Uyghur Slave Labour: Xinjiang

Liam Fox Excerpts

Wednesday 16th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Nigel Adams]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question and for the way that she engages with FCDO. Most parties are on the same page in this situation, and our officials meet businesses and industry stakeholders regularly to make them aware of the scale of forced labour issues. I ask her to have a bit of patience into the new year, when we will bring to the House the next stage of support and action via the Modern Slavery Act 2015. We will also be able to talk a little more about cross-Government work.

I forgot to answer one point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden (Ms Ghani), about the Chinese ambassador. He has been summoned to the Foreign Office to meet the permanent under-secretary, and following the publication of the report in the last couple of days, yesterday we made our views known strongly to the embassy.

[Dr Liam Fox (North Somerset) (Con)]

The principle of non-intervention in another country’s internal affairs is generally a good one, but surely it is applicable only when people are able to choose the Government whom they live under, and where their rights and freedoms are respected. Does my hon. Friend agree that with respect to totalitarian states there is a duty on all strong and free nations to speak out for the weak and forgotten, even when politically uncomfortable or inconvenient?

[Nigel Adams]

My right hon. Friend makes a good point. We are not dealing with a country with a normal party system. We have long worked with international partners on this issue, and we led the first joint international statements at the third committee of the General Assembly last year, as well as in June at the UN Human Right Council. As I said, to get 39 countries to join our statement at the third committee about the situation in Xinjiang was no mean feat but, as ever on these issues, my right hon. Friend is spot on.