Solar Supply Chains

Brendan O'Hara Excerpts

Tuesday 16th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Alicia Kearns (Rutland and Melton) (Con)]

I am grateful to you, Madam Deputy, for granting this important debate.

The solar industry will play an important role in the Government’s net zero plans, with a target of producing 70 GW of solar energy by 2035—a fivefold increase on our current output. It is absolutely right that solar plays its part in increasing our renewable energy output, but the current roll-out lacks national oversight of land use, sufficient consideration of food security issues and the protection of agricultural land, and protections against the widespread exposure of solar supply chains to Uyghur forced labour and genocide.

[Brendan O’Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Alicia Kearns]

It is early in my speech, but absolutely, I will give way to the hon. Gentleman.

[Brendan O’Hara]

I accept that it is early in the hon. Lady’s speech, and I thank her for giving way and introducing the debate.

In 2022, I introduced a Bill in Parliament to prohibit the importation of products made by forced labour from Xinjiang. No one in the UK would want to believe that the things that they bought were the product of slave labour. The Bill would have put the onus on manufacturers to prove that they had not been made by slave labour. Does she agree that it would be an important step forward if the Government adopted such a policy?

[Alicia Kearns]

I could not agree more with the hon. Gentleman—he is absolutely right. I tabled a very similar amendment to the Energy Bill last year, which I will touch on later.

In 2021, Sheffield Hallam University published a report, “In Broad Daylight: Uyghur Forced Labour and Global Solar Supply Chains”. It summarised the situation as follows:

“Many indigenous workers are unable to refuse or walk away from these jobs, and thus the programmes are tantamount to forcible transfer of populations and enslavement.”

The university’s second report, “Over-Exposed”, went further, creating a ranking system for solar companies based on exposure to Uyghur slave labour, which I will come to later in more detail. The two reports were funded by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, yet their findings do not been appear to have been enacted.