Middle East Update

Lord Shinkwin Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd September 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

I will let the people of this country decide what will wash and what will not wash with them. This is not the indefensible. This is sticking to, adhering to, international law. It is as simple as that. We have been very clear about our continued desire to be a close ally of Israel and our firm commitment to supporting Israel in defending itself.

[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

Can I ask the Minister to what degree she thinks this announcement will persuade Hamas to stop sacrificing its own people in its genocidal quest to eradicate Israel and, indeed, wipe it off the face of the earth?

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

We repeatedly, wholeheartedly and consistently condemn the actions of Hamas. Hamas is not the Palestinian people. It is an organisation that has taken children and murdered children. There is nothing more that we can say that we have not already said that can more strongly convey our view or condemn the actions of Hamas.

Ukraine

Lord Shinkwin Excerpts

Friday 26th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shinkwin (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Camoys, on his outstanding maiden speech.

Like other noble Lords, I applaud the consistent support that His Majesty’s Government have given to Ukraine since the completely unwarranted and illegitimate invasion by Russia almost two years ago. The Foreign Secretary is surely right to warn of how dangerous the world has become. Danger always exists, of course, but the international convergence of evil that Vladimir Putin has facilitated and is leading is truly frightening, such are the depths of his depravity.

I am afraid I must strongly disagree with the remarks of my noble friend Lord Balfe. Surely history teaches us that we cannot afford for Putin to prevail because the price is too high. As the Foreign Secretary has said, appeasement does not pay. I am not suggesting that my noble friend Lord Balfe was necessarily advocating that, but the lessons of the 1930s surely show us that evil begets evil. To think that a triumphant Putin would stop at Ukraine would be an incredibly costly delusion. Pain postponed would simply be pain magnified.

I am sure I am not alone in my humble gratitude to the people of Ukraine for their incredible courage, resolve and sacrifice. I say “sacrifice” because, while of course it is their country that is under brutal attack and whose existence President Zelensky and his countrymen and countrywomen are determined to defend, it is clear that they also understand the gravity of the threat to the free world. They are our buffer, the only thing standing between the democracies of the West and a much wider conflict that others have suggested would engulf the Baltic states, Poland and thus NATO. That is why I, like other noble Lords, welcome the Government’s commitment of £2.5 billion in military aid for 2024-25, because the increase of £200 million on last year is commensurate with the increased threat both to Ukraine and to us.

In addition to the essential military support that we give Ukraine, it must be right to consider what more we can do to support it in other ways. How can we use our formidable legal authority and expertise to secure justice for those so brutally butchered in Bucha and elsewhere? How do we support its refugees, as the noble Baroness, Lady Suttie, asked?

What is being done to ensure that the UK is leading the efforts to establish an ad hoc tribunal for the crime of aggression and exploring how our courts can play a role in prosecuting the perpetrators? My noble friend the Minister will know that the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, and the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws KC, have introduced respectively the Genocide Determination Bill and the Genocide (Prevention and Response) Bill. I hope very much that, in preparing their response for the Second Reading of each Bill, the Government will engage constructively with both esteemed Members of your Lordships’ House, in particular to recognise the urgent need to be seen to facilitate justice for the people of Ukraine in the face of Putin’s seemingly insatiable appetite for atrocity.

Closer to home, according to published government statistics, as of this month arrivals under the two main refugee schemes totalled more than 198,000, of which the Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain estimates that more than 30,000 are children in school or college. The first visas are due to expire in March 2025. The critical question is not the actual date of expiry but how long before expiry people will have to apply for whatever new visa scheme the Government announce.

I fully appreciate that my noble friend Lord Minto, who is responding to this debate, may not be in a position to answer these questions today, but I ask him either to write to me, following consultation with Home Office colleagues, or to ask them to write to me, saying: when the Government intend to make an announcement on the new policy; that they will ensure that the process is announced at the same time as the policy and that it is robust enough to cope with the likely number of applications at any given time; that they will develop a programme of information, including printed and online material in Ukrainian and English and webinars, to explain choices and processes clearly; that they will create an application window of at least six months before visa expiry, by no later than this September, so as to allow the refugees sufficient time; and that they will set up a staffed helpline to answer queries and respond to specific issues relating to a personal application in real time.

My noble friend will know how much the Government’s work in this area is hugely appreciated by the Ukrainian community, whether that is in education, employment or housing. I end by asking my noble friend whether he can use his influence to establish when the Prime Minister intends to respond to the recent letter to him and other party leaders from Bishop Nowakowski, bishop of the Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of the Holy Family of London, who is leading tremendous efforts to support the Ukrainian community in the UK concerning the visa scheme and continuing support for refugees.

Israel/Gaza

Lord Shinkwin Excerpts

Tuesday 24th October 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

My Lords, I join with other noble Lords in thanking my noble friend the Minister for his powerful and obviously heartfelt opening remarks.

As soon as I heard about the vile, racist pogrom perpetrated by Hamas, I WhatsApped a Jewish friend who lives here in London and whom I had got to know on a March of the Living trip to Auschwitz-Birkenau and other concentration camps a few years ago. I told him how sorry I was about the tragic loss of life in Israel. He replied to say that he had already flown out and re-joined his IDF unit the day after Hamas’s horrific, barbaric butchery. To a further WhatsApp, he replied:

““Even though you are far away, your prayers and words of encouragement are felt here”.


We may be far away, but we should know that what we say in this Chamber today will be felt throughout not just our own Jewish community but also in Israel. Our Jewish brothers and sisters need and deserve our support at such an unbearably painful and traumatic time so, like other noble Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity this debate provides to express mine. In doing so, I am mindful that I cannot possibly know how it feels to be the target of such racist, brutal bloodlust—that I cannot possibly appreciate the horror of knowing that over 6 million of your own people were exterminated in industrialised mass murder within living memory. How can any of us who are not Jewish understand what it feels like to know that your own state, Israel, is the only thing standing between you and extermination simply for being Jewish?

In case we are tempted to dismiss such fears as melodramatic almost 80 years after the liberation of Auschwitz, Hamas has reminded us that this is not theory; it is fact. My pilgrimage of remembrance to Auschwitz-Birkenau—where so many members of my late orthopaedic surgeon’s Jewish family were murdered only 79 years ago this summer—reminded me of what happens when we prevaricate, equivocate and wring our hands in the face of anti-Jewish abomination.

We have probably all heard about the Wannsee conference of January 1942 at which the Final Solution fate of millions of Jews across Europe was sealed, but how many of us know about the Évian conference held barely three and a half years earlier to discuss the plight of Germany’s persecuted Jewish population and how the rest of the world could help them? It did not help them; instead, it wrung its hands in sympathy and turned its back on them with tragic consequences.

A few weeks ago, parliamentarians were invited to watch a pre-release screening of the powerful film “Golda”, about Golda Meir, the formidable Israeli Prime Minister at the time of the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Some 25 years earlier, immediately after the Évian conference, she had said to the press:

“There is only one thing I hope to see before I die, and that is that my people should not need expressions of sympathy anymore”.


If the post-Nuremberg pledge of “never again” is not to be rendered meaningless by Hamas’s savagery in the largest single loss of Jewish life since the Holocaust, we have to recognise that warm words of sympathy do not suffice, and that Israel must be allowed to get on with the job of destroying the evil that is Hamas as a matter of urgency. Time is of the essence. I fear that a ceasefire would be a gift to the murderers who threaten us and our values as much as they do Israel—whose very right to exist they deny. They hide behind and glory in the suffering of their people.

My friend flew from London to rejoin his unit because he knows what is at stake—Israel’s survival is on the line. The question is: do we? Do we recognise that unless and until Hamas and its puppet masters in Iran are defeated, they remain a threat to us all?

We all in this Chamber and around the UK, I hope, want peace. But for that to happen, we must be prepared to allow Israel to take the necessary practical steps as soon as possible to remove the primary obstacle to peace: Hamas.

Israel and Palestine

Lord Shinkwin Excerpts

Tuesday 7th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Earl, and I too thank the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries of Pentregarth, for securing this important debate. Regardless of one’s perspective on the causes of this seemingly endless conflict, I find it impossible not to agree with the noble and right reverend Lord and the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, that the current spiral of destruction is enough to make anyone who longs for peace in that region despair. For those who value every human life and, like the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, are also committed to defending the integrity and security of Israel, the tragedy is compounded by growing anxiety—as others have said—that the extremism of a disproportionately powerful element in the new Government is both destabilising and potentially self-destructive of the Israeli dream.

Earlier today, I googled one word: “Israel”. What came up filled me with dismay: “Israel’s elite fighter pilots escalate judicial reform protest”; “Huwara attacked by settlers during Purim”; “Israeli attack wounds citizens as settlers and soldiers dance”. I am commenting not on the individual stories but on the direction of travel. It is the wrong direction—wrong for Israel and wrong for the world. At a time when Iran poses an existential threat to its very existence and, indeed, to world peace, we need Israel as never before to be united and strong, not weakened by extremism, whether on settlements or so-called “reforms” to the judiciary. I hope that my noble friend the Minister can help Israel to understand that it is too important a partner to be consumed by internal strife when its strategic leadership is so needed.

British-Iranian Relations

Lord Shinkwin Excerpts

Thursday 23rd February 2023 Grand Committee

[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Viscount. I join others in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for securing this important debate.

Which of us can ever forget the inspiring inauguration of the first black President of the United States only 14 years ago or the soaring rhetoric of that momentous day when, in reference to the unalienable rights enshrined in the American constitution, he declared:

“Today we continue a never-ending journey to bridge the meaning of those words with the realities of our time. For history tells us that while these truths may be self-evident, they’ve never been self-executing”?


How right he was, because passivity never pays. He also said that war does not need to be “perpetual”; again, he was absolutely right, of course. But surely, if the last 14 years teach us anything, it is that vigilance and resolve do need to be exactly that—perpetual—because appeasement always comes at a price, and what a price the world could be about to pay for the audacity to hope that diplomacy would work with a regime so disdainful of any values, any truths, other than what the ayatollahs decree. Whether it is terrorism abroad or even at home against its own people, as we have already heard, the threat to our values is real.

All eyes may be on Ukraine as the criminal invasion by Russia enters its second year on Friday, but the global destabilisation threat posed by Iran is potentially even more dangerous. As we have heard, Iranian nuclear breakout is imminent. That is the new reality of our time, which, sadly, no amount of rhetoric will bridge.

In conclusion, given that global security must be our number one priority, I hope my noble friend the Minister knows that he and the Government can count on the support of many noble Lords when appropriate military action to prevent that threat materialising is taken. For all our sakes, I hope it is taken swiftly.

Ukraine: Tactical Nuclear Weapons

Lord Shinkwin Excerpts

Thursday 1st December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

My Lords, I too thank the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries of Pentregarth, for securing this crucial debate. On Tuesday, like the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, I was privileged to listen to Olena Zelenska, the First Lady of Ukraine, when she addressed parliamentarians and then when she spoke at the exhibition on Russian war crimes in Portcullis House. Like the noble Baroness and my noble friend Lord Cormack, I was horrified by what I heard and saw. Her courage was matched only by the unfathomable tragedy of the current situation, which she captured so poignantly in her words. For the exhibition is not just about the past nine or so months, or even the present; it is also about the future—the future suffering of her people until the barbarity of the Russians’ criminal regime is brought to a halt and they have left the territory of Ukraine.

The images in the exhibition will one day comprise an historical record, but not yet. The war crimes being perpetrated by the Russians, who, as the First Lady told us, are individuals with faces and lives of their own, but no soul—all of it is happening in real time. The awful truth is that the exhibition on display in Portcullis House will grow to accommodate the images of horrors yet to be unearthed, perhaps yet to be committed. That is why it is so important that her appeal to us as the mother of Parliaments and the primary defender of democracy does not go unheeded. All she asked for is justice and the means, in the form of a tribunal, by which to secure it so that those who commit war crimes can be held to account—and that, critically, others can be deterred from doing so.

Madam Zelenska has presented us with a clear choice: either we bear witness to the truth that we have a common interest in challenging and arresting this regressive slide into depraved barbarity, which threatens the very foundations of free and civilised societies, or we wring our hands as if there is nothing we can do and no price to pay for inaction. Of course, no one could lay that charge at His Majesty’s Government’s door. It is to the immense credit of Boris Johnson that, as Prime Minister, he grasped both the enormity of the threat posed by Russia’s illegal invasion and the scale of responsibility and self-interest we have in countering it. Rishi Sunak is absolutely right to continue his policy; he would also be absolutely right to give the First Lady’s call for a tribunal his full support.

It is crucial that we consider the consequences were Madam Zelenska’s cry for justice to go unheeded and such war crimes and even genocide to go unpunished. For as a species, we have a curious propensity to unlearn the lessons of history. But we cannot afford to forget Munich or be cowed into appeasement by the threat of nuclear weapons, whether tactical or strategic. We must hold our nerve.

I ask my noble friend the Minister to reassure the House that Madam Zelenska’s visit will not have been in vain and that His Majesty’s Government are already acting on her request for the UK to take the lead in establishing a tribunal for justice for Ukraine and for all those countries that believe in democracy and the self-determination of nations.

Genocide Determination Bill [HL]

Lord Shinkwin Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 28th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

My Lords, it is pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, who speaks with such authority on this issue. Of course, like other noble Lords, I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for his remarkable and persistent efforts, which reflect very well on your Lordships’ House, and I thank him for yet another opportunity to debate this issue. However, it saddens me that we need to. As the noble Lord, Lord Browne of Ladyton, implied, the fact that we do surely reflects poorly on the UK as a supposed bastion and champion of freedom and respect for human rights, and as a signatory to the genocide convention.

It is difficult to add anything to what has already been said, such is the strength of the noble Lord’s argument and indeed those made by other noble Lords from across the House, so I offer a slightly different “What if?” perspective. Noble Lords might have seen or read about a recent and horrific interview on the Russian broadcaster, RT, with an influential Kremlin commentator. His appalling advocacy of genocide—drowning Ukrainian babies, refusing to accept the existence of the Ukrainian nation—could have been taken straight out of the book, Night, by the Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel, in which he describes witnessing, on arrival at Auschwitz as a young teenager, babies being flung into firepits to be burnt alive. He recounts his disbelief that this could happen in 1944. Fast forward 78 years to 2022, and here we are again.

My “What if?” is very simple: what if the Soviets had not triumphed over the Nazis and we had had to come to an accommodation with the odious regime in Berlin? What if the State of Israel, of which I know my noble friend the Minister is a fantastic supporter, did not exist and the all too familiar historical cycle of pogroms continued to ravage the Jewish communities of Europe, or what remained of them after the Shoah? Would we be doing any more than wringing our hands? Sadly, I doubt it. In fact, I am confident that we would once again let the Jewish people down. As my noble friend Lady Sugg suggested, to do so, to maintain our current position, is to invite, however inadvertently, further genocide. We are witnessing this not only in Xinjiang and elsewhere, as other noble Lords have mentioned, but, as the noble Lord, Lord Alton, said, quite possibly in Ukraine—only a couple of hours’ flying time from your Lordships’ House.

I wish the Bill every success. I also wish that it were not necessary. I simply say to my noble friend the Minister that His Majesty’s Government could still get off an increasingly flimsy and uncomfortable fence and make it so.

Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

Lord Shinkwin Excerpts

Friday 9th September 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bilimoria (CB)]

My Lords, I was in Boston yesterday and at lunchtime, Boston time, I came out of a meeting with one of my Harvard Business School professors, looked at my phone and saw the sad news about Her Majesty.

Some of my earliest memories going back to my childhood are of seeing the photographs, which are in our house in India to this day, of Her Majesty the Queen and His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh on their state visit to India in 1961, when Rajendra Prasad was the President of India and my father, at that time Captain Bilimoria, was the senior ADC to the President of India.

Little did I know that years later, I would be privileged to not only meet but get to know them both. What I saw was a couple who were devoted to each other. Her Majesty the Queen was absolutely devoted to His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh, and he to her. A few years ago, when His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh came to visit the Zoroastrian centre in Harrow, I accompanied him. When we went up to the prayer room, we had to take off our shoes; when we came out of that room, we were sitting next to each other, putting our shoes on and tying our laces, and he said to me, “Do you know, I’ve had these shoes since the day I got married?” Such was the sentimentality between this couple.

As we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Howell, Her Majesty was not just the Queen of the United Kingdom but Head of the Commonwealth—a Commonwealth of 56 countries, all voluntary. Not one of those countries has to be a member of the Commonwealth; they do it out of choice. She was not just the figurehead but the leader of this array of nations—from giants such as India with its 1.4 billion people to tiny Caribbean countries—making up a third of the world’s population. We heard just now from the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, about the Commonwealth Games. I am privileged to be chancellor of the University of Birmingham and was there on 7 October when Her Majesty drove up in the courtyard in front of Buckingham Palace, stepped out and handed over the baton to its first relay holder. It went all around the world, across all the Commonwealth countries and territories.

Prime Minister Liz Truss described the Queen as the rock of the nation over seven decades. Republics do not have this advantage that we have. Presidents change regularly; we have had continuity for 70 years—not just continuity but somebody who has been apolitical, objective and completely independent. She cared for Great Britain and for Northern Ireland; she cared for the Commonwealth. Her stamina, of course, is legendary. I remember that at the state visit of the President of India to Windsor Castle, it was late into the night at a post-dinner reception when I was suddenly summoned by the Master of the Household, saying, “Her Majesty would like you to accompany her for a while, please.” So I went up to her and asked, “Your Majesty, where is the President?” The Queen said, “She and her husband have retired”, yet she stayed on until past midnight, meeting visitors.

Fast forward: a few years ago, the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh came up to Birmingham to reopen New Street Station. That was a big enough thing in itself but, from there, they came over to the University of Birmingham to open the new dental centre at Pebble Mill. Not only did she open that dental centre, they stayed for lunch, spent the whole afternoon and went back. It was absolutely remarkable, and how wonderful that we were able to celebrate her Platinum Jubilee.

This year, I was proud to be a member of the committee at the Royal Windsor Horse Show. Her Majesty always came to attend the final night, and that night we were warned: “She may not come and if she does, she may come only for a few minutes. She has not been well.” If your Lordships remember, she had missed the State Opening of Parliament just before that. We were all seated at 8 pm when she walked in, on time for the show to start. She stayed the full two hours—clapping, smiling, laughing and enjoying every minute, and it did not stop there. She then got into the Range Rover and did a whole lap of the arena, waving to everyone who was there. She left after 11 pm.

Winston Churchill, the Queen’s first Prime Minister, was born 100 years before today’s Prime Minister, Liz Truss. It is truly remarkable. I have been proud to be a deputy lieutenant, representing Her Majesty in Greater London. I was appointed on 9/11 in 2001, when I was still in my 30s. I remember the vice lord-lieutenant at the time, Sir Michael Craig-Cooper, telling me a story about accompanying the Queen. She was going through crowds and stopped in front of a teenage girl. The teenage girl curtsied and, at that moment, her phone rang. The Queen said, “Maybe you should answer that. It could be somebody important.” That was her sense of humour.

I remember sitting opposite her at a lunch at Buckingham Palace. There were the famous stories about the corgis. The corgis were sitting around her and one of the butlers, or waiters, walked behind her—she did not see this happen—and tripped over one of the corgis. It was like slow motion in a comedy movie; somehow, he managed not to drop the tray.

We loved Her Majesty the Queen and the world loved her. As she said, the price of love is grief. We are grieving. We have received messages from all over the world; I have received messages from the Middle East, India and America. We thank Her Majesty. My mother in India, who I spoke to this morning, said, “What a dignified woman.” She was majestic, magisterial, a true leader. She was an authentic leader: she had the abilities and the empathy of a true leader; she really cared.

She was the Queen of all Queens, the monarch of all monarchs. She was not only the most famous monarch in the world but the most respected, by miles. I have said time and again that the United Kingdom has one of the strongest combinations of hard and soft power in the world. Of that soft power, the number one factor is our luckiness as country to have had Her Majesty the Queen, our strongest element of soft power. She is the most priceless asset our country has had.

His Majesty King Charles III has not just a hard act to follow but an impossible one. Yet I hope—I know—that, looking ahead, like Isaac Newton, he will be able to say:

“If I can see further, it is because I am standing on the shoulders of giants”,


and of one giant in particular. Your Majesty the Queen, we will miss you but your inspiration will live on with us forever. We offer our heartfelt sympathy and condolences to His Majesty the King and the Royal Family. Long live the King, King Charles III. Long may he reign.

[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

My Lords, the scale of technological progress achieved during Queen Elizabeth’s remarkable reign was exceptional but, as the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, reminded us, so too has been the change in social attitudes and values. As the noble Baroness, Lady Amos, said in her powerful speech, the Britain that the Queen leaves behind is so different from the Britain of the beginning of her reign. Indeed, the very idea that, even in the middle of her long reign, she would have made someone such as me, with a severe disability that also affects my ability to speak, a Member of your Lordships’ House I find inconceivable. The fact that I am speaking in your Lordships’ House today compels me to reflect that, surely, the richness of the legacy that she has bequeathed to us can in part be seen in the far more diverse and inclusive society she so gently nurtured.

For me, one of the most visible signs of that deep personal commitment to all her people was her unstinting support for Motability, the charity co-founded by my noble friend Lord Sterling of Plaistow. I will never forget the occasion on which I was presented to Her Majesty at Windsor, where she very kindly hosted an event for Motability as its chief patron. It was a chilly spring day as we gathered outside, yet she spent over an hour greeting and speaking to all of us. For someone who grew up in an age of discrimination, some of it state-sanctioned, on grounds of sex, race, disability and sexual orientation, her capacity to reflect evolving attitudes and, subtly but no less powerfully for that, embrace diversity and inclusion was extraordinary. As my noble friend the Lord Privy Seal said in his profoundly poignant opening remarks, she was the Queen of everyone.

Uighurs in Xinjiang

Lord Shinkwin Excerpts

Thursday 16th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, as someone who worked in the private sector, I think it is important that companies look at the responsibility of their own actions. I am sure they will take note of the decision not just of the UK but of other countries to announce that diplomatic boycott.

[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

My Lords, these findings clearly have major implications for businesses’ ESG policies. When do the Government plan to follow the lead of the US and produce an investment ban list of firms known to be exercising or participating in the worst human rights abuses?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, presenting specific lists is always a challenge, though I hear what my noble friend has said. Certainly, the announcement of my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for International Trade reflects our continued concern in looking at this very carefully and systematically. Equally, I feel that companies, as I just said to my noble friend Lord Hayward, need to reflect on their actions and the business they are conducting.

China: Genocide

Lord Shinkwin Excerpts

Thursday 25th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

My Lords, I, too, pay tribute to both my noble friend Lord Alton of Liverpool, for securing this debate and his good friend the late Sir David Amess, who was a tireless campaigner for and supporter of the charities for which I worked before entering your Lordships’ House. May Sir David always be remembered for his faithful witness to the truth.

Ultimately, that is what we are discussing today. Will we and Her Majesty’s Government bear witness to the truth—in this case, that the most heinous of crimes, genocide, is once again being perpetrated, this time against the Uighurs?

Like others, I draw encouragement from the Foreign Secretary’s clear-eyed recognition of the challenges posed by the Chinese Communist Party regime and the need to develop a robust policy position in response. I welcome the sharp focus she is putting on human rights, democracy and freedom as a central theme in foreign policy. Her emphasis on building “a network of liberty” and strengthening alliances among freedom-loving nations, and her renewed focus on countering sexual violence against women and girls around the world—an initiative begun by my noble friend Lord Hague of Richmond—are surely absolutely right.

I therefore hope that my noble friend the Minister will be able to update your Lordships’ House on what concrete policy steps Her Majesty’s Government are taking to stop the genocide against the Uighurs, Uighur slave labour in supply chains, sexual violence and religious persecution against the Uighurs and the horrific live organ-harvesting detailed in a report circulated to noble Lords earlier this morning.

Other noble Lords have already mentioned various reports. I want to highlight a point referred to in a report by the Conservative Party Human Rights Commission, when the late and much-missed Member of your Lordships’ House, the former Chief Rabbi, Lord Sacks, said that the holocaust in Xinjiang is surely a prompt

“for the international community to wake up and take the reports of atrocity crimes … extremely seriously and with the utmost urgency.”

Like others, I should be grateful if my noble friend the Minister would tell the House what steps Her Majesty’s Government have taken, more than 10 months after the report’s launch, to act on its findings and recommendations.

I should also be grateful if the Minister could tell me what steps the Government are taking to ensure that UK pension funds are not being invested in companies complicit in genocide or gross human rights violations. Do they support the adoption of a similar entities list to that of the USA, which would ban investment and sanction companies linked to the camps in Xinjiang? He may also be aware that many of these companies advertise heavily that they are ethical and uphold environmental, social, and governance—ESG—criteria. Fine, but what about genocide? Where does that fit within ESG criteria? Is ignoring it for profit ethical? Surely we should move towards defining ESG criteria in primary legislation and regulating the ESG sector to ensure that companies are not ensnared and are not mis-selling products or marking their own homework.

We cannot afford inaction any longer. The amoral regime of the mass murderer Xi Jinping clearly represents a threat to world peace. I am encouraged that the Foreign Secretary seems very much alive to that reality. That is why we must act now to stop the genocide of the Uighurs and confront the wider repression of Xi Jinping’s Chinese Communist Party regime before it is too late. This is a race against time.