Xinjiang: Forced Labour

Tom Tugendhat Excerpts

Tuesday 12th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

May I at least thank the hon. Member for what she said about the approach that we are taking on export controls? She is wrong on a number of fronts, though; we certainly did not brief the papers. We have said that we would keep Magnitsky sanctions under review, and we continue to do so. Only one other country has applied Magnitsky sanctions in relation to China and specifically Xinjiang, and that is the US. We are taking targeted sanctions both through the fines that we will be legislating for under the MSA and through the stronger export controls, so what she said in that regard is not accurate. All four measures that we announced today are new. I was a little surprised to hear her refer to the EU regarding the new investment deal that it has done with China, and the suggestion that it has adopted stronger measures, which is simply not factually correct.

The hon. Member referred to the amendments to the Trade Bill, which I would like to address. The noble Lord Alton’s amendment has attracted a lot of interest. I think that it is well meaning, but it would actually be rather ineffective and counterproductive. Let me briefly explain why. It would frankly be absurd for any Government to wait for the human rights situation in a country to reach the level of genocide, which is the most egregious international crime, before halting free trade agreement negotiations. Any responsible Government would have acted well before then. At the same time, every campaigner against free trade would seek to use that legal provision to delay or halt FTA negotiations by tying the Government up in litigation that may last months—if not years—with no plausible genocide concluded at the end.

Finally, although I think it is right that the courts determine whether the very specific and, frankly, technical legal definition of genocide is met in any given situation, it would be quite wrong for a Government or for hon. Members of this House to subcontract to the courts our responsibility for deciding when a country’s human rights record is sufficiently bad that we will not engage in trade negotiations. Parliament’s responsibility is to determine when sanctions take place and with whom we negotiate.

The measures that we have announced today will ensure that both business and the Government can cater for the very real risk that supply chains—either coming to the UK or going into the internment camps of Xinjiang—are not affected, and that UK businesses are not affected. The hon. Member should unequivocally support these measures.

[Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)]

I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement. Her Majesty’s Government have taken some important actions of late. Indeed, supporting the Australian Strategic Policy Institute inquiry into Xinjiang was a very worthwhile action by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. I am glad that some of the recommendations that my right. hon Friend has spoken about were in the report published by the China Research Group only a few weeks ago. There are, however, other areas into which he could go.

I am particularly conscious not just of the shaping of the economic environment that we are seeing coming out Xinjiang and the nature of slave goods getting into the UK manufacturing chain, but also of the distortion of academic ideas and academic freedoms that we are seeing here in the UK; there is a centre in Jesus College, Cambridge that is refusing to talk about these abuses of Uyghur Muslims for fear of causing offence. Is this the first time that Jesus himself has taken 30 pieces of silver? This is a deeply disappointing moment for all of us who believe in academic freedom in the UK, and it is another example of why the UK and the Foreign Office need to be clear in demonstrating that dirty goods are one thing, but dirty money is also unacceptable.

[Dominic Raab]

I pay tribute to the work that my hon. Friend has done in the Foreign Affairs Committee, and in the parliamentary grouping to which he referred, including the report that that group published. I thank him for his support for these important measures. They are very targeted—this is often the case with international organised crime or war crimes—to ensure that we follow the money and prevent the ability to profit from, or to financially support, the kinds of actions on which we all want to clamp down.

My hon. Friend raised the issue of academic freedoms. We are taking further measures in that regard, and further legislative measures will be taken when the relevant legislative vehicles are brought forth. He is absolutely right to raise this issue. He talked about Jesus College, Cambridge; I did my LLM there. There is a very real risk of academic coercion in places where we need to protect the heartbeat and the life and soul of freedom of expression and debate, and there is also a risk to research that takes place, in advance of it becoming intellectual property. In all those areas, in both non-legislative and legislative measures, we are actively looking at that.