Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the remarks by the Minister for Asia and the Pacific on 26 March (HC Deb, col 61WH) on forced live organ extraction that they "need to properly and fully investigate such reports and allegations, and establish the facts”, what steps they have taken to investigate forced live organ extraction in China.

I set out the Government’s position in Parliament on 25 July in response to an Oral Question. I noted the time and energy that the International Coalition to End Transplant Abuse in China has dedicated to this issue. The evidence presented at the hearings they organised provided disturbing details about the mistreatment of Falun Gong practitioners, and raised worrying questions about China’s transplant system. Officials have reviewed the evidence thoroughly. While the evidence is not incontrovertible, we take these allegations seriously and have consulted the World Health Organization (WHO), NGOs and international partners. The WHO’s view is that China is implementing an ethical, voluntary organ transplant system in accordance with international standards, though they do have concerns about overall transparency.

We currently do not have any plans to make representations to the Chinese Government on allegations of systematic, state-sponsored organ harvesting, nor raise the allegations at the UN Human Rights Council (UN HRC). However, we regularly raise concerns about the treatment of religious and ethnic minorities, both directly with Chinese officials and at the UN HRC.