Chinese Products and Companies: Human Rights Violations

Lord Collins of Highbury Excerpts

Tuesday 20th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

The noble Lord makes an important and, indeed, a moral point. The UK launched the global human rights sanctions regime in July last year, giving us the power to address the very worst human rights violations across the world. We have already used that regime to place sanctions on more than 70 individuals and entities around the world. The noble Lord will know that this, for the first time, includes assets that are frozen and travel bans on four Chinese government officials.

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

My Lords, according to the latest ITUC Global Rights Index, the UK now has trade deals with dozens of countries with the worst track records in the world for exploiting workers. During debates on the Trade Bill, the noble Lord, Lord Grimstone, argued forcibly against my amendment and that of the noble Lord, Lord Alton, because the FCDO’s Human Rights and Democracy report

“touches on many relevant issues”,

and would be

“enhanced in further reports.”—[Official Report, 23/3/21; col. 766.]

When I read the report that was recently published, it is clear that no enhancement has been made. Trade agreement is not even mentioned once. Can the Minister explain what has happened? Why have not the Government kept their word?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

We have taken a lot of action in this respect, and at the UN Human Rights Council in February 2021 the Foreign Secretary called on China to allow the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights or another independent expert urgent and unfettered access to Xinjiang. More countries than ever are speaking out about Xinjiang; China has already been forced through our actions to change its narrative about camps, and its denial of these violations is increasingly hard for it to sustain. We believe that the actions that we are taking are having effect, but it is not, of course, always a fast process.