China: Muslims

Lord Campbell of Pittenweem Excerpts

Wednesday 16th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con) [V]]

My Lords, on sanctions specifically, we keep the whole situation under review. As the noble and right reverend Lord and your Lordships’ House will be aware, on 22 March, under the global human rights sanctions regime, we introduced asset freezes and travel bans on four senior Chinese government officials, as well as an asset freeze against the public security bureau in Xinjiang. We will continue to see the impact of these sanctions and will review future sanctions as the need arises.

[Lord Campbell of Pittenweem (LD)]

My Lords, in the integrated review and elsewhere, the Government have described their policy towards China as a balance between trading and supporting human rights. How can that balance be legitimately maintained in the light of the damning conclusions of the Amnesty report?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con) [V]]

My Lords, as I have said from the Dispatch Box before, we totally recognise the role China has to play. China remains a permanent member of the UN Security Council and its trade with the UK remains an important element. However, notwithstanding the fact that we recognise the importance of its trading relationship, we will not stand by. As we have already demonstrated, we will call out egregious abuse of human rights. We will continue to hold China to account, raise issues directly and bilaterally with China, and raise issues directly through multilateral forums such as the Human Rights Council.