Trade Bill

Baroness Smith of Newnham Excerpts

Report stage & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords & Report: 1st sitting & Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Monday 7th December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 8. Unlike the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, I also support Amendment 9.

In opening the debate on this amendment, the noble Lord, Lord Collins, asked whether we have a consistent approach on human rights. The Prime Minister spent a lot of time when he was Foreign Secretary, and since then as Prime Minister, talking about going global. That is not just about trade, which concerns the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, but about a wider set of interests and principles. We can trade widely but is that all that we should be doing? I do not believe that it is mere virtue-signalling to suggest that, if we want free trade agreements, we should also think about wider issues associated with the countries with which we are trading.

The noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, is right that there are difficulties in adjudicating on genocide. Whenever genocide is raised with the Ministers at the FCDO, they say, “We cannot possibly talk about it unless it has been brought as a legal case and confirmed by the courts.” That is why Amendment 8 is important as a wider amendment that talks about human rights more generally, but the two go together.

As my noble friend Lady Northover pointed out, it is important that the Government support this amendment. Free trade should not be the only thing that matters. If, as an independent country now separate from the European Union, we seek to play a major role in the world, surely that should be based on our fundamental values and principles—not just on the value of trading contracts but on the value of relationships more generally. Trade in goods that comes from forced labour, modern slavery and concentration camps is surely not something that anybody in this country or Her Majesty’s Government can condone. As my noble friend Lady Northover said, surely the Government can support this amendment. If they cannot, it is even more important to have it in the Bill. I support Amendment 8.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

My Lords, I declare my position as co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Hong Kong, which may have some relevance to this. I join with many other noble Lords in thanking those noble Lords who have tabled and supported these amendments. I should warn the House that, in about the next minute of my contribution, I am going to be very concrete and graphic—this needs a trigger warning for anyone who has been a victim of torture or abuse.

This is an account provided by Ömir Bekali, a Uighur Muslim from Xinjiang in the far south-west of China, the former owner of a small tourism business, who spoke to the “Varsity” magazine in Cambridge in October. The noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, talked about the big picture of what is happening in Xinjiang, but this is one man’s story. Ömir said:

“They shackled my hands and put black fabric [over] my eyes … I feel my body tremble whenever I remember that moment … My feet and my hands were tied up with iron shackles and they beat my hands, they beat my feet … they beat my back and my stomach … They put needles in between my nails and my fingers”.


After I have spoken, I will tweet a link to the report, which contains much more and worse than what I have just put on the record.

The world has, sadly, been hearing reports of human rights abuses for decades, centuries and millennia. I have to respectfully disagree with the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, who suggested that these amendments would not help the Uighurs. What we are doing is making sure that we do not go backwards from the inadequate but still existing controls that we have with regard to human rights and trade under our former EU membership. I agree with the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, who said that the calling out of human rights abuse and putting it on to the international agenda is crucially important in terms of influencing the behaviour of peoples and nations.

In the UK, we have often had the cover of saying, “Perhaps little can be done in far-away places with few connections with over here, and there is little that we can do to help.” It was often the excuse—a very thin and inadequate excuse—that that was only the word of one individual; it was not hard evidence of what was happening. But that is not the case anymore, because we now have satellite pictures of massive so-called re-education camps, concentration camps or straight-out prisons in Xinjiang. We have even, due to the globalisation of the economy, the occasional desperate note pleading for rescue from abusive forced labour falling from a holiday present into the living-room of a shocked British household. That is a practical demonstration of the fact that we know well: our trade, companies and society, and our prosperity, are inextricably linked in a crucial way to the economic structures that are fed by these abuses. Our economic structures and political arrangements all too regularly, either tacitly or even explicitly, condone or accept such behaviour.

I note that Amendment 8, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Collins of Highbury, has been criticised as being too weak, but it is a start and a step in the right direction of acknowledging the link between trade and human rights. Amendment 10, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, steps up to and links with Amendment 9 that we will consider in the next group. The Green group will support them all. The amendment provides a strong and clear focus on genocide, even if it is limited in scope.

Let us start here and see how far we can get. I would say to Members of your Lordships’ House that if you will not be joining the many Lords who have said that they will back at least some of these steps, my question is this: what will you say to Ömir, who has spoken out bravely in the hope of action to protect people still in Xinjiang and people around the world who are suffering human rights abuses? Choosing not to do something is not a neutral act, but an active choice, a choice of morality, a choice about the kind of world we all live in, now and in the future.

I am sure that many noble Lords will be familiar with the short story by the late and brilliant Ursula K Le Guin, “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas”. For those who are not, it is about a wonderful, prosperous and flourishing city that relies for its prosperity entirely on the permanent misery and the deliberate abuse of the human rights of a single child. Those who walk away are those who reject this bargain. We have today a trade system built on the misery not of one but of millions. Will noble Lords reject that bargain?

--- Later in debate ---

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)]

The noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, has withdrawn, so I call the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newnham.

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, referred to the genocide in Rwanda. When that happened, I was a graduate student writing on the European Parliament. I happened to be visiting a friend in Italy, and she had a visiting Catholic priest from Rwanda who said to me, “Please help”. I was in my 20s and I was involved in a political party, but I was not able to speak in a Parliament. I certainly could not go and stand in the European Parliament and try to effect change. But I always felt that there was something wrong and that there ought to be a way to deal with something that is called genocide without waiting for the UN Security Council to come to a decision, where it is always possible for one state alone to veto the idea of genocide.

Since arriving in your Lordships’ House, I, like other noble Lords, have heard the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, again and again raise the issue of genocide. From the Government Front Bench we always hear the same refrain: “We cannot do anything unless there is a legal ruling. There needs to be a judgment. Unless something is called genocide by a court, we cannot act.” As the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, pointed out, this amendment will begin to effect that change. It is not court interference or damaging the separation of powers; it is enabling this House and the other place to remind the Government that there are times when it is vital to act.

Her Majesty’s Government, particularly the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, repeatedly tell us that there needs to be a legal case for us to talk about genocide. This amendment would allow that to happen. Surely it is time for the amendment to be passed, for the other place to be able to think about this and to take a lead. As the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, pointed out, this might be a novel act, but that is no reason not to make that act. Surely, if we want to play a role in the world, sometimes it is necessary to act first.

It is not about virtue signalling; as the noble Lord, Lord Alton, pointed out, it is about virtuous behaviour. Unlike the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, I think there are times when one has to say that, however important trade is, some issues are more important. You cannot simply equate trade and the value of human life. This is about human life, and we must stand to be counted. I urge noble Lords to support this amendment.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the powerful speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newnham. I join many other noble Lords in thanking the noble Lords who tabled this amendment. I will be brief, because I want to ensure that as many Members of your Lordships’ House as possible have the chance to vote tonight. I must humbly associate myself with the highly powerful speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, who made the crucial point about the international importance of our deliberations here tonight on this novel and innovative legal move.

This brings me to the first of the three points I would like to make. In discussing a previous group of amendments, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, said that the UK has been a leader for many decades in human rights developments. UK civil society, lawyers and campaign groups certainly have been, and Governments of various stripes have often been dragged along by those campaigners. That is what we are seeing here tonight: individuals in your Lordships’ House and campaign groups saying that we cannot tolerate the current situation and we have to act.

The noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, referred to the Magnitsky sanctions—another new and powerful weapon in the human rights armoury, which has developed from the actions of US civil society and campaigners. I always like to highlight good news, and I think we can see in that pairing a real sign of good news. Although, as many noble Lords have commented, the international community and the United Nations have been inactive or unable to act in hideous case after hideous case of genocide, we are seeing new attempts, new approaches and new ways of ensuring action. That is why this is so important.