Cotton Imports Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateLord Flight
Main Page: Lord Flight (Conservative - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Flight's debates with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
(2 years, 10 months ago)
Lords ChamberMy Lords, we continue deliberations with a whole range of businesses, including, of course, the fashion business. Ensuring a tough response to modern slavery remains a priority for this Government. We are committed to strengthening the landmark transparency provisions in the Modern Slavery Act 2015, and these measures include the introduction of financial penalties on organisations which fail to publish modern slavery statements, and these will be enforced by our new single enforcement body once it comes into operation.
What are the Government doing about modern slavery in China, particularly Xinjiang, which can be identified—as the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, pointed out—by elemental analysis of cotton? What is their policy on British investment in relation to China?
For the first part of my noble friend’s question, I refer to the answer I gave previously. On investment generally, we continue to pursue a positive economic relationship with China and we think that it is in our interests to increase trade with China. As an open economy, we welcome trade and investment; however, as I have said on many occasions, we are not so stupid as to welcome harmful investment from China.