China: Treatment of Uighurs and Taiwanese Airspace Incursions

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Thursday 18th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, the Minister surprised me with a catalogue of compelling evidence, revealed in yesterday’s BEIS Committee report, that many major companies with large footprints in the UK are complicit in the forced labour of Uighurs in Xinjiang. Does he agree that a Minister-led campaign of business engagement—as the noble Lord the Minister of State at the FCDO proposed on 19 January at column 1139—is an insufficient response? Simply put, companies that do not meet their obligations to uphold human rights throughout the supply chains should not be doing business in the UK.

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

The noble Lord refers to the work we have been doing to strengthen the overseas business risk guidance to make clearer the risks to UK business. That applies as well to the public sector: we have increased support for UK public bodies to exclude suppliers where there is evidence of human rights violations from their supply chains. He refers to the BEIS Select Committee report, which was published only yesterday in another place, and we will of course look at that with interest. The department will reply to it in the usual way.