Uighur Forced Labour: Xinjiang

Baroness Kennedy of Shaws Excerpts

Thursday 17th December 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Barker) (LD)]

The noble Baroness, Lady Helic, is not there so I call the next speaker, the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws.

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab) [V]]

I want to reinforce what the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, just said. The Magnitsky Act and the Magnitsky lists are intended to deal with this kind of exigency. There is clear evidence of serious crimes being committed against the Uighur people; the Magnitsky law that we introduced is to deal with this kind of emergency. We heard yesterday in the Commons about fears of asset flight. We really have to address this and, as the Chief Rabbi said, not allow silence to be complicity. Inaction becomes complicity.

Yesterday, I heard evidence from a number of Uighur on a webinar. Noble Lords would have wept if they had heard their accounts. There is no shortage of evidence that there is terrible persecution taking place against the Uighur; one of the things that is happening is forced labour. We should be acting now in relation to our companies that are doing business with the Chinese, including buying cotton and goods that are the product of forced labour.

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

My Lords, we are speaking directly to trade bodies and individual companies on the final point that the noble Baroness raised. As I said, my right honourable the Foreign Secretary has been pressing for unfettered access for an independent fact-finding body to go into Xinjiang to look at this. We keep all evidence and potential listings under close review.