Government tell Lord Alton it have “serious concerns about the situation in Xinjiang” but decline to say it will ban the marketing of goods made with Uyghur forced labour.
Viscount Younger of Leckie, the Department for International Trade, has provided the following answer to your written parliamentary question (HL3031):
Question:
Lord ALTON of Liverpool To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the legislative proposal from the European Commission to ban the marketing of goods made with forced labour; and whether they plan to introduce such a ban in the UK. (HL3031)
Tabled on: 31 October 2022
This question was grouped with the following question(s) for answer:
Lord Alton of Liverpool To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the Import of Products of Forced Labour from Xinjiang (Prohibition) Bill 2021–22; and whether they plan to ban products of forced labour from Xinjiang. (HL3032)
Tabled on: 31 October 2022
Answer:
Viscount Younger of Leckie:
The Government has serious concerns about the situation in Xinjiang. Robust action has been taken to help ensure that no British organisations are profiting from or are contributing to human rights violations in Xinjiang. We have, amongst other actions, introduced guidance on the risks of doing business in Xinjiang, led a ministerial campaign of business engagement to reinforce the need for UK business to act and have announced our intention to introduce financial penalties for businesses that do not comply with their transparency obligations under the Modern Slavery Act. Import bans are one of a range of tools that could be used to tackle forced labour in global supply chains, and we continue to keep this policy response under close review.
Date and time of answer: 14 Nov 2022 at 12:53.
