---

Human Rights: Supply Chains

It is always a blessing to have you chairing a meeting, Mr Dowd. It is particularly a blessing today, as we would not have this debate were you not here, so thank you.

I have been active on this subject for some time. I have been sanctioned by China because of the issues that we raised over modern-day slavery. I remind Members that it was the Centre for Social Justice, which I set up, that first published the paper “It Happens Here”. We were then able to get the Government to initiate the Modern Slavery Act—the first legislation of its kind in the world. We were all very proud of that Act, but sadly it really has no enforcement. Government and suppliers have no obligation to check. They are supposed to make a declaration, but we know that many of those declarations are in fact deliberately false—they know they will not be checked, and therefore they do not have to worry about it—so while the Act is great, it is rather toothless.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Southgate and Wood Green (Bambos Charalambous) on securing this debate and making such a good opening speech. I will not repeat all he said, although I agree with so much of it. In the limited time I have, I want to focus on certain issues.

First, the reality is that slave labour is not only a massive punishment and a human rights abuse on a scale, like genocide, wider than anything else; it is also commercial. Countries such as China use slave labour as a way to undercut markets, compete unfairly and drive businesses out of business—particularly here in the UK, as we have experienced. One of the big issues is the net zero determination and what we wish to do to clean up the environment because the biggest providers of solar arrays, wind farms and the technology are, in fact, based in China.

The big problem is that the Government have two conflicting requirements. Quite rightly, they want to get on with cleaning up the environment; but they also know that if they cannot buy from China without a clear set of supply chains that are without slave labour, that will cost more money. That impacts the pace and the way in which they can provide a cleaner atmosphere.

We have to say that one thing is more important than the other, and that is the human rights of those people being abused in places such as China. At the end of the day, we cannot go to bed at night with any grace if we say that we put up more solar arrays and wind farms but those were supplied by factories where people may have died, been abused, or had their lives and families destroyed.

We know that China, in the case of Xinjiang, is committing a well-established genocide on such a scale that children are now in forced education camps. Millions of adult males are in forced labour, many producing the polysilicon that goes into arrays made in and around Xinjiang. The women, unbelievably, are being forcibly sterilised. The birth rate in Xinjiang has gone off the edge of a cliff. China is going to eradicate an ethnic group; it is very much the policy of the Chinese Communist party to have Han Chinese in charge of China, and nobody else. It also makes money from the fact that people in slave labour, as I said earlier, are producing goods much more cheaply than anyone else can.

Look at what we are not doing: we are not checking supply chains. On this issue, I have been in opposition to whatever Government have been in power—neither the last Government nor this one have made a big effort to check those company declarations. I have had responses from this and the previous Government saying that they were doing their best and trying hard. It is not good enough to do one’s best or try hard; the question is: what is the best?

Look at what is happening in other places. I point to the USA’s Act, which basically outlawed all use of slave labour anywhere in supply chains and put the means in place to check that. The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act in the United States creates a rebuttable presumption that goods produced wholly or partly in Xinjiang, and other places using slave labour, are made with forced labour unless importers can prove otherwise.

That is how it is done—we tell importers, “You must now prove to us that you have avoided any slave labour in your products. Failure to do that has you banned and fined.” It is immediate. They do not simply sit there saying, “Well, other bits of Government are helping us”, because to be honest, the Government do not have the ability to check themselves. They do not have what it takes, but there are companies out there that do this regularly.

I have met the representatives of one such company. Forensic companies such as Oritain, based in New Zealand, specialise in using forensic science to check where goods were made. From that, it knows the footprint and the likelihood of slave labour. It will immediately investigate a company’s declaration and can challenge it. If it challenges it, the US Government will ban and fine the company. That has led to a whole rerouting of supply chains across China for the US market. Sadly, it has also meant efforts have been redoubled to put slave labour products into markets such as the UK, because it is known that the UK is a soft option.

When we look around the countryside of the east of England and elsewhere, we see a load of arrays. I would bet that the vast majority were made with slave labour because no checks were carried out. The reality is that we have to do more. The Modern Slavery Act 2015, which I greatly supported, has now become toothless. Section 54 needs to be upgraded. There needs to be a punishment. Government need the ability to prosecute immediately, and supply-chain checks must take place.

I end with this. The reality is that the legislation is a mess. With colleagues on both sides of the House, I successfully tabled an amendment to the Great British Energy Act 2025, to ban the use of products made with slave labour. It was a classic rebellion, and we got it done. Yet when I checked, I saw that next to nothing had resulted from it. There is that offence in the legislation, but the Government have done nothing to call out any of the companies still selling those products. We put a similar obligation into the Health and Care Act 2022, but next to nothing has been done on that—no declarations and no speeches to Parliament about what the Government have done.

We cannot go on addressing this issue in a piecemeal way: it has to be done across the board. That is why I support the hon. Member for Southgate and Wood Green in his call for the Modern Slavery Act to have teeth and for section 54 to be implemented. Any business that, having been checked properly, is found to have misdeclared itself and its supply chain should be punished—it should be banished from importing to the UK and face financial and even criminal penalties. That way, we will stop this practice.

2.20 pm