Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon on 19 March (HL14297), whether they will ask the World Health Organisation to (1) assess the report Bloody Harvest/the Slaughter: An update, published on 22 June 2016, and (2) publish a statement on the evidence presented in that report.

We are aware of reports that allege that organ harvesting may be taking place in China, including suggestions that minority and religious groups are being specifically targeted. The British Government continues to take these reports extremely seriously.

This includes the 2016 update to the Kilgour, Matas and Gutmann report and other information provided so far to the ongoing tribunal organised by the International Coalition to End Transplant Abuse in China and chaired by Sir Geoffrey Nice QC. We continue to scrutinise the situation carefully and review new information as it becomes available.

We will update the WHO via our Embassy in Beijing on the issues raised in the recent debate in Parliament, which included references to the 2016 update to the report ‘Bloody Harvest/The Slaughter’. When doing so, my officials will ask the WHO to expand upon its assessment of China’s organ transplant system. It would not be appropriate for us to ask the WHO to publish a statement on the evidence presented in the report ‘Bloody Harvest/the Slaughter’, although this does not preclude the authors of the report from doing so.