Human Rights Update

Chris Law Excerpts

Monday 22nd March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

I thank my hon. Friend the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee. There will be ample time for further discussions of the Trade Bill, but the arguments around genocide and the importance of its being determined by a court are well rehearsed. Equally, we have made clear the importance of this House in controlling the Executive in relation to free trade policy. On further legislation, an announcement will be made by the relevant Secretary of State in due course.

[Chris Law (Dundee West) (SNP) [V]]

The SNP wholly condemns the human rights violations taking place in China.

Last week, the Prime Minister published the long-awaited integrated review, which stated:

“Our first goal is to support open societies and defend human rights, as a force for good in the world.”

Despite that, the Prime Minister wants to forge closer ties to some of the worst human rights-violating states in our world. Moreover, in the immediate aftermath of the review’s publication, the Foreign Secretary lamented that restricting trade because of human rights abuses would mean missing out on growth markets. The Foreign Secretary’s remarks last week do not chime with today’s statement. His insistence that the UK will seek to do trade deals with countries that violate standards enshrined in the European convention on human rights—the very laws drawn up by British officials after the horrors of the second world war—marks yet another record low for this UK Government.

China is a serial human rights violator and we must call out the appalling state-backed human rights violations taking place there. It is crystal clear: it is genocide. Indeed, the Newlines Institute for Strategy and Policy think-tank found that through its actions in Xinjiang, China has breached every single article of the UN genocide convention and has accused China of clearly demonstrating

“intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”.

Shamefully, the UK Government refused to back the genocide amendment to the Trade Bill, making clear their desire for a trade deal with China as opposed to the preferable tougher approach on human rights.

The Foreign Secretary can talk tough on China but until he takes action it does nothing for those living under oppression in Xinjiang and elsewhere. Will he tell the House and the world what specific actions he intends to take to ensure that the UK upholds human rights and that this is a new approach that will not be characterised by the inconsistency, ambiguity and policy incoherence that has defined this Government so far? Finally, will he call out what is happening in China? It is quite simply genocide.

[Dominic Raab]

The hon. Gentleman made a whole range of remarks that suggest he lives in a parallel universe. I have to say that some of what he said was just pure nonsense. I made it clear that we would never do an FTA with a country with a human rights record that is beyond the pale. Through the recent action we have been taking under the Modern Slavery Act 2015, particularly in relation to supply chains, we have demonstrated that we will not allow businesses that profit from modern slavery either here or abroad to do business in the UK, and we have introduced the Magnitsky sanctions.

The hon. Gentleman raised the question of whether we would ever trade with countries that do not have ECHR-level human rights; I put it to him that neither he nor the hon. Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy) has ever once suggested that we should tear up any of the free trade deals that we have with countries that still have the death penalty, which of course does not comply with the ECHR. If he wants to keep making that argument, will he tell me which of the FTAs—whether with Korea or Japan, or the negotiations with the US—he is opposed to?