Human Rights: Xinjiang

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Thursday 22nd April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Sally-Ann Hart). All the speeches so far have been moving and powerful. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for enabling the debate and particularly congratulate the hon. Member for Wealden (Ms Ghani) on the passion and determination that she has shown on this issue over many months, along with members of the APPG on Uyghurs. I know that this is an issue of great importance for many of my constituents. They want to see MPs and this Government stand up for human rights across the world. One constituent who wrote me to said that we need to

“demonstrate Parliament’s commitment to upholding basic human rights.”

Every year on Holocaust Memorial Day, we confirm that we have a shared responsibility to fight the evils of genocide. Today’s debate is about showing our fundamental commitment to human rights and specifically making clear our opposition to the horrific treatment of the Uyghur people and the other ethnic groups in the Chinese province of Xinjiang. Members have described the state-sponsored arbitrary detention, displacement and forced labour of the Uyghur Muslims and others in the Xinjiang province.

I have time to address only two issues today. The first is the impact of Chinese state policy on women. As was said on foreignpolicy.com,

“Uyghur women are the most vulnerable…Their bodily autonomy has been violated through sexual, medical means and forced labor.”

The evidence is available in numerous reports from many sources which have found that the Uyghur women are raped, sterilised and forced to have abortions. Just reading those reports makes my blood run cold—a feeling that I am sure is shared across the House.

Secondly, I want to touch briefly on trade and the recent report by the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee which looked into the supply chain, particularly the concerns that companies across the world were profiting from forced labour in the province of Xinjiang. The link between global consumption and such atrocities is, sadly, not new and has been going on for centuries. I will give just one example. At the turn of the 19th century, we saw slavery in the Belgian Congo, along with forced displacement, arbitrary arrests and many other horrific crimes, while at the same time goods such as rubber flowed out of the Congo into Europe. Back then, campaigners from the Congo and activists across civil society—including, I am proud to say, a member of my family, William Cadbury—stood up in opposition to those atrocities and urged Parliament to act. It is therefore right that today Parliament considers our duty and our role on the world stage in standing up to these horrors.

However, our Government fail to address these serious concerns. On one hand, the Foreign Secretary describes what is happening in Xinjiang as

“barbarism we had hoped was lost to another era”—[Official Report, 12 January 2021; Vol. 687, c. 160.]

and says that we should not be doing trade deals with countries committing human rights abuses

“well below the level of genocide”—[Official Report, 12 January 2021; Vol. 687, c. 168.],

and yet the Government whipped their MPs to vote against the genocide amendment to the Trade Bill. Furthermore, legislation such as section 54 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 needs to be amended to ensure that all companies have a responsibility to prove that their supply chains are free of forced labour, and we must strengthen the sanctions for non-compliance.

I was pleased that my hon. Friends the Members for Wigan (Lisa Nandy) and for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) on the Opposition Front Bench called on the Government to impose Magnitsky-style sanctions on officials responsible last year, and the Government finally listened and acted just last month. I welcome the Government’s acting, even if they did take rather a long time to do so, but they need to do more. The Biden Administration have described what is happening in Xinjiang as “acts of genocide,” yet the UK Government struggle to engage constructively in the debate and have to be forced to respond.

If the UK is to be a serious player in the world, our Government need to show leadership, demonstrate our British values and no longer see the issue merely through the prism of protecting the UK’s trade. I will not stand aside and Members here today will not stand aside. Our Government must no longer stand aside in the face of these appalling crimes.