Xinjiang: Uyghurs

Alyn Smith Excerpts

Monday 29th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Nigel Adams]

The Chairman of the Select Committee is right to raise that point. He will be aware that bidders for any central Government contracts above certain thresholds are required to confirm that they are compliant with the transparency requirements in the Modern Slavery Act 2015. However, the decision on high-risk vendors did not involve the award of a contract to the telecommunications firm to which I assume the Chairmen of Select Committee may have been referring. We take this issue very seriously, and, as I said in my statement, all British companies involved in the region must consider carrying out proper due diligence to ensure that human rights violations have not been taking place in their supply chains.

[Alyn Smith (Stirling) (SNP) [V]]

I am glad to see such an element of consensus across the House today; I find it difficult to disagree with any of the previous contributions to this discussion. The challenge for us is to decide what we are actually going to do about it. Warm words and sympathy come easily to politicians, but Beijing would be entitled to feel that it is getting somewhat mixed messages. I concur that the UN mechanisms are pretty stymied. This is not a new problem—it has been going on for a number of years—and the UK is becoming increasingly involved in strategic developments with, in effect, emanations of the Chinese state. Huawei is one example, but there are others. Will the Minister undertake at least to promise to promote investigations by UN observers of the camps and, indeed, the reports of forced sterilisation, which is a degree of ethnic cleansing under the Rome statute? This is serious stuff on which we must take action. Will the Minister also come back to the House with an audit of all Government procurement contracts with Chinese companies and an assessment of these concerns?

[Nigel Adams]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to raise those issues. He will be aware that access to Xinjiang is not particularly easy to procure. We would very much welcome United Nations personnel being allowed into the region and have pressed China on that. It has not been the most easy thing to deal with—I have raised the matter personally with the Chinese ambassador. I reiterate what I said earlier: we need to ensure that British firms really do consider due diligence in their supply chains.