling subject extremely effectively and I wish to make clear the support for both those amendments from these Benches. I am also sympathetic to the different but separate Amendment 297H on tissue being retained for research, educational and audit purposes, which would bring legislation in England and Wales into line with that in Scotland and which I am sure the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, will address shortly.

To return to the issue of human abuse—it is more than the abuse of tissue—this subject has been much debated in your Lordships’ House and I pay tribute to the noble Lords, Lord Hunt and Lord Alton, and others for making sure that we do so and for ensuring that step by step we make progress. I also pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Penn, for listening and engaging, for her responsiveness when dealing with the issue and for helping to take it forward in earlier legislation. However, we all know that there is a distance to go.

As the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, said, these amendments seek to protect UK citizens from complicity in forced organ harvesting and organ trafficking. Amendment 282 prohibits UK citizens from travelling to countries for the purpose of organ transplantation. The restrictions are based on ensuring appropriate consent, with no coercion and no financial gain. If appropriate consent is not given, the country supplying the organ must have a legitimate opt-out system in place and must not be considered to be committing genocide, as now determined, as the Government have moved to agree, by resolution of the House of Commons. This will be based on an annual assessment by the Secretary of State.

We cannot say that we do not now know about forced organ harvesting. We also have the reports of both the China Tribunal and Uyghur Tribunal and much other evidence. I pay tribute to the FCDO for engaging in relation to the Uyghur Tribunal. As the noble Lord, Lord Ribeiro, mentioned, UN human rights experts have called on the Chinese Government to allow independent monitoring by international human rights bodies. If China had nothing to hide, it would accede. We have previously debated the conclusions of the China Tribunal and referred briefly to the Uyghur Tribunal. In 2020, the China Tribunal reported:

“Forced organ harvesting has been committed for years throughout China on a significant scale”.


As I said, more recently we have had the Uyghur Tribunal reports, which give a lot more detail. A number of countries, including Spain, Italy, Belgium, Norway and Israel, have already taken action to prevent organ tourism to China. We surely must do the same.

Amendment 265 aims to put a stop to real human body exhibitions being put on display in the UK when the cadavers do not have proof of identity or consent, such as those sourced from China. Again, the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, laid this out clearly. Almost a decade and a half ago, exhibitors in New York were forced to add a disclaimer stating that these bodies came from China and could have come from prisons, which clearly rubbished the idea that people had willingly donated their bodies for such displays.

Once again, certain countries, including France and Israel, and certain US cities have banned such body exhibitions from coming into their territories. We have high standards for dealing with human tissue in this country, as noble Lords are aware. Various noble Lords here today, including the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, have played a part in producing those. We need to make sure that we do not become complicit in what happens elsewhere, particularly—as we speak—in China. The noble Lord, Lord Alton, and others have made it crystal clear that we know what happens. I therefore commend these amendments.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I am raising my voice to speak in favour of Amendments 265 and 282. Following the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, and the noble Lords, Lord Ribeiro and Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, I hope that it demonstrates to the Minister that there is widespread concern from all parts of your Lordships’ House, especially in support of these amendments. It also gives me the chance to thank the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, for the leadership that he has given on this issue. He has been dogged and focused, insisting that we ensure that this country never becomes complicit in one of the greatest crimes committed against humanity. I join the noble Lord, Lord Ribeiro, in thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Penn—like others, I am pleased to see her back in her usual place. During the course of the earlier legislation, she was not only receptive in dealing with the issues that we raised, but organised meetings for us at the department with officials. I thought that the attitude that was shown at that time was exemplary and I am grateful to her.

It disturbs me that, although the United Kingdom signed the Council of Europe Convention against Trafficking in Human Organs, unlike 11 other European countries the United Kingdom has not ratified it. I would be grateful if the Minister, when he comes to reply, could say why we have not and whether we have any intentions of doing so. In addition, though, the signature of the United Kingdom has the following reservation:

“In accordance with the provisions of paragraph 3 of Article 10 and paragraph 1 of Article 30 of the Convention, the Government of the United Kingdom reserves the right not to apply the jurisdiction rules laid down in paragraph 1.d and e of Article 10 of the Convention.”


Given all that we now know and what has been said in your Lordships’ House this afternoon, I wonder whether we are going to persist with that reservation. The reservation means that the United Kingdom does not have to take legislative or other measures to establish jurisdiction over any offence established in accordance with the convention when the offence is committed by a UK national or a habitual resident of the United Kingdom, unless it is within our own territory. Therefore, in short, the reservation means that even if it were to be ratified, it would not prohibit citizens of the United Kingdom from partaking in unethical organ tourism.

Let us not forget why the Human Tissue Act was created in the first place. Thousands of families, some in my former constituency in the city of Liverpool, had devastatingly found their deceased family members, including children, had had their body parts and organs removed and kept in National Health Service facilities without consent. The Liverpool Alder Hey scandal created a public outcry and it was our parliamentary duty to respond and take appropriate legislative action, as we did.

Today, throughout China, forced organ harvesting of prisoners of conscience is taking place. What legislative action are we going to take concerning that? The predominant victims have been Falun Gong practitioners, the Buddhist spiritual meditation group that, at its peak in 1999, had an estimated 100 million adherents in China. The former CCP leader, Jiang Zemin, set up the 610 Office and gave the order to—his word—eradicate Falun Gong. It is believed by many experts that, while young Falun Gong organs gradually became less available over the years, the CCP—the Chinese Communist Party—began to also target Uighurs, as we have heard this afternoon, for forced organ harvesting, with the same torture methods, blood tests and organ scans happening in the Uighur camps as those in the Falun Gong camps. There are also some lines of evidence of Tibetans and Christians in China, referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, suffering the same fate. I should declare my interest as the vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Uyghurs and as a patron of the Coalition for Genocide Response.

For those who had any doubts about China’s state-sanctioned organ harvesting, it is worth noting that as early as 1994 Human Rights Watch reported that

“it has become increasingly evident that executed prisoners are the principal source of supply of body organs for medical transplantation purposes in China”,

and that

“executions are even deliberately mishandled to ensure that the prisoners are not yet dead when their organs are removed.”

Dr Enver Tohti, a Uighur doctor whom I have personally met and taken statements from, described to me that he had been required to remove organs and ordered to “cut deep and work fast” on a victim who was still alive. The theft of organs has been described as an almost perfect crime, because no one survives. Just this week Dr Tohti was interviewed by the London Evening Standard, from which I quote:

“Driven well out of town, he recalls: ‘There was a small hut and two surgeons there waiting. They said, “wait here and come around when you hear gun shots”. Time passed and I started to hear the noise of people shouting, chanting, whistles blowing, trucks running, then gun shots, many rifles shooting at the same time. So, we got in the van and came around the mountain to find 10 corpses in prisoners’ clothes with shaved heads on the left side slope of the mountains.’ He was called away from the corpses to the body of another man in civilian clothes and was told ‘that is yours’, and ordered to remove the liver and kidneys. The man was not dead. ‘I had no choice but to harvest the organs,’ he said.”


It is extraordinary, as we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, that on this day of all days, when what are now known as the “Genocide Games” are beginning in Beijing, we should be having this timely debate in your Lordships’ House. Not since 1936, when the Nazi games were held in Berlin and the world saw Hitler use the Olympics to promote his hideous ideology, and most Jewish German athletes were barred from taking part in the Games, have we seen the Olympic ideal so scandalously debased.

However, forced organ harvesting is just one of many human rights abuses taking place in China. Other noble Lords have referred to Sir Geoffrey Nice’s Uyghur Tribunal, which met here in Westminster in Church House. I sat through many of its hearings and, during our recent debate on this Bill concerning genocide and the purchasing of equipment and medical supplies from places such as Xinjiang, I heard harrowing accounts from those who gave evidence to that tribunal. Sir Geoffrey Nice QC—the prosecutor in the Milosevic trials, who knows more about these issues than probably any other living person—and his panel came to the conclusion that what is happening in Xinjiang amounts to genocide. As the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, has said, so has the House of Commons—and, indeed, so has our Foreign Secretary, Liz Truss, who has said “it is a genocide”.

Uighurs and other ethnic minorities have suffered torture, rape and forced abortion and sterilisation by the CCP, but the crime does not end there. There is a further twist to this infamy. Anonymous plastinated corpses taken from Chinese prisons have been paraded, as the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, told us earlier, in a carnival of horrors at money-making exhibitions, a final sneering insult to these victims. In 2018, after the exhibition that the noble Lord referred to, I wrote to the Times, along with Professor Jo Martin, president of the Royal College of Pathologists, and 55 others. We said:

“We believe that the legislation requires reform.”


However, I would go further—here, I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, who it is good to see in her place—and ask why on earth we allow these things at all. There should be a complete prohibition by law.

I conclude by returning to the opening ceremony of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games. The Olympic charter states:

“Olympism seeks to create a way of life based on the joy of effort, the educational value of good example, social responsibility and respect for universal fundamental ethical principles.”


The irony of that is beyond belief. This simply should not be acceptable, at least to those corporations and companies that are sponsoring the Games in Beijing, such as Coca-Cola. The China Tribunal stated:

“Governments and any who interact in any substantial way with the”


People’s Republic of China

“should now recognise that they are, to the extent revealed above, interacting with a criminal state.”

We must do more to stop these human rights abuses. I wholeheartedly support the amendments, which are not country-specific but would serve to close the loopholes in the Human Tissue Act so that the United Kingdom could do its part in preventing collaboration in these appalling crimes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

I will follow the noble Lord’s point. Even though it may be impossible to collect credible data on people leaving who are not going to say they are going overseas to collect organs, when they return—as the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, pointed out—many of them will receive treatment and care inside the National Health Service as a result of having an organ that has not come from within the United Kingdom. That is data that could surely be collected.

[Earl Howe (Con)]

The noble Lord makes a very good point and, if I may, I will investigate the feasibility of doing that and what systems are in place to capture that kind of data.

I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, for her Amendment 297H, which covers the retention and use of tissues after coroner post-mortem examinations. I of course share the commitment to promoting education and research. However, I am afraid I do not believe that this amendment represents the right approach to supporting this aim. I appreciate that the noble Baroness emphasised that she was referring to blocks, slides and urine samples; the amendment refers to tissue samples. The advice I have received is that it is important that we remain committed to the principle that consent is fundamental to how we treat the remains of the deceased. I remember the passage of the Human Tissue Act; the noble Lord, Lord Alton, was absolutely right in what he said earlier about that. All of us should have a choice about what happens to our bodies after we die, and if we cannot exercise that choice, those close to us should be able to.

Post-mortems can already be distressing to the families of the deceased. Denying them a say as to what happens to the remains of their loved ones will compound that distress—often unnecessarily, as many of the retained tissues will never be put to use.

There are three other defects, as I see them, in the amendment; I am concerned that it would allow tissues to be stored indefinitely; it would allow for an overly broad interpretation of what constitutes a tissue sample —that is, in fact, my main concern; and it does not address the considerable challenge of how to effectively catalogue, audit or access the large amount of new material that would have to be retained.

Having said that, I believe that under the current consent-based model we can and should do more to encourage the active identification of tissues that could serve an important purpose, and to communicate the significance of retaining this tissue to the deceased’s family when seeking their consent. I understand the force of what the noble Baroness is trying to achieve and there may be different ways of doing that.

While I am grateful to noble Lords for their amendments in this area, I respectfully ask them to withdraw or not press them at this stage.

Ukraine

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Wednesday 26th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

Certainly, I agree. In fact, NATO stands absolutely ready to engage in constructive dialogue with Russia to discuss mutual security concerns and has invited Russia to further sessions of the NATO-Russia council—it had its first meeting in two years recently—to discuss arms control, risk reduction and transparency measures.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, does the noble Baroness agree that the issue of NATO is, as the Secretary of State for Defence, Ben Wallace, recently said, a straw man and that the invasions of Crimea and eastern Ukraine had nothing whatever to do with membership of NATO? Given the number of Statements and Questions—I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her remarks this evening, not least for what she said about economic crime—is there not a case for a full-scale parliamentary debate in your Lordships’ House? There was general indignation on Monday that it had taken a year for a report on Afghanistan finally to be debated when many of its prescient recommendations and points might have averted some of the catastrophe that occurred in August, which has so emboldened so many aggressors around the world.

In endorsing what the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, and the noble Lord, Lord Newby, said about sanctions, I refer the noble Baroness to the remarks of President Biden overnight. He said that this

“would be the largest invasion since World War II”

and would carry “enormous consequences”, including sanctioning personally Mr Putin. Is that also the position of Her Majesty’s Government?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

I have said that we are working closely with our allies to co-ordinate sanctions to maximise their deterrent impact and to limit as far as possible any negative impact on the UK or our partners. I am grateful that the noble Lord recognises the number of opportunities that the House has had to discuss these important matters over the past few weeks—there was a Question earlier today in which noble Lords had an opportunity to be involved—and there are opportunities for Back-Benchers to raise and debate issues.

Tributes: Sir David Amess MP

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Monday 18th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Clarke of Nottingham (Con)]

My Lords, I knew David Amess when he first came in because I was elected before him. For nearly 40 years, I was on good and friendly terms with him as a parliamentary colleague. I am as shocked as anybody in this House that such a man should come to such a terrible end.

We are all saying the same things about him and the tributes that were paid publicly last week by various people repeated the same points. As others will wish to join in, I will not repeat them all. The reason is that on this occasion the things are all true. We have a very good convention in this country that if you have to pay tribute to someone when they die, you find something polite to say. I have heard people say very moving things about people whom I know they thought privately were rather nasty pieces of work, but they were sympathetic when they died.

With David Amess, as everybody has said—and for the sake of others I will not just repeat it all—the first words that come to mind, or variants of them, when you think of him is that he was a very nice man. I cannot believe that a man like that ever had an enemy and that applied to his political life as much as to his private life. People from across the other side of the aisle from him, people from different parties who disagreed profoundly with him, have said these things. I, too, was a Conservative but it cannot be said that David and I were on the same wing of the broad coalition—as it is with all political parties in this country—that is the Conservative Party. He was a very fierce Eurosceptic. He was a great supporter of capital punishment. These are opinions which, to put it lightly, I do not share.

He was one of that group—the majority of British politicians—who would never have dreamed of allowing political disagreement to interfere with personal friendship. He respected the true right of free speech in a free society, which is that you respect the integrity and the sincerity of the person with whom you are having an argument and you maintain civilised dialogue. He was also an enthusiast—a hard-working, enthusiastic Back-Bencher who never betrayed the slightest interest in being such a keen party man that he was seeking preferment.

He always had campaigns. I shall not list the ones that I have encountered over the years but, at any given stage, he pursued quite a lot of campaigns, and he pursued them all with the same energy and enthusiasm. His personality was always amusing and engaging, and it was one of the things that forwarded what he was trying to argue for and helped recruitment to it.

I join noble Lords in all sympathies to his family, and I agree that the tragedy of this latest disaster for our democracy and our Parliament is that the victim is one of the very nicest political practitioners of any political view that I, and most of us, have encountered. It is a truly moving occasion.

On the wider aspects, you can never make controversial figures such as Members of Parliament totally safe—there is an element of minor and quite acceptable degree of risk for any Member of Parliament, however obscure and quiet. We have always had a fringe of violence in recent years; people have talked of the most recent four knife attacks, all by lunatic madmen. I think that through my time in the House of Commons I lost about six of my colleagues, who were killed by IRA terrorists and others. The most well-known occasions were the Brighton bomb and the murder of Airey Neave in the Palace of Westminster. There were others—I have not counted them all. We have to have precautions, and we have always had to have them. When I was a controversial and prominent figure, there were several weeks when the Nottinghamshire police advised me that they would like to have a Special Branch policeman sitting in the outer office of my surgery. Nothing ever came of it. The death threats that I got were usually from harmless lunatics who were just trying to frighten or offend me. But to a certain extent, it is difficult to minimise. I fear that, whereas the IRA was at least predictable, had a coherent political agenda and was determined to use terrorist violence to advance it, nowadays it is loners, fanatics and madmen, people with perverted views of their own, and it is very difficult to guarantee security against such people.

I shall only echo what everybody else has said about the contribution that political debate can make. The deteriorating tone of debate over the last 10 or 20 years is somehow encouraging these mad loners to start emerging and becoming active. There is an absurd cynicism among the public towards the political class. I fear that if you told the majority of the public in casual conversation that most MPs were crooks and only in it for what they were getting out of it, and it does not matter who you vote for, they would agree, although it is a bizarre, ridiculous and untrue allegation. Standards of honesty in the House of Commons are rather higher on average than the standards of honesty among the general public—although all groups have scoundrels, and the House of Commons has always had one or two.

The public exchange of views has become nastier and simpler. Politicians themselves are partly to blame, but social media has had a dreadful effect on the tone of debate, and the media give more courage to the lunatic fringe on the edge of perfectly good lobbies than they do to the people arguing the cause. As parliamentarians, we all have to maintain the standards, as we undoubtedly do, and mourn the loss of a very great, very nice and hard-working parliamentarian.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

I associate myself with the remarks of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Clarke of Nottingham, particularly about the declining standard of political debate. He is also right to remind us of the high price that so many in politics have to pay. I was elected to the House of Commons in 1979 on the very day before Airey Neave was murdered in the precincts of Parliament. It was with profound and aching sorrow that I heard the shocking news on Friday that Sir David Amess MP had been murdered. Over the past 40 years, David and I had become close friends, and I shared many platforms with him, in his constituency and elsewhere.

We both had our working-class origins in the East End of London and, indeed, were baptised within a year of one another in the same church by the same Franciscan priest. He often joked that there must have been something in the holy water. His faith was in his DNA, and it animated his belief in public service and the principle of duty.

I first met David when he came into the House in 1983. From across the House, we joined forces in taking up the case of Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat who saved thousands of Jewish lives from the Nazis. In 1997, thanks to David’s assiduous campaign, a statue was erected to Wallenberg outside the Western Marble Arch Synagogue. There were other campaigns, about Soviet Jewry and the plight of Alexander Ogorodnikov, a Russian Orthodox dissident. We frequently shared platforms to highlight the persecution of people because of their religion or belief or human rights violations, especially—as we have heard from others—the situation in Iran.

David’s faith informed his passionate commitment to the very right to life, human dignity and the common good. But it was also rooted in his absolute conviction that an MP’s first priority was to their constituents. It was the death of a constituent from hypothermia which led to his successful Private Member’s Bill on fuel poverty.

Just a few weeks ago, David asked me to take part in the launch of his memoir, Ayes & Ears. Typical of David’s kindness and generosity, as we heard from the Leader of the House, the proceeds of the book were dedicated to three charities: Endometriosis UK, Prost8 and the Leigh-on-Sea-based Music Man project. David’s causes were rooted in the neighbourhoods and people he represented. He was committed to direct face-to-face engagement, which, as the noble Lord, Lord Howard, was right to remind us, is at the very heart—the essence—of being a Member of Parliament. Indeed, the noble Lord contested the constituency I was ultimately elected in in a previous general election, and he knows, as I do, that it is a precious relationship you have with your constituents. But now it has taken David’s life, as it took the life of Jo Cox, as the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, reminded us, and Andy Pennington. If it had not been for a mercifully foiled plot, it would have also led to the murder of another friend since teenage days—Rosie Cooper, the Labour Member of Parliament for West Lancashire.

But as Mr Speaker, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, has rightly said, heinous crimes must not be allowed to drain the lifeblood from our representative democracy. This was an attack on democracy itself. We would be making a terrible mistake—and I know it is not what David would have wanted—for his death to simply lead to more barriers being put between the people and their representatives. We will all want to understand the killer’s motivations; to delve deeper into the failure of the Prevent programme; and to understand the radicalisation which takes place in our prisons and through the promotion of intolerant, toxic and violent ideologies, sometimes with the indulgence of social media. Our thoughts today should also be with every family in this country—far too many—who have lost loved ones to knife crime.

As David’s family said in a statement today, people of faith, from all the great religions, and people of no faith must work much harder to create a more respectful society which honours difference. Too often we have been in denial about the sources of the hateful threats to the foundations of a liberal, open and pluralistic society. As David’s horrific death demonstrates, notwithstanding all the good in the world, we still have the capacity to do truly evil things.

His death reminds us of the deep-seated challenges we face. Above all, it will have devastating consequences for his family and loved ones, and my principal thoughts and prayers today are with Julia and their children. May this good man now rest in peace.

[Lord Rogan (UUP)]

My Lords, I will be brief to allow other colleagues to say a few words.

On this sad occasion, when we mourn the death of our colleague, I remember a smile—the smile of David Amess. I have known David for some 15 years, and I never saw him without that smile on his face. In those years, I never heard a bad word said about him. How could there have been? He was, in the true sense of the word, a true and perfect Christian gentleman.

I remember fondly an all-party delegation to the Philippines led by David. It was an honour and privilege to be a part of it and to be with him. He moulded a very diverse group of parliamentarians into a very united group. His personality, charm and smile charmed the pants off all the Philippine members we met, both Ministers and parliamentary delegates.

As many have mentioned, Sir David had many interests; one was a keen and abiding interest in Northern Ireland. Each time we met, either the first or second sentence he would say was, “Well, Dennis, how’s Northern Ireland? How can I help?”.

Julia Amess has lost a husband. David’s children have lost a father. We parliamentarians have lost a colleague. Northern Ireland has lost a friend. David, we all miss you.