Medicines and Medical Devices Bill

Lord Collins of Highbury Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 28th October 2020 Grand Committee

Here, however, we have the means to take action which need not wait on that. It is simply permissive; it enables the Government to take action. As other noble Lords have said, it is a moral and ethical case. We have an opportunity to create regulations to help protect the UK from being complicit in such appalling crimes. I am sure that the House of Lords will support the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, on his amendment. I look forward to the Minister’s agreement to this amendment or, as my noble friend Lady Jolly has said, to her agreeing to take forward the essence of this amendment on Report.

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

My Lords, I begin by thanking all noble Lords who put their name to this amendment, because it truly reflects the cross-party concern on this issue. I also echo the comments by the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, regarding my noble friend Lord Hunt, who has been absolutely committed to continuing to raise this important issue.

As the noble Lord, Lord Patel, said, this is a modest amendment, designed to empower the Government to act and to create regulations to help protect the United Kingdom from being complicit in the abhorrent crimes evidenced by the China Tribunal chaired by Sir Geoffrey Nice QC. But, as my noble friend Lord Hunt said, it is also an opportunity for the Government to send a clear message that we will not stand by, and we will not tolerate such gross abuses of human rights.

I thank both the noble Baroness the Minister and the noble Lord the Minister for meeting me and other noble Lords interested in this issue and for arranging the FCDO Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, to be present, so that we could all hear exactly what is being done across departments on this issue.

In its final report, the China Tribunal concluded that:

“Forced organ harvesting has been committed for years throughout China on a significant scale”,


with Falun Gong practitioners and the Uighurs being the main victims. As my noble friend Lord Hunt said, Sir Geoffrey Nice and the tribunal spent 12 months assessing all the available evidence. Additionally, the tribunal’s international panel of highly respected individuals interviewed over 50 witnesses, experts and investigators, and formally invited representatives of the People’s Republic of China to respond. Of course, Sir Geoffrey himself has an incredible reputation as the former lead prosecutor of Slobodan Milošević at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.

Some of the other evidence I want to draw attention to is a study by the medical journal BMJ Open, and reported on by the Guardian, which raised ethical issues on over 400 studies conducted in China using an estimated 85,477 organ transplants. Of those studies, 99% failed to report whether organ donors had given consent for transplantation. The paper concluded that:

“The transplant community has failed to implement ethical standards banning publication of research using material from executed prisoners. As a result, a large body of unethical published research now exists, raising questions of complicity to the extent that the transplant community uses and benefits from the results of this research.”


As we have heard in the debate, the Government of the People’s Republic of China deny all such claims, relying on the fact that the WHO cleared them of wrongdoing. In June, I reminded the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, that 12 months earlier he had

“shared my concern that the evidence on which the WHO cleared China was based on self-assessment”

by the Chinese authorities. At that time, the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, stated:

“The Government’s position remains that the practice of systematic state-sponsored organ harvesting would constitute a serious violation of human rights”.—[Official Report, 29/6/20; col. 472.]


He assured the House that the UK regularly raised these concerns with China. At the recent meeting with other noble Lords with an interest in this amendment that I referred to, the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, confirmed that the UK had sent the full report of the China Tribunal to the WHO, asking it to respond to the evidence.

The fact remains that the WHO does not have an independent expert compliance assessment mechanism; it has merely a reporting requirement. I hope that the UK, the Government and the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, will continue to press the WHO for a clear response to the report and argue for a proper independent assessment by the WHO to guarantee compliance.

However, today is not about whether the WHO acts; it is about this country saying quite clearly that it will not be complicit in these abhorrent acts. Absolutely nothing I have heard from noble Lords much better qualified than me suggests that by passing the amendment we would hinder medical research or progress. As the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, pointed out, the UK has arguably some of the most ethical and comprehensive consent requirements for human tissue in the world, yet imported human tissue slips through the net. This is an opportunity that I am sure we will not forget or miss. I hope the Minister will respond positively.

As we have heard in the debate, other issues have been reported. I raised this at Second Reading. Two UK companies supply organ preserving devices to mainland China, which could explain how organs are being transported around China.

We all agree that we need to ensure ethics in the origin and treatment of human tissue and organs in the process of developing and manufacturing medicines. As I said before, this amendment would give the Government the means to ensure that human body tissue and organs that are being forcibly harvested are not allowed to enter the UK for medicines or medical testing. However, as I said, just as important as that is the message we can send to the world, in particular to the People’s Republic of China, that we will not stand by. This is an opportunity that we should not miss. I hope the Minister will be able to respond positively to the noble Lords’ amendment.