Chinese Government Sanctions on UK Citizens

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Tuesday 13th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Nigel Adams]

The amendment to the Trade Bill that was passed is consistent with our long-standing policy that any judgment on whether genocide has occurred is a matter for a competent court, rather than for Governments or non-judicial bodies, and should be decided after consideration of all the evidence available in the context of a credible judicial process.

[Ms Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)]

I want to put on the record my thanks to Mr Speaker for his robust support. He fully understands that sanctioning MPs was not only about intimidating us, but about threatening the integrity of this House.

It is absurd for MPs to be sanctioned for producing a Select Committee report that talks about slave labour in Xinjiang. My question to the Minister is this: if we know that the United Nations is broken when it comes to determining genocide, what are we to do now that the Chinese communist party has decided to sanction those Members who dared to speak about it? The Minister spoke about the work the Government are doing with businesses to make sure that modern slavery is not in supply chains, but that is now worthless, because every business doing the right thing that was identified in our report is now being threatened by the Chinese communist party.

Finally, alongside many colleagues, I led on the genocide amendment to the Trade Bill. Although it is good that the Government’s compromise tackled genocide, it is shameful that it excluded the Uyghur. I do not expect a change in the law, but I do expect the Minister to say that the Uyghur people can now come forward in any process in this place that is established to see whether genocide is taking place.

[Nigel Adams]

I thank my hon. Friend for her persistent work in this area. She—and other colleagues and entities that have been sanctioned—obviously have the full support of the Foreign Office. I know that her work on the issue of genocide has been long standing, but I do think the Government’s amendment to the Trade Bill is consistent with our policy. Select Committees will be able to come up with a report that the Government have to consider. Depending on the response of the Select Committees, that could very well lead to a meaningful debate on the Floor of the House.