Human Rights: Xinjiang

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Thursday 22nd April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab) [V]]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Wealden (Ms Ghani). I congratulate her on obtaining this debate and on the excellent work she has been doing with the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee and on the Trade Bill. As co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Uyghurs, I pay tribute to the many colleagues who have been working with us over the past few years to raise awareness of the seriousness of the situation in Xinjiang.

This House has repeatedly heard evidence of sterilisation, mass extrajudicial internment, organ harvesting and modern-day slavery. Indeed, the Foreign Secretary himself described them as abuses “on an industrial scale” and as “mass torture”. I will not repeat the stories here, because I know colleagues will be talking about them in detail, but we should not have to tell them again and again to get action. I wish to use my time to put a few questions to the Minister.

First, it has become clear to all of us that the Government’s policy on genocide is untenable. They cannot continue to insist that the determination of genocide is for the courts, knowing that there is no court that can actually hear these cases. The current policy far predates the current Government. We should be honest about this and look beyond party politics. It has become an embarrassment to Ministers. It is patently absurd to insist on this being a matter for courts, which will be blocked from acting. Can the Minister tell us what plans the Government have to review and reform this policy?

Secondly, the Minister will know that Sir Geoffrey Nice, QC, has convened a tribunal to conduct an independent and credible interrogation of the evidence. Will he confirm that the Government will do everything possible to co-operate with the Uyghur tribunal, including providing evidence and agreeing to take seriously what will be a rigorous and impartial judgment when the process is complete? Our all-party parliamentary group has written to the Minister about this twice but so far has received no response.

Thirdly, we know that in 2016 Beijing installed Chen Quanguo as secretary of Xinjiang. Within a year, he had turned it into probably the world’s most heavily policed region. When the Government finally announced the Magnitsky sanctions, why did they leave out the organ grinder, Chen Quanguo? He is believed to be the architect of the Xinjiang atrocities and, indeed, those in Tibet. We are now in a position of having sanctioned the entity he runs and helped to turn into an instrument of oppression—the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps—but not Quanguo himself. Surely the Minister must see that this is not rational. The United States has sanctioned him. Will this Government commit today to sanctioning him as well?

When I set up the APPG on Uyghurs in 2019, I was contacted by an official from the Chinese embassy, who I agreed to meet in order to discuss the then recently built internment camps. The Chinese official was quick to remind me that the west has no moral high ground to lecture China, given our own interventions in history—indeed, he sent me several emails to that effect—but to engage in whataboutery is to deny and distract from the point.

Since 1948, we have witnessed genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, Darfur, northern Iraq and now China and Myanmar. That is not an exhaustive list. Indeed, some grave crimes against humanity go unreported in the mainstream media and are never classified as genocide. The response to these atrocities has always been inadequate. Whenever a genocide takes place, there is a collective wringing of hands, but the promise to break the relentless and devastating cycle of genocide has never materialised. How many times have we heard the words “never again”?

This has gone on long enough. The Minister will be aware that the United States has recognised this as genocide. The Canadian House of Commons, the Dutch Parliament and others have declared it to be genocide. A 25,000-page report by over 50 international lawyers says that what is happening in Xinjiang is genocide, with every single one of the criteria in the 1948 United Nations convention on the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide being breached. The UK’s policy on genocide risks us defaulting on our obligation under the genocide convention. Let us pass this motion today, and I urge the Government to act on it.

UN International Day of Education

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Thursday 28th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

I begin by congratulating the hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin) on securing this debate. I pay tribute to her excellent work as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on global education.

Benjamin Franklin said:

“An investment in knowledge pays best interest.”

We know that, even before the pandemic, vast educational inequality existed. In the world’s poorest countries, nine out of 10 children were unable to read a basic book by the age of 10. The covid-19 pandemic and measures taken to contain it have highlighted and exacerbated that inequality around the world. Communities around the world are struggling, and this virus continues to destroy lives, livelihoods and opportunities.

Members rightly highlighted that the covid-19 pandemic has triggered a global educational crisis and raised that this educational deficit is not new. My hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) spoke about the equalities goal. I commend her work as Chair of the International Development Committee on overseas development assistance. My hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North West (Taiwo Owatemi) talked about the importance of educating girls, because it lifts the whole country, which my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Kim Johnson) observed the importance of. My hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Fleur Anderson) talked about the importance of clean water. I know that she speaks with expertise, as somebody who worked in the aid sector before coming into the House. The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) also argued for the importance of education.

During the first wave of the pandemic, 1.6 billion children in almost 200 countries suffered educational disruption. Save the Children reports that nearly 200 million children continue to be out of education. We know the importance of washing our hands to stop the spread of deadly viruses such as covid, yet globally, half of all schools do not have soap and water available to students. Will the Minister tell us what her Department is doing to rectify this situation?

Nationally, the Government’s record throughout the pandemic, I have to say, has been shambolic. We are still waiting for a clear path to schools opening safely. The UK has an important role to play in pushing global co-operation to ensure that students are able to return safely to school as quickly as possible. However, does the Minister find it difficult speaking with international counterparts, given the abject failure of the Secretary of State for Education, who has lurched from one failure to the next?

Many marginalised children rely on school meals, as well as health services and menstrual hygiene products. School closures have deprived 370 million of the most vulnerable children of their daily school meal. Does the Minister agree that these children deserve a nutritious diet? Almost half a billion children worldwide have not been able to access remote learning while schools have been closed. Where it is accessible, it is not given to girls. The Malala Fund estimates that 20 million secondary school-age girls in poorer communities could be out of school after the pandemic has ended.

We know that investment in girls’ education will suffer. However, proper investment in girls’ education can lead to global equality, which can then help nations to prepare for the effects of climate crisis as well.

This pandemic has threatened to turn the clock back on gender equality. We know that girls are far more likely to be kept out of school, take on burdens of care and forced into early marriages or domestic duties. Will the Minister make it clear that our Government will take action to tackle the structural causes of gender inequality, through the G7 later this year? What steps is she taking to overcome the causes, not just the symptoms? What contribution will her Government make to the replenishment of the Global Partnership for Education?

We are aware that the Minister and her Department are currently developing the girls education plan. What assessment has she made of the risk that the narrow targets for the girls education plan, announced in November last year, would lead to box-ticking programmes that do not genuinely tackle the multiple barriers that girls face in getting quality education? How will she ensure that the barriers for girls, teenagers and young women are all considered and that access is widened?

We have heard over and again that the Prime Minister is committed to advancing girls’ access to education, yet he has decided to signal the UK’s retreat from the world stage by scrapping a world-renowned Department in the middle of a pandemic, when that Department should have been rightly focusing on saving lives. He also refused to disclose the details of the cuts to lifesaving and lifechanging aid programmes. It appears that the slashing of the aid budget was purely politically motivated.

Unless swift action is taken, the current cut to the aid budget will put those commitments at risk at a time when poor countries that are already suffering are going to suffer even more. In fact, last year the Government cut a project that supports 200,000 young people in Rwanda and which had led to a reduction in teenage pregnancy and sexual violence. Does the Minister agree that cancelling a project that invests in the future of Rwandan girls is totally at odds with the Prime Minister’s stated commitment to girls’ education? Was that a mistake, or was it a lack of oversight and strategic vision within this newly created Department? Given the state of global education and the clear need for extra support, how much official development assistance will be spent on education in 2021, and how will it compare with 2019 and 2020?

Finally, what signal does the Minister think the Government’s bluff and bluster and cuts in aid, contradicted by sanctions, sends to our allies, such as President Biden?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Just before I call the Minister, I should explain, for those who can see, either in the Chamber or elsewhere, that the clock in front of us is wrong by about three minutes, so the official time up there for when this debate will finish is 5.3 pm. I do not want the hon. Ladies who are about to speak to think that they are being short-changed in any way whatsoever. They are not. It will, in fact, be 5 o’clock in the real world, but it will say 5.3 pm up there.

Global Human Rights Sanctions Regime

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Monday 6th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

I thank my hon. Friend. I agree with what he said about Magnitsky. He was an incredibly courageous man. I think of him as the Solzhenitsyn of his age. To make these sanctions effective, to deter action and to hold people to account, we do need to work closely with our partners. We are one of the first major countries, certainly in Europe, to draw up this regime and start implementing it. There are some other countries doing so, but the EU as a whole has not adopted it yet. I can tell him that the US obviously has a mechanism in place, as do the Canadians, and the Australian Parliament is also considering it. We are talking with the full range of international partners, and indeed others, because we think that this provides a strong and resilient model for raising human rights and not allowing them to be swept under the carpet, while still engaging in the diplomacy that is required and all the other things that serve the British national interest.

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab) [V]]

I welcome the Foreign Secretary’s statement today, but why is the Commonwealth Development Corporation continuing to invest millions of pounds in a company called Frontiir, a telecommunications and internet company that has been obeying what the Myanmar Government have been telling it, which is to suppress the transmission of evidence of human rights abuses and atrocities being committed against the Rohingya?

[Dominic Raab]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. I hope that she will be reassured to see that the designations include those in relation to human rights abuses against the Rohingya. I do not know about the specific case that she is referring to, but if she would like to write to me, I am very willing to take a look at it.

Xinjiang: Uyghurs

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Monday 29th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Nigel Adams]

My hon. Friend puts it absolutely correctly. As I said earlier, our approach to China should be clear eyed and rooted in our values and our interests. China is a leading member of the international community and we have a strong and constructive relationship in many areas. It has to be part of the solution to many major global problems, whether that is global health, as we have seen in the past few months, or climate change. It has always been the case that where we have concerns, we raise them, and where the United Kingdom needs to intervene, we will.

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab) [V]]

I declare an interest as the chair of the all-party group on the Uyghurs. This new evidence shows that the Chinese state regularly subjects Uyghur women—hundreds of thousands of women—to pregnancy checks, forced sterilisation and even abortion. Some 25 years ago, we watched as the genocide took place in Bosnia and in 2017 we saw that of the Rohingya in Myanmar, and now it is the Uyghurs in China. It is about time that our Government—our Prime Minister—went to the United Nations and asked for a resolution from the Assembly to establish an independent investigation into the situation in Xinjiang region.

[Nigel Adams]

I thank the hon. Lady, the chair of the APPG on this matter, but she will be aware—I have referred to it several times during my answers today—that we have been leading on this at the United Nations. There is an issue with these resolutions being blocked, as she will be aware, but I think the United Kingdom can in some ways proudly declare that we have been on the front foot in ensuring that these human rights violations receive international attention, and the joint statement with 22 other countries was testament to that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Wednesday 29th April 2020 Commons Chamber

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

As we all know, parents are a key success factor in children’s learning around the world. UK aid programmes draw on evidence that shows that school attendance and learning can improve when parents and children know about the benefits of education to incomes and when they have local information about the choice of school quality. DFID programmes also address the cost and time barriers to education, especially for girls, to promote the vital role of teachers in children’s learning.

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab) [V]]

Ebola showed the wider impact of infectious diseases on women, because schools closed and teenage pregnancies spiked, but the impact of covid-19 will be even greater in overpopulated refugee camps. In Bangladesh, nearly 1 million Rohingya now live in cramped conditions in Cox’s Bazar, with 70,000 people per square kilometre. In that tiny area, women’s education suffers, but gender-based violence will also rise—similar to the current pattern in the United Kingdom. What specific action is the Secretary of State taking to deal with that issue?

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

The covid crisis has removed 1.5 billion children from school, putting the most disadvantaged girls at risk of dropping out of school permanently. School closures will significantly reduce learning hours, particularly for the most disadvantaged children, and we risk many dropping out permanently. Prior to the crisis, 258 million children and young people globally were already out of school—over half of them girls. The Ebola crisis showed us that female pupils bear the brunt of school closures during disease outbreaks, leading to higher levels of sexual exploitation, abuse, teenage pregnancy and early marriage, so we will continue to prioritise education for all as part of the international response.

China’s Policy on its Uighur Population

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Wednesday 11th March 2020 Westminster Hall

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Sharma. I congratulate the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) on securing this debate. Alongside the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael), I am the co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on human rights in Xinjiang province. The Uighurs are a separate religious and cultural group, but their very existence is being threatened. The tensions in Xinjiang are decades old. It is an area full of oil and gas, but there has been a dramatic shift in China’s policy towards those people since 2016. About 3 million Uighurs have been detained in so-called re-education camps since 2017, and the Chinese Government have subjected 13 million ethnic Uighurs and other Turkic Muslims to repressive surveillance.

The Chinese Government have banned beards and headscarves, forced Uighurs to eat during the month of Ramadan, and forced them to eat pork and drink alcohol. Ethnically Han men have stayed in Muslim households, even to the extent of being in the women’s bedrooms, to carry out surveillance. Leaked video evidence has shown that the camps are unsanitary and overcrowded. Detainees are subject to beatings, sleep deprivation and solitary confinement, and they are forbidden to eat the food that they want to eat.

Recent reports from The New York Times show that the Chinese Government have the details of at least 3,000 individuals and examine the intimate aspects of their lives—for example, how they pray, who their family members are and who they speak to. The document proves that there is an active policy of persecuting and punishing the normal practices of traditional religious beliefs, and that there are plans showing how an entire ethnic minority population should be detained or forced to assimilate to the dominant culture. There is even a manual on ethnic cleansing.

Last September, the UN Human Rights Council was advised by the London-based China tribunal, which is investigating the issue, that China is actively selling human organs on an industrial scale to be used for transplants. The Uighurs are being operated on while they are still alive. Their ears, kidneys, livers, lungs, corneas and skin are being removed, and the rest of the body parts sent for testing. Some 15 million Uighurs have had their DNA forcibly collected. What is taking place is incredibly chilling.

Sir Geoffrey Nice QC, chair of the China tribunal and prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia against Slobodan Milošević, has said that he has heard compelling evidence from human rights and medical experts and other witnesses about China’s organ trade. He said that the international community

“can no longer avoid what is inconvenient for them to admit.”

He says that the events inside China amount to “genocide” of a racial and religious group. The organ transplant industry is worth about $1 billion a year to China. Some countries, such as Spain and Italy, restrict travel to China for transplants. What will the Minister do to ensure that we do the same?

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute, a think-tank that has received massive media coverage, detailed the transport of Uighurs and other ethnic Muslim minorities across China to work in factories under guard. The report “Uyghurs for sale” names leading international brands that use China as part of their global supply chains. Involved in that are 83 well-known global brands in the technology, clothing and automotive sectors, such as Apple, BMW, Huawei, Nike and others. Just like the re-education camps in Xinjiang, the forced labour programme is part of Beijing’s effort to destroy Uighur culture. The factories are often far away from people’s homes, and those people are made to live in segregated dormitories and undergo organised Mandarin and ideological training. They are subject to surveillance and forbidden from participating in any religious observance. Numerous sources, including Government documents, show that transferred workers are assigned minders and have limited freedom.

When South Africa’s apartheid regime was in full swing, we did not simply continue our involvement in order to somehow improve the oppressive context. We responded with divestment and sanctions. That drastically reduced the profits derived from oppression and ultimately, along with many other actions, led to the end of apartheid. We have left the European Union and we need to develop international trade links, but we should not do that at the expense of our morality or by ignoring what is happening in China.

To remain silent is to be complicit. What consensus is the United Kingdom building with other countries to ensure that the detainees are released? Not only that, but what is being done to ensure that the abuses taking place in Xinjiang and things such as organ transplantation are investigated, and that the Chinese Government are persuaded to desist from those practices? If they do not, although China is a powerful country both militarily and economically, we can take a moral stance in economic relations.

Recent Violence in India

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Nigel Adams]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. I alluded to our concerns about some of the police brutality that was meted out. We have long regarded protest as a key part of any democratic society. Democratic Governments must have the power to enforce law and order when a protest crosses the line into illegality, but we also encourage all states to ensure that their domestic laws are enforced in line with all international standards.

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

In the past five years, Narendra Modi’s BJP Government have chosen a path of systematic discrimination, whether the abrogation of article 35A in Kashmir or the citizenship law. Calling the recent violence “community clashes” seeks to normalise far more sinister events. India is now controlled by a Hindutva supremacist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh ideology, with strong historic links to the Nazi party. The current Prime Minister of India was a member of the RSS. What steps is our Prime Minister taking to call out that discriminatory practice at the heart of the Indian Government?

[Nigel Adams]

The hon. Lady makes a powerful point. We are in constant contact with the Indian Government. I mentioned in my statement that we have concerns about the impact of the CAA legislation, particularly on Muslims, and she is right to raise that. Rest assured that, through our close relationship with India, we are able to raise those concerns with that Government, especially in a live situation.

China: UK policy

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Tuesday 7th May 2019 Westminster Hall

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to speak in the debate under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. As we consider our Government’s relationship with China, we must not lose our ability to speak openly and frankly about the actions of the Chinese Government. China’s prosperity is highly impressive, and China has developed innovative solutions on many fronts to bring unprecedented numbers of people out of extreme poverty. I am sure that all Members present agree that, whatever the outcome of the Brexit negotiations, a strong relationship with China is essential. However, it is simultaneously necessary that we discuss areas where its Government may have fallen short of the standards that we expect of our trading partners and allies.

Last week, Ramadan began across the world. However, we have strong reason to believe that few of the Uyghur minority in Chinese eastern Xinjiang could practise their faith. In recent years, authorities have termed fasting a sign of extremism, dangerously conflating a mainstream religious practice with radicalism. Any sign of so-called extremism—such signs include wearing a veil, regular prayer and avoidance of alcohol—can lead to imprisonment in one of the huge internment camps that have been springing up across the region over the last few years.

[Karen Lee]

I commented earlier on China’s record with regard to human rights, particularly in Tibet. These things have been going on since the 1950s, and we really have to focus on them.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend.

Last week, official briefings by the Pentagon claimed that as many as 3 million people could be imprisoned in those detention centres. Although the exact numbers are open to debate, it is clear that an enormous number of people—at least 1 million—are being locked up against their will. We all want to have a trading relationship with China, but how can we ignore the fact that 1 million people are being detained? That is the minimum figure; the maximum could be 3 million.

Furthermore, although Chinese officials maintain that what they call “vocational training centres” do not infringe on the Uyghurs’ human rights, they have consistency refused to share further information about those detention centres and have prevented journalists from examining them. Where reports have escaped the camps, we have heard rumours of forced indoctrination, harsh discipline and even torture. Such claims are profoundly troubling. In January, I spoke in another Westminster Hall debate on this issue, and it is worrying that little seems to have been done. With little discernible action from the Government, we are left only with mounting estimates of the numbers who have been imprisoned.

Tragically, just as prisons are rising out of the desert, ancient buildings are reportedly being razed. While the world rightly mourned the damage to Notre Dame last month, few heard of the total erasure of another ancient building over the last year. Satellite pictures show that an 800-year-old mosque, the Keriya Aitika in south Xinjiang, appears to have been flattened, depriving people of an important piece of their cultural heritage. According to a detailed article in The Guardian today, two journalists have investigated and found that at least 24 places of worship have been erased, including Imam Asim’s shrine. Many people used to travel to that shrine three times a year, which was equivalent to completing the Hajj. It has been erased, and that is part of a wider demolition programme that appears to be being pursued across the province in an attempt to destroy its Muslim heritage.

Recent reporting also shows a more sinister element. The wider ecosystem of traditional policing and new technology is being used to construct what may be the world’s most heavily monitored area. On top of a growing network of police stations and the centrally planned roll-out of DNA profiling, Chinese start-ups are developing algorithms that track members of the Uyghur community, specifically targeting them to analyse their movements and assess the “threat” they pose. That is possibly a unique development—intentional mass racial profiling through artificial intelligence—and the technologies are no longer being used only in Xinjiang. The New York Times reported that law enforcement bodies in the central Chinese city of Sanmenxia ran a programme that screened whether residents were Uyghurs 500,000 times in a month. The dangers of such technologies cannot be overstated. While the rest of the world is waking up to the danger of unintentional bias in code, China’s Government are reportedly funding purposely discriminatory artificial intelligence. Ethical boundaries are being crossed with incredible speed.

There is also evidence that the issue does not just affect Uyghurs in China. Uyghur communities in Turkey, Pakistan and the US have stated that their family members have warned them against further contact for fear of persecution. Investigative research by Middle East Eye found that the World Uyghur Congress, a group that has represented Uyghurs at the UN, had apparently been put on a terrorist blacklist, yet hardly any country had made the case for that or asked for it.

Encroachments on freedom to travel, the ability to access funds and the right to remain in contact with one’s family are fundamental deprivations of the most basic rights. Clearly, these issues require robust responses, and there are a number of avenues that we should be pursing. More research needs to be done to understand which companies are involved in creating apps that are discriminatory by their very design. More broadly, our Government must provide more clarity over precisely what steps they are taking to provide Uyghurs with the support they need. Realpolitik claims that economic concerns should be prioritised are morally bankrupt and fail to face up to the enormity of the claims being made.

Perhaps the allegations are all false. Perhaps the satellite images and the other evidence are all made up. I am sure that the Chinese Government would want to dispel the rumours, and they can do so very simply. An independent group, whether led by a UN body, a human rights organisation or even a delegation of MPs, could be allowed to travel there to see first hand what is taking place. Unless that happens, we must recognise that moral lines may be being crossed that we can no longer ignore.

I have already asked this question once: what representations has the Foreign Office made to the Chinese authorities up to now? More importantly, what has their response been? Have they said, “This is all a load of rubbish. It is all made up. Come and have a look and we will show you what is really going on”? Will they allow an independent organisation to travel there to see? If China says that it is not doing any of this, and that these are false allegations, that is fine, but it must let an independent body in to have a look. That would also be beneficial to China, as it would dismiss the negative discussions taking place in our Parliament and in other places across the world.

The convention now seems to be that business interests are paramount in everything, but the human cost, and human rights, must come in somewhere. I am not comfortable that I can have a nice home—nice everything—at the expense of people in a number of countries we need to trade with who have no rights. That cannot be right. It is an immoral state of affairs. I ask our Government to find out if the allegations are correct. Whether they are or not, the Chinese Government should explain.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Asia and the Pacific (Mark Field)]

I thank my jousting partner, the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman), for her robust views. In a relatively short time, I will try to say a little in response.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Leo Docherty) for securing this debate, giving me the opportunity to set out the Government’s position on what is undeniably the single most important geopolitical bilateral relationship that the UK has, and will have, in the decades to come. The “golden era”, which was announced in 2015 by the then Chancellor, reflected the importance of that closer bilateral relationship.

Our relationship with China is broad and deep, involving constructive, positive and frank dialogue on major global issues and distinct challenges as well as opportunities, but it has the potential to bring enduring benefit to both countries. We are clear and direct when we disagree with China. Our approach is clear-eyed and evidence-based. For example, only at the end of last year we called out China as responsible for a particularly damaging cyber-intrusion.

The relationship is and must continue to be firmly rooted in our values and interests, but I absolutely accept the warnings of my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin). To my mind, he was a little too relativist—that was the criticism—but his warning is important, both in the broad sweep of history and in the risk that in some of what we say we can be accused of being hypocritical, given our track record. I will come on to the rules-based international order in a moment or two, but he is right that that order was not set in aspic in 1945. We cannot simply hold firm, saying, “That’s it, that’s the rules-based order and we can say no more.” I am afraid that we cannot talk just about universal human rights without recognising the change in the world, the rise of China and India, and therefore the need to adapt and evolve the rules-based system with those two countries firmly in mind. Indeed, we need to engage firmly with them if it is to be a system that we can all rely on for all our citizens.

The relationship between our two countries is of global significance. We both are permanent members of the UN Security Council and the G7 economies, frenetically active on a range of global issues. We have together forged constructive collaboration on shared challenges. At the Security Council we address together issues such as international security and North Korea. On global challenges such as healthcare advances, climate change, money laundering, people trafficking and tackling the illegal wildlife trade, we have and will continue to have a lot in common.

I will try to cover all the issues that arose in the debate. On trade, in a post-Brexit world, trading relationships with non-European countries will become ever more important. It is anticipated that in the very near future China will become the world’s largest economy. It is therefore welcome that the UK’s trade and investment with China are at record levels, currently worth more than £68 billion a year. We are seeking an ambitious future trading arrangement and will want greater access to China’s market, to expand and develop our economic links, not least in the service sector, as China continues to reform and open up. During the Prime Minister’s most recent visit to China, our Governments launched a joint trade and investment review, which is designed to identify a range of opportunities for us to promote growth in goods, services and investment, which in my view is critical in a post-Brexit world.

I was not sure it would come up, but my hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch and Upminster (Julia Lopez) and the hon. Member for Wirral West (Margaret Greenwood) raised our relationship with national security and Huawei. China has become an increasingly important source of investment for the UK, and we are one of its most important investment destinations. Ours is an open economy—I take on board the concerns raised by the hon. Member for Warrington South (Faisal Rashid)—and we welcome inward investment, but like any country we must ensure it meets our national security needs. That is true when we look at investment in key national infrastructure—raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot—whether from China or elsewhere. As we look at our 5G telecoms infrastructure, I assure the House that we will have robust procedures in place to manage risk and we are committed to the highest possible security standards. The Government will take decisions on the 5G supply chain based on evidence and a hard-headed assessment of the risks.

I was on the Intelligence and Security Committee in the 2010 Parliament when the issue of Huawei was first raised. It was raised at a conference in Ottawa, where we saw our counterparts from the US and Australia, as Five Eyes nations, take differing views both from each other and from us on some of these issues. Through the National Cyber Security Centre, the UK Government have undertaken a thorough review of the 5G supply chain to ensure that the roll-out of 5G is secure and resilient.

As many Members may know, Huawei has had a long-standing joint venture with BT going back almost a decade and a half. Arguably, those who oppose Huawei having any more involvement will have to recognise that that has already been worked through. The extensive review that we now have will go far beyond individual vendors or countries.[Official Report, 9 May 2019, Vol. 659, c. 9MC.] The decisions of that review will be announced in due course to Parliament. We want to work with international partners to try to develop a common global approach to improving telecoms security standards. We must all recognise that we live in a world of the rise of the fourth industrial revolution, of artificial intelligence, robotics and all the technology. Almost inevitably, there will be global standards. China needs to be fully engaged in that debate, in a way that India already is in cyber. We will have to make some very difficult decisions, but the choice in relation to Huawei has to be to try to engage, recognising that some standards are different, but to try to get as much protection as we possibly can.

To answer the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland, I am very pleased that Mark Sedwill is out in China, with 15 other permanent secretaries, allegedly. That seems a sensible statement about the breadth and importance of our relationship across Government Departments. Some of the press reportage has suggested a dispute between Departments. We recognise the importance of the China relationship, and of course there will be some disagreements on issues between Departments—

[Yasmin Qureshi]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mark Field]

I will not, if the hon. Lady will excuse me, because I want to move on to human rights issues.

The hon. Member for Warrington South and my hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch and Upminster raised the issue of belt and road. Foreign investment will be essential to the success of the belt and road initiative. We have made it clear that we regard ourselves as a natural and willing partner for global infrastructure projects, but we are also clear that all projects must develop in line with recognised standards on transparency, environmental impact, including carbon emissions, social standards and—importantly—debt sustainability. Therefore, there needs to be a sense of transparency on international standards. That was the message that the Chancellor and the Minister for Trade and Export Promotion took to Beijing last month at the belt and road conference.

We have touched on the rules-based system already; it has been the cornerstone of international co-operation and global standards for decades—indeed, since 1945. We recognise that that system is under huge strain. China has been supportive of some of its features, particularly with regard to trade, but less so of others, where it regards itself as not having had an input in the western rules created in the aftermath of 1945. We have been disappointed by its failure to oppose Russia’s annexation of Crimea or to support measures to strengthen the international ban on chemical weapons. We believe that with economic power comes political responsibility, and we want China to give strong and consistent backing for a rules-based international system. We must also accept that the system must adapt and evolve to take account of the fast-changing world.

I crossed out my section on the South China sea, but then the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland brought it up. Let me say this: our position remains unchanged. We do not take sides on issues of sovereignty, but our commitment is to international law, to upholding existing arbitration rulings and to freedom of navigation and overflight. In many ways, the disputes arise because of China’s concern that there could be a question mark over freedom of navigation, given how important the South China sea and the Malacca straits are to its exports.

I apologise to my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) and to the hon. Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi) that I can touch on the next issue for only a couple of minutes, because it deserves a lot more time. Our constructive relationship with China at a diplomatic level is underpinned by the growing links between our peoples. Many visitors and students come here. We hope those personal links will allow more mutual understanding and bode better for future co-operation and awareness of our values—and Chinese values for those who go there.

Promoting and defending those values is vital, which is why we take a proactive approach to influencing improvements in human rights and rule of law in China. Our concerns are set out year by year in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s annual report on human rights and democracy, including many concerns about use of the death penalty, restrictions on freedom of expression, association and assembly, freedom of religion or belief, and civil and political freedoms. We continue to raise those at the highest level.

The Prime Minister raised human rights with both President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang during her visit to China in January 2018. The Foreign Secretary raised concerns about the situation in Xinjiang with State Councillor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi in July 2018, as I did with my opposite number earlier that month. We will continue to lobby on that and the Tibet issue. I have not had enough time to go into as much detail as I should have liked. I hope the hon. Members will excuse me, and I will write to them to set out blow by blow what we are doing and will continue to do in that regard.

It is very sad that we have not had a little more time. This has been a fantastically important debate, and I hope it is the first of many that look at the importance of the geopolitical rise of China and all our concerns with what is happening with the trade war, as my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset pointed out. I thank everyone for their contributions.

UN International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Monday 8th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Angela Crawley (Lanark and Hamilton East) (SNP)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Warrington South (Faisal Rashid) on securing the debate. I am genuinely grateful to be able to align myself with the comments by him and by the many other speakers from across the Chamber, who approached the debate with the correct tone. As well as the hon. Gentleman, we heard from the hon. Members for Stirling (Stephen Kerr), for Bradford East (Imran Hussain), for Solihull (Julian Knight), for Dudley North (Ian Austin), for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk) and for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley)—and, miraculously, the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) snuck in there. He never misses an opportunity.

The theme for this year’s International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination is

“mitigating and countering rising nationalist populism and extreme supremacist ideologies.”

That is one of the biggest flashpoints of racial discrimination. We have to look at the situation we find ourselves in. We fail to recognise the serious ramifications for the general public of our surrounding ourselves with Brexit. The language and general policy making exhibited by this place send a message loudly and clearly to people across the country and give them the genuine feeling that they are not welcome.

Those are not just my words; they are the words of my constituents who attended a surgery for EU nationals. They told me they no longer feel welcome, valued or recognised for their contributions to the UK. That message comes loudly and clearly from this place, and we must all do more to recognise and address that. Frankly, no one outside this Chamber can bear to hear the word “Brexit” any more or cares whether a Lords amendment is coming back, but they do care fundamentally about the messages we send and about the long-term impact of racism.

The fact of the matter is this. We often value the virtue of freedom of speech. As the hon. Member for Worthing West rightly highlighted, there are too many opportunities for the far right to gain a platform and, worryingly, it has gained an even greater platform through the Brexit process. We in this House have created that problem by having a debate in the Chamber but not debating or listening to anyone outside it. No wonder the public have lost confidence.

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Lady agree that the rhetoric used by the media and, sadly, sometimes by politicians—including the man who occupies the White House—is built on racial superiority? As the footballer John Barnes said recently, the basis of racial discrimination is the hundreds of years of—I hope people will forgive me for saying this —European white superiority.

[Angela Crawley]

I wholeheartedly agree with the hon. Lady, and she is right to highlight that. Whether through football or our conversations in this place, in the media or on social media platforms, the message that we send to the world—and that world leaders send—implying that those things are acceptable has a clear resonance in society and cannot go unaddressed.

Before, during and after the Brexit referendum, there was a distinct growth in the volume and acceptability of xenophobic discourse on migration, foreign nationals and refugees in everyday life. None of that is aided by the fact that the media are quite happy to promote that discourse. As I have said, last month I held an EU nationals surgery. Among the themes was the fear for the future, security of foreign pensions and distrust of the settlement scheme. Those I spoke to genuinely felt like this Government did not want to make them feel welcome, but was instead putting them through a laborious bureaucratic process. I can only share that frustration. What kind of message does it send to someone who has spent their entire life in Scotland, raising their family, working and paying their taxes, to discover that they have fill out a form to qualify to remain in the UK after an unknown deadline—a moving goalpost? Many of those who have felt hounded by the UK Government were desperate for more information about what their rights would be. I am sorry to say that I could provide them with no more clarity about that than most of us in this House can provide about today’s business. If we do not even know what we are doing from one day to the next, what chance do people in general life have to understand?

To return to the point of today’s debate, in Scotland we do not want to see any EU nationals living in our country leave. As a party, the SNP has recognised the valuable contribution of EU nationals to Scotland and to our public services. Ultimately, those public services could collapse and we could lose the rich cultural contributions made by our friends and neighbours, who have come to be a part of our lives and our world, and part of the UK. They should feel welcome here in the UK. The message from the First Minister could not be clearer: we want you to stay in the UK, we value you and we welcome you. I wish to put on record my gratitude, my heartfelt thanks and my appreciation for the contribution made by those of my constituents in Lanark and Hamilton East, and those across the UK. I sincerely hope that they will stay and make Scotland their home.

I understand that I have to hurry up, so I leave hon. Members with this parting thought. Scotland has benefited from the rich diaspora across the UK. We have a rich tapestry, and I would hate to see it lost because of the language and messaging of this country. The Home Office has a responsibility to send a loud and clear message to EU nationals that they deserve to feel and should feel part of the UK, and they should remain and we want them to remain. The Government have to send that message instead of perpetrating the racist language that is ultimately being given through subliminal messaging in the programme of this Government.

Libya

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Monday 8th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mark Field]

I think that there is consensus among our European Union neighbours, and, as I have said, the G7 have issued a statement. It was greatly to be regretted that, for safety reasons, the Secretary General of the United Nations had to flee literally 10 days before we were hoping to get the conference under way. However, I think that a lot of diplomatic work is going on. There is a great deal of concern in the international community, which recognises that if Libya were to become a failed state, all the migration issues—as well as, obviously, the massive humanitarian issues—that we have seen in recent years would only worsen. However, we are working very closely with all our international partners, and will continue to do so.

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

It pains me to say that in 2011, in a speech that I made during a debate about the military intervention in Libya, I predicted everything that has been happening there since that intervention. Members are welcome to read the speech in Hansard. It is also disturbing—and has been confirmed by a report from the Foreign Affairs Committee—that there was no immediate humanitarian need requiring a military intervention. What practical assistance are we providing for the refugees—especially children—who have been caught in Tripoli?

[Mark Field]

I think it a little unfair of the hon. Lady to suggest that there was no humanitarian issue in 2011. We went in because of what was happening in Benghazi. I accept that the early optimism and successes were not sustained, and that would clearly have to happen at UN level.

I mentioned earlier the amount of aid that we continue to put into Libya. We have invested some £75 million in the migration programme, working across the whole route from west Africa to Libya via the Sahel. As I have said, we will also do all that we can in the camps that are not run by the Libyan authorities. We are all very concerned that a further outbreak of hostilities will only lead to even more humanitarian misery.