Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, has provided the following answer to your written parliamentary question (HL4057):
Question by Lord Alton of Liverpool:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the reported remarks by the Foreign Secretary relating to genocide in Xinjiang; what plans they have (1) to ban cotton imports from Xinjiang, or (2) to impose sanctions on companies operating there. (HL4057)
Tabled on: 16 November 2021
Answer:
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon:
As part of our commitment to tackling the issue of Uyghur forced labour, the Government announced in January a number of measures to help ensure that no UK organisation is complicit through their supply chains in the human rights violations occurring in Xinjiang.
Whilst we do not currently have plans to place import controls on goods from China, we are working with our international partners to ensure that global supply chains are free from the use of forced labour. We will continue to keep our policy response to goods produced using forced labour under close review.
Date and time of answer: 29 Nov 2021 at 13:02.
