Health and Care Bill

Lord Geddes Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments
Tuesday 5th April 2022 Lords Chamber

I hope my noble friend and his colleagues are now able to join the consensus, support the amendment and ensure that we start to improve workforce planning for the benefit of the NHS, its staff and, of course, most importantly, the people it is here to care for. I beg to move.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Geddes) (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, is taking part remotely.

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, although my noble friend Lady Walmsley will be speaking from our Benches on the workforce amendments, I just want to commend the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, on the eloquent speech she made on the need for proper and effective workforce planning. I support everything she said.

I will now speak to Motions D and D1 on genocide and modern slavery, having added my name to amendments at earlier stages of the Bill. I thank the Government for their Amendment 48A in Motion D. Frankly, a review of the NHS supply chains should undoubtedly happen, regardless of the Bill, but the amendment does not go nearly far enough to stop the practice of suppliers to the NHS purchasing goods where there has been a risk of slavery and human trafficking. The amendment talks only about the Secretary of State having to “mitigate the risk”. In the linguistic range of a Minister making commitments, mitigation does not hit even the halfway bar.

We need to be blunt. A very large quantity of NHS medical equipment is sourced, in whole or in part, from the People’s Republic of China. Despite the Government denying that any equipment is sourced from the Uighur region, reports have found that the UK Government have bought more than £150 million-worth of PPE from Chinese firms directly linked to abuses of Uighur rights abuses. As recently as this month, supply chain specialists revealed that the NHS continues to be supplied PPE from a company known to use Uighur forced labour programmes. Without legislation mandating transparency and due diligence, it seems very unlikely that the Government will be able to ensure that they are not sourcing goods from companies practising modern slavery.

Amendment 48B in Motion D1 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, goes beyond the Government’s proposals for a review by seeking to ensure that the Secretary of State must by regulation make provision to ensure that all procurement of goods and services for the health service in England avoids slavery. The UK Government have to face up to their obligations to prevent through the law any forced labour and people trafficking in UK health supply chains. From these Benches we will support Amendment 48B in Motion D1.