Trade Bill

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 13th October 2020 Lords Chamber

I have no doubt that the Minister shares my abhorrence and that of other noble Lords. I hope that even though he will feel duty-bound to resist many amendments to the Bill, he will recognise the unique nature of this amendment and will, between now and Report, work with the movers to incorporate it into the legislation. I beg to move.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I apologise for not being here at the start of this Committee. I had to chair the Economic Affairs Committee of the House of Lords to which the Governor of the Bank of England was giving evidence.

I support these amendments and congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Alton, on his tireless commitment to championing the cause of so many people suffering persecution and genocide around the world. Who on the Front Bench could have heard that speech and not felt an absolute obligation to accept these amendments or some variation on them? This House can be proud not only of the noble Lord, Lord Alton, but also of the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, for the indefatigable way in which they bring the appalling atrocities happening around the world to the attention of this House and of the country.

I want to focus on China, a country with detention without trial for bloggers, journalists, academics and dissidents; of televised forced concessions; of torture, genocide, enforced organ harvesting, compulsory sterilisation, forced labour and the destruction of crosses and their churches. I have referred to this in the House before, and to the evidenced-based report by the Conservative Party’s Human Rights Commission entitled The Darkest Moment: The Crackdown on Human Rights in China, 2013-2016. It makes for very disturbing reading. It details how a pastor’s wife was buried alive while protesting at the demolition of a church in Henan province and how Falun Gong prisoners were forced to donate organs to high-ranking Chinese officials.

Giving evidence to the commission on organ harvesting, the Chinese-born actress, Anastasia Lin, said that such acts force us

“to confront the question of how humans—doctors trained to heal, no less—could possibly do such great evil”.

Her answer was:

“The aggressors in China were not born to be monsters who take out organs from people … It’s the system that made them do that. It’s the system that made them so cold-bloodedly able to cut people open and take out their organs and watch them die.”


As a consequence of her criticism of the regime, Ms Lin’s family was threatened by state security agents and her Canadian sponsors were asked by the Chinese consulate to withdraw their support.

Last century, China signed the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, but somehow it has not got around to ratifying it. The assaults on Tibetan identity and the oppression of the Uighurs in Xinjiang are mirrored in Mongolia. My right honourable friend Sir Iain Duncan Smith wrote about this in last week’s Daily Telegraph. He reported that there are 3 million Uighurs in detention camps and he rightly pointed out:

“As China carries out these human rights abuses while systematically breaking World Trade Organisation rules, too many businesses act as apologists for China”.


We must now take a lead in challenging this behaviour. We saw how Huawei found friends in high places, with the noble Lord, Lord Browne of Madingley, no less, chairing its UK board and Sir Mike Rake, a former president of the CBI, joining the board, together with a former head of UK Trade & Investment, Sir Andrew Cahn and the Lord-Lieutenant of Greater London, Sir Ken Olisa. I do not know what the UK board of Huawei does but, since public exposure, many of these people have scuttled off it. Speaking out against China’s egregious breaches of human rights has not been one of their functions.

This amendment is a start to holding China and others to account. In a Written Answer to the noble Lord, Lord Alton—I call him my noble friend—the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon said:

“We have a policy of engagement with China and our approach will remain consistent even if difficulties emerge.”


We are talking about atrocities and genocide. This is why this amendment and its supporting amendment —which takes account of the Minister’s comments—need to be taken on board in the Bill. I hope the Minister will support it.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Fookes) (Con)]

As the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, has withdrawn, I call the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner of Margravine.