Telecommunications Legislation: Human Rights

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

Tuesday 21st July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran]

It is impossible to have watched the footage to which the noble Lord referred without a sense of horror and deep concern. As my noble friend Lord Ahmad said in answer to an earlier Question, the Government will not look away from human rights abuses in Xinjiang. We are working actively with the Home Office and the Public Bill Office to work out what can be within scope for an amendment on the issues the noble Lord raises about the supply chain.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, when the Minister comes back at Third Reading on the telecommunications Bill with an amendment, will she bear in mind that although the Government have taken action to exclude Huawei from the 5G work we still need a human rights threshold in order to exert leverage on China to change its current appalling human rights practices, including forced organ harvesting?

[Baroness Barran]

The Government have been very clear. My right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary yesterday used the term “gross human rights abuses.” We will pursue a number of avenues on this because human rights clearly do not apply purely in the telecoms supply chain, but much more widely.