Procurement Bill [ Lords ] (Sixth sitting)

Kirsty Blackman Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 7th February 2023 Public Bill Committees

[Florence Eshalomi]

As the Minister highlighted, amendment 87 would sadly overturn Lords amendment 91, made on Report, in relation to forced organ harvesting. I agree with the Minister that there can be no doubt that organ harvesting is an abhorrent practice, but we should be careful when saying that this measure would just result in additional bureaucracy and time in contracts and procurement.

The practice of forced organ harvesting involves the removal of organs from a living prisoner, which results in their death or near death. It is something that none of us should stand by and watch. Linking this back to taxpayers’ money, no taxpayer would expect a single penny of their public money to go to a company explicitly linked to this practice. Tragically, there is evidence that forced organ harvesting may not be a particularly niche issue.

The Minister highlighted that the measure, although well intended, would add more time and another layer of bureaucracy. I want to go back to the debates in the other place, and some of the powerful words from Lord Alton of Liverpool and Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, who moved the amendment that led to our discussion today. Both made moving and compelling arguments for the inclusion of the measure against forced organ harvesting, providing examples of evidence that the practice is taking place on an extremely depressing scale in China.

The excellent speeches made by Lord Alton and Lord Hunt have been backed up by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, which stated that serious human rights violations have been committed in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region,

“in the context of the Government’s application of counter-terrorism and counter-‘extremism’ strategies. The implementation of these strategies, and associated policies in XUAR has led to interlocking patterns of severe and undue restrictions on a wide range of human rights. These patterns of restrictions are characterized by a discriminatory component, as the underlying acts often directly or indirectly affect Uyghur and other predominantly Muslim communities.”

The OHCHR also stated that the treatment of persons held in the system of so-called vocational education and training centres—VETC facilities—is,

“of equal concern. Allegations of patterns of torture or ill-treatment, including forced medical treatment and adverse conditions of detention, are credible, as are allegations of individual incidents of sexual and gender-based violence. While the available information at this stage does not allow OHCHR to draw firm conclusions regarding the exact extent of such abuses, it is clear that the highly securitised and discriminatory nature of the VETC facilities, coupled with limited access to effective remedies or oversight by the authorities, provide fertile ground for such violations to take place on a broad scale.”

That is damning. It shows there is evidence of this already happening. In an April 2022 paper published in the American Journal of Transplantation, Matthew P. Robertson and Jacob Lavee stated:

“We find evidence in 71 of these reports, spread nationwide, that brain death could not have properly been declared. In these cases, the removal of the heart during organ procurement must have been the proximate cause of the donor’s death. Because these organ donors could only have been prisoners, our findings strongly suggest that physicians in the People’s Republic of China have participated in executions by organ removal.”

As a country, we must stand steadfast against these practices and ensure that any supplier with ties to forced organ harvesting is not allowed anywhere near our procurement system. I do not think taxpayers would expect anything less. No one wants to be linked to these horrific practices.

I fully understand and appreciate that the Minister may have covered these and other concerns in his remarks, but we may want to consider that there is no doubt this practice is an exclusion ground. In Committee in the Lords, the Minister, Baroness Neville-Rolfe, said it was almost certain that it would be covered by paragraph 12, but I think we have to ask ourselves, how many times have we heard that something is almost certain, only for it not to be covered when the Bill passes? We cannot and should not take chances on this issue. It is a fundamental and critical issue of human rights. If the Committee is to do its job, we cannot support the attempts to remove forced organ harvesting as a discretionary exclusion ground. For those powerful and valid reasons, I will not be supporting the amendment.

[Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)]

It is tempting to think that forced organ harvesting is so far removed from anything that we consider human, or a normal occurrence, that it does not happen—but it does. As the shadow Minister laid out, the issue was discussed in significant detail in the other place. We know it occurs.

The Minister has given some level of assurance that other parts of the Bill cover this practice. Could he be explicit that he does not believe that any supplier involved in forced organ harvesting would be eligible to receive a public contract through the procurement framework set out in the Bill? If he can give that explicit assurance that he believes the practice is covered elsewhere in the Bill, and that provisions elsewhere in the Bill adequately do the job of this provision, I would be happy not to oppose the amendment. That assurance from the Minister would give us a measure of reassurance and comfort that the Bill covers everything that he intends and expects.

[Alex Burghart]

We are assured that the absolutely abhorrent practice of forced organ harvesting would qualify as serious unethical behaviour. Consequently, that would mean that, in the Bill, it would be covered by the grounds of professional misconduct. Within the Bill, we have that provision; outwith the Bill, we have the Health and Social Care Act, to which I referred in my remarks. I hope that no one will take away anything other than the fact that the Government are strongly opposed to this practice and to the people who conduct this practice and that we wish public procurement to have no part in it.

Question put, That the amendment be made.

--- Later in debate ---

I do not think that we can see ourselves being weaned off such technology overnight, otherwise what we are discussing would be an easy task. The beauty of the clause, however, is that it mandates the Secretary of State to lay out a clear timeframe for its removal. Bodies would even have six months in which to do that. Given that Hikvision is already banned in the US for links to internment camps in Xinjiang and banned in Whitehall, the timeframe could easily be met for the rest of the procurement supply chain. I urge the Minister to reconsider that.

[Kirsty Blackman]

Throughout the discussion of Hikvision and other companies in relation to human rights abuses, genocide and crimes against humanity, the Minister has missed the point. The shadow Minister has absolutely got the point.

For a start, the US has already blacklisted Hikvision. If the US believes that there is enough evidence to do that, and the Scottish Government are getting rid of the Hikvision cameras we have in Scotland, I do not see why the UK Government are unable to act in that regard. Two other jurisdictions have found enough evidence to debar Hikvision from providing cameras involved in our public life, yet the UK Government feel that there is still not enough evidence. They are somehow suggesting that perhaps the situation is over-egged, but it appears that the Foreign Affairs Committee does not think the situation is an over-exaggeration, and that it thinks that there is actually a risk and danger.

This is not just about the threat to our national security, although that is obviously incredibly important, and the Labour Front Benchers have been clear about national security throughout our discussion of the Bill. This is also about supporting a company that is committing human rights abuses. It does not matter whether a company is committing them here or elsewhere; the reality is that through public procurement, we are funding a company using facial recognition in mosques and committing atrocities against Uyghur Muslims in the Xinjiang region. How is that okay just because it is not causing any problems here?

Even if the company were not causing any threat to national security, this is about the direction of travel. On modern slavery, for example, the Government are pretty clear that no matter where that is happening, we do not want to be entangled with suppliers involved in modern slavery and enslaving people. We should not want to be involved with, and companies and suppliers should not be giving public money to, the people committing these crimes. Just because this is not modern slavery, it does not mean that they are not creating significant problems and putting people in severe danger as part of the extreme regimes that they are working for.

I do not see the justification in allowing public money to be given to any of these organisations. As I said last week, it is not as though this is a high bar; it is a low bar. We are saying that modern slavery and genocide are crimes against humanity. Those are pretty much the most serious things we can think of. Any organisation involved in those should not get public money, whether or not it is a threat to national security.

I am slightly pleased that the Government and the Minister seem a bit more willing to look at the possibilities regarding Hikvision. I appreciate that removing it from secure and sensitive sites, particularly, is a priority for the Government—they have agreed that they will do that—but that is not enough; we should not fund these organisations at all. Asking the UK Government to make a move in that regard in order to remove this technology and ensure that Hikvision does not get any more of our money is incredibly important, and not too much to ask.

I stress again the point made by the hon. Member for Vauxhall: the clause does not ask for immediate removal. It gives the Government six months to publish a timeline for removal—it is not giving them six months to remove the stuff, but to produce a timeline. They are not being asked for something entirely unreasonable. There are other camera providers and technologies out there that could be used instead to provide safety and security for places that we want to be safe and secure, without our supporting a company propping up a regime that is profiling and committing crimes against humans just because they happen to be Muslim. That is completely unacceptable, no matter where in the world it is doing that. Whether or not this is being done in the UK, the Government should take action on that.

I will therefore strenuously resist any attempt to remove clause 65 from the Bill. I used this phrase earlier, but it should not be too much to ask for the Government to take action on this issue. I am pleased that the Minister seems to have moved his language slightly since our previous debate, but it is not good enough and we are not there yet. We need a firm commitment from the Government to remove this technology that is causing so much harm to the lives of so many and to remove the support for the people causing such harm.

[Alex Burghart]

I thank hon. Members for their remarks. As I said, we think that the clause as drafted would be unworkable. On what the hon. Members for Vauxhall and for Aberdeen North said, we are moving to a new debarment regime, and I am not able to prejudge who will be covered by that regime. Suppliers will be considered for addition to the debarment list based on a rigorous and fair prioritisation policy. That policy is under development, and it is too early to say which suppliers will or will not be added to the debarment list.

We should remember that the new regime will give broader exclusion powers to authorities that have primary responsibility for applying the exclusions regime. The sorts of crimes we have touched on this afternoon, such as organ harvesting, modern slavery and the like, are very serious crimes against people and humanity, and no doubt that will have a bearing on future judgments. I appreciate where the amendment in the Lords came from, but we do not think the clause is workable. As a Government, however, we continue to consider the issue carefully.

Question put, That the clause stand part of the Bill.