Human Rights Due Diligence Debate
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Lord Oates
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Human Rights Due Diligence
Lord Oates Excerpts(2 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Callanan (Con)
The noble Baroness is right; this is indeed a complicated subject with a lot of different areas for consideration. We need to be careful not to impose undue burdens, particularly on small businesses.
Lord Oates (LD) [V]
My Lords, I hope the Minister will agree that Governments as well as businesses have a moral duty of due diligence on human rights. Can he therefore tell the House what due diligence the Government conducted prior to chartering a flight to deport Zimbabwe nationals tomorrow to a country where human rights are consistently violated? Will the Government now halt that flight and place a moratorium on further deportations until the Zimbabwean Government can demonstrate that they respect the human rights of their citizens and the rule of law?
Lord Callanan (Con)
I admire the noble Lord’s ingenuity in getting a question on deportation flights into one considering forest communities. I do not have the information about that particular flight—I was not aware of it—so I will write to him.