Health and Care Bill

Lord Eatwell Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Report stage
Thursday 3rd March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, China has been found out. Thanks to surveillance and other types of technology, and courageous on-the-ground reporting, it is clear that China does use slave labour. As we know, the UK has a duty under the genocide convention, and there is strong evidence that much of the material produced by slave labour, even possibly by genocide, is being used by NHS staff—and even by noble Lords ourselves when we use lateral flow tests, since we are not confident about where they came from. They come from areas where there is serious risk of genocide and as the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, said, it is not necessary to determine genocide in order to be obliged to do a risk assessment and take action; and we are not doing enough of that. Over half of these products come from places where there is no conflict, so action against conflict is not adequate. More needs to be done. We must not fail to do it because it is more convenient to buy products to keep us safe without investigating how they are produced. Our safety must not be on the backs of people whose rights, and even their lives, are being taken from them.

The same applies to organ-harvesting from unwilling donors. There is incontrovertible evidence that it is not just happening but happening increasingly, and it absolutely has to stop. My noble friend Baroness Northover made a strong case that the exhibiting of cadavers should not happen in a civilised society, and I hope that the Minister is going to tell us how the Government are going to stop it.

[Lord Eatwell (Lab)]

My Lords, I rise to give my strong support to Amendment 108, and I do so because of the terms of the genocide convention to which this Government are committed and are obligated to support. It is important for the House to note that genocide is not defined solely as mass killing. It is also defined as

“causing serious bodily or mental harm … deliberately inflicting … conditions of life calculated to”

destroy the protected group

“in whole or in part … imposing measures intended to prevent births”,

and

“forcibly transferring the children of the group to another group.”

The Government are a signatory to the genocide convention, and I think the noble Earl, Lord Howe, is obligated by that signature to support this amendment.

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

My Lords, it is impossible to turn away from the connection between procurement of products and services and the message and support that such procurement may give to those who seek to exploit, oppress, damage and murder.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for introducing this amendment, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, who we wish well. Genocide and the abuse of human rights do not respect the imposed boundaries of government departments, and that is why it is appropriate that these amendments, which have extensive support both inside and outside your Lordships’ House, have been tabled today. Amendment 108 has cross-party support and if the will of the House is tested, we on these Benches will support it.

The NHS is the biggest single procurer of medical products in the world. It has a huge amount of leverage to be a force for good or otherwise when it comes to ethical procurement. It can starve abusive regions of resources. It can also remove a veneer of acceptability from those regions.

If we are serious about being global Britain and a force for good in the world, we need to act as such. It is surely wrong that, for example, we are using bandages which have been produced by forced labour. We must hold the Government to their commitment to provide guidance and support to UK government bodies to use public procurement rules to exclude suppliers where there is sufficient evidence of human rights violations in any of their supply chains. As expressed by my noble friend Lady Kennedy, this is about giving the Minister the opportunity to act. It is about focusing minds. I hope that the amendment will find favour with the noble Earl.

In Committee, my noble friend Lord Collins spoke of the need not to be tied down by a very strict legal definition of genocide. He also emphasised that we must focus on broader human rights issues. As the noble Lord, Lord Alton, said, we need to take a comprehensive, joined-up approach. Amendment 108 gives us this opportunity.

I thank my noble friend Lord Hunt for continuing to press home the need for action, as outlined in Amendments 162 and 173. We heard explicitly and movingly about the realities of how this affects people’s bodies, alive and dead, and the distaste and abuse related to it. It is surely right that UK citizens are safeguarded against complicity in forced organ harvesting as the result of genocide. Countries such as Spain, Italy, Belgium, Norway and Israel, among several others, have already taken action to prevent organ tourism in respect of China. We have the opportunity to do so today.

I hope that the noble Earl will feel able to accept these amendments. I am grateful to the noble Lord and his officials for the opportunity to discuss these matters. I hope only that your Lordships’ House can assist in improving this aspect of the Bill by taking action, as we should, about genocide and the abuse of human rights.