Sir Iain Duncan Smith
MP for Chingford and Woodford Green · Conservative · United Kingdom
“I raise the cases of Ryan Cornelius and Jimmy Lai—both United Kingdom citizens—to the attention of the Foreign Secretary, who I welcome to his position. Ryan Cornelius has been incarcerated for 19 years—trumped-up charges by a corrupt regime that is supporting a war in Sudan at the moment.”
“Has the Secretary of State been made aware of the case of Joshua Wong, a Hong Kong resident who is being prosecuted by the Administration in Hong Kong using the national security law?”
“A particular memory is that during the Maastricht debates, when, I have to confess, I and one or two others here were deeply rebellious, Ann lectured me from the Dispatch Box—she was in government—about how I should support the Maastricht treaty and the European Union, which rather worried me.”
“It was phenomenal, because she was so certain about the way that she was. Ann embodied something else: the passion that is necessary for us in this Chamber to make our arguments without the fear of any other person doing something to us.”
“We need to reiterate, and the Government and the Home Secretary need to specify, to all the social media companies that they must do something to close down the visceral, violent language that some people use in attacking others personally, as they did over Ann’s murder, which shocked me.”
“Friday was a funny day. I heard the news very early in the morning that Ann had died, and I was utterly surprised about that because she had seemed perfectly fit the last time I saw her, so I gave my condolences and spoke about it on the radio.”
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“Those who committed terrorist acts, however, where there is little information and little willingness to do anything about giving evidence—they may have fled the country—will remain a mystery. I talked about Robert Nairac, but I have no idea who committed that murder or how many were involved in his final demise. All I can say is that if the Bill is about knowledge, the system at the moment is imperfect. If it is about punishment and prosecution, the system at the moment is imperfect. So what are we going to do? I understand that the Bill is a process and I think it is a genuine attempt by the Government to try to find a way that allows the families of victims to at least know and understand what happened. My point is that things will have to change if we are to see any of this happen. On that, I have a small comment for the Opposition.”
“The truth is that I do not love this Bill. I think that it is, in many senses, imperfect—as it will be—and it has problems and difficulties, some of which were related earlier. The question that we need to face is what we are really after. If we want justice in terms of prosecution and, if necessary, eventual incarceration, we need to deal with the reality that we no longer have that, because two years for murder most foul is not justice. It cannot be justice. So do we want the prosecution to raise information? The problem is that many prosecutions are taking place against people about whom there are huge numbers of records because they happened to be servicemen and women. That is why those cases can be taken up—because the Government have all those records.”
“I am a Catholic myself, and he thought that he could do something over there to help and that he would understand it. [ Interruption. ] My right hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Sir Mike Penning) served with him as well. The truth is that Robert was captured. He was taken, he was tortured, we understand, and we think he was eventually executed after attempting to escape, but we do not know the full circumstances. The sadness of all of us who have watched is that we want to know what happened. We want to get some closure. We have never understood what happened. Where is he buried? His parents went to their graves never knowing where he was. They could never go to that grave and say some words over it. That is the reality of where we are today and the point is that many people already suffer because of it.”
“My predecessor, Norman Tebbit, has had a lifelong period of pain. His wife was disabled. She is now dead sadly, God rest her soul, and she put up with a lot as a result of her husband being in politics. The sadness is, as he leaves politics now, that he bore that all the way through. After the Good Friday agreement, he had to watch those who he knew had done it walk away. They walked away under the agreement that reduced everything to two years, and the pain he and his wife must have suffered was enormous—I know it was. I speak therefore with a certain amount of humility, as much as I speak about my own service. The truth is, I want to talk about one particular person. Captain Robert Nairac was a good friend. He was passionate about going to Northern Ireland as a Catholic.”
“I rise to speak in this debate because I have had a long interest in Northern Ireland. I served in Northern Ireland in 1975. I remember the billboards at Christmas saying, “Seven years will have been too much”. To be honest with you, Mr Deputy Speaker, I hated every moment of it. I did not ask or volunteer to go there. I did not want to be doing something that I did not think I was ever trained to do, although we did carry out training. It struck me as a real problem. I also want to say one other word about it, because often it is bandied around that political parties over here do not really get it. The Conservative party has lost a large number of people to terrorism—in the Brighton bombings alone and in other killings. We can see their coats of arms up on the wall in the Chamber.”
“I for one think that the process of trailing veterans—where the information is there, they had given evidence previously and they have been fact-faced at interrogations—should not go on, because it is terrible and belittling, and at the same time creates real problems for them at home. We want to find a way to settle that, but I do not want to settle it on the backs of those who still await to find out what happened. If we can find a way through on this Bill, imperfect as it is at the moment, that would be worthy of the effort. I would encourage the Opposition to engage as much as they possibly can, because this is too important an issue to divide on in a very political sense. I want to see closure: I want to find out what happened to my friend Robert Nairac, because it troubles me every single day and I never got to say goodbye to him.”
“In other words, either you co-operate, you face the interrogation and you actually come out as having told the truth, or else you go down the other road back into the justice system and you face full prosecution.” To some degree, that would at least give balance. It would at least give an idea that somehow the process not just sought the truth, but punished those who refused to participate in that process. I end simply on the basis that the process will never satisfy everybody. I know that, and I know that families will feel very hurt by this process so far, but I think there is a way through. The one thing that has characterised, in many senses, this House over Northern Ireland has been somehow trying to find a way through the thicket of the different positions that people take.”
“If someone blows somebody else up; murders them; or takes away a family’s father, brother, sister or whoever or a member of the armed forces who was there to protect them, they should, after committing such a crime—murder most foul—face the fullest penalty. I understand the compromise that was made at the time—I understand that. Many of us had to bite our lips, but we understood it. My point is that if we are going to open the door on the one hand to those who would entertain the possibility of coming to speak the truth, we must also say that those who do not will face the full penalty of the law for murder most foul: “You will not be given an exemption. You will not end up with only two years. You will face a full prosecution if you are not part of this process.”
“I understand that. As I said earlier, with all humility to my colleagues from Northern Ireland, I start from a position of trying to find a way through. That is one of the problems with the Bill. If it is about knowledge, we have to meet that requirement somehow in the Bill, because it is not happening out there. For all the talk about prosecutions and knowledge, few of those who carried out those heinous crimes have ever ended up in the courts or will ever end up in the courts, so how can we manage to make that happen? Another part of the problem is those who do not co-operate. I worried about the two-year issue in 1998, because it seemed unfair and not really justice.”
“I hesitate to distract the Minister from his theatrical memories—he is doing very well—but I would like to take him back to the Bill for a split second. I mean no offence, of course. If people do not choose to be in the reconciliation process, whatever one feels about tightening up how it works, is it feasible to adjust it so that, if they choose the courts or if the courts choose them, they go back to a full-life tariff for committing murder most foul, whoever they are?”
“I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement. The powerful article by Lord Trimble, one of the architects of the Good Friday agreement, makes it very clear that the maintenance of that agreement overcomes everything else. To that extent, it would be helpful if Opposition Members who bang on about this read the protocol. Article 13.8 makes it absolutely clear that the protocol can, through negotiation, be changed in whole or in part. The point, therefore, is that my right hon. Friend is quite correct. The EU now needs to step up to its responsibilities in the protocol and do what article 13.8 tells it to do.”
“(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs if she will make a statement on the arrests of Cardinal Zen, Margaret Ng, Hui Po-keung and Denise Ho in Hong Kong on 11 May.”
“Let me simply say this: it is the important bit. There have been reports that the Government may well re-enact discussions about the Joint Economic Trade Commission, and even re-endorse the economic and financial dialogue which was previously suspended. I want an absolute undertaking from our Government that they will sanction those individuals, and that there is no way on earth that we will entertain the opening up of any trade or financial discussions with this abusive Government.”
“The following people have already been sanctioned by the United States, and are involved in this process: John Lee, elected as Hong Kong’s next chief executive; Carrie Lam, the previous head of the Hong Kong Government; Teresa Cheng Yeuk-wah; Xia Baolong; Zhang Xiaoming; Luo Huining; Zheng Yanxiong; Chris Tang Ping-keung; and Stephen Lo Wai-chung, a former commissioner of the Hong Kong police force. Not one of those people has been sanctioned by the UK Government. It is time to step up and make our position very clear. I would also say to my right hon. Friend, for whom I have a huge amount of respect, that the 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund was shut down last year, and was opened up for inspection for “collusion”. This needs to be investigated. I understand that you wish me to finish my remarks, Mr Speaker, and I am about to do so.”
“He has spoken out against China’s growing authoritarianism under President Xi Jinping, including a Beijing-imposed national security law, and the persecution of members of many religions, including Roman Catholics in China. The problem we have is this. A representative of my Government comes to the Dispatch Box, legitimately, and condemns all these actions in China, yet we lag behind others in sanctioning individuals under the Magnitsky requirements.”
“I am grateful to you, Mr Speaker, for granting the urgent question. On 11 May—yesterday—Chinese authorities arrested three trustees of the 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund, which helped pro-democracy protesters to pay their legal fees. Although those three figures, led by Cardinal Joseph Zen, have apparently been released on bail, the bail requirements are very onerous and their passports have been confiscated. This is a huge abuse of human rights. Cardinal Zen is, I believe, 96, and he has been a lifelong advocate of democratic causes in Hong Kong and mainland China. We should be looking up to this man, and considering the abuse that he faces.”
“Friend said just a few minutes ago that each individual country looks at these arms trades and transfers separately, but does NATO now see that, once Ukraine has succeeded in defending itself from defeat, it must move on to the next bit of the posture, which is to be able to move on to the offensive? Does NATO therefore look at all these arms, including aircraft, as raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski), as a way for Ukraine to take the fight back to the Russians?”
“I commend my right hon. Friend for his leadership and work, and the work of his colleagues, in ensuring that our friends, the Ukrainians, are able to defend themselves. I was recently in Lithuania. The Lithuanians made it clear to me that the Baltic states are deeply worried by some of the behaviour of one or two members of NATO. They commended the UK for its leadership against any kind of attempted settlement. There was the slow behaviour of the Germans at the time, until the UK pushed them to do more on the banking system, SWIFT and so on. One of the things the Lithuanians were questioning me about was whether NATO looks strategically. My right hon.”
“It is not just done there; it is done in many countries around the world because it is easier and cheaper, and we tolerate it. I therefore welcome that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and the Ministers have tabled the amendment. It will speak volumes to those who are oppressed. It will say to them, “The free world has not forgotten you.” I am certain that in due course the rest of this Government will do the same, and other Governments will then follow suit. I congratulate us on making the right decision.”
“This measure will speak to them; it is, in a way, a sign that Governments in the free world are taking up this real cause and recognising that it is intolerable for us to turn a blind eye and buy equipment, clothing and so on simply because it is cheaper and helps our cost balance. I do not believe that it will in the end; the trade-off between cost and the human rights of those who have suffered so much under the heel of those totalitarian states is an abysmal one. Child labour is used in rare-earth mines; when we use those rare-earth materials for the manufacture of our computers, we turn a blind eye to it. When slave labour is used in the Xinjiang region to produce the cotton and the cloth for our personal protective equipment, making it quicker and easier to get, we turn a blind eye to it.”
“I will speak briefly to Government amendment in lieu of (a) Lord, amendment 48B. Essentially, it requires the health service to ensure that it does not use products made under forced or slave labour anywhere in the world. That is a big statement by the Health Department, and one that I think we all welcome—I have certainly campaigned on this issue for some time. In the great sweep of this health legislation, on which there are agreements and disagreements across the board, that may not seem to be something that will directly affect our lives, but in truth it will resonate beyond our shores. It is already resonating among the Uyghur, who have found themselves under distinct pressure, with husbands often separated from wives and families broken apart for forced labour thousands of miles away from their homes.”
“I recognise my hon. Friend’s concerns about this, but the main point to be taken from it—I hope to speak about this later—is the reality that right now this minimum period is interrupted constantly by reviews and inquiries and so they destabilise the ones we need to help. Will he look at this again before we go any further and discuss it with me, so that we may look at something stronger?”
“As a result, we will both save money and provide some serious security for these victims. I genuinely beg the Government to make the change now, because it is decent, reasonable and the right thing to do. Can we please discuss the matter further before it comes up again, and can we do this?”
“Justice and Care’s recent victim navigator study showed that when victims were given support for a minimum period, 89% of those supported by Justice and Care’s programme chose to engage with police investigations, and we got more prosecutions. One does not need a bleeding heart to see the sense of this. It will enable us to prosecute the traffickers. That is what I want my Government to do. Right now, the average percentage of victims who engage with investigations is not 89%, but 33%. People who are very worried, destabilised and uncertain about how long they will be supported for will not give evidence. They will not go to the police or engage with them, because they are frightened. If we give them a minimum of 12 months of support, we will get more prosecutions.”
“They are victims. Confirmed victims currently receive support under the recovery needs assessment, or RNA, process. Under this process, many victims receive support only for short periods of time. There is no 12-month period, and they therefore undergo repeated needs assessments. The Minister should go through the system and see how painful this is for confirmed victims. It is destabilising and can be harmful to victims’ mental health; we know that. It requires victims to constantly provide “evidence” of need, with support available only for “needs arising from exploitation”. They are confirmed victims, and they do not know how long they will need support, which means that they are worried about what will happen if there is no agreement. That can put them back in the hands of the traffickers—the thing that we say we are against.”
“I am grateful to be called to speak so early, and I will be as brief as possible. I say to my hon. Friend the Minister that we have already had these discussions. In fact, the Government moved on the issue; they did so by putting proposals into guidance. The problem with guidance is that it is guidance—it is not obligatory—so the problem with Lords amendment 26B is that the Bill is incomplete, because until these measures are in the Bill, there is no support for confirmed victims after the national referral mechanism process is completed; it is all by judgment. The current system is deeply destabilising for confirmed victims. I am talking about confirmed victims, not other people who have come over. These are people who we agree are victims of modern-day slavery, and we should be very generous to them. What else is there to do?”
“Given the latest information that the chief executive of the North London Waste Authority has received a salary increase from £300,000 to more than £600,000, it is clear that the organisation is out of control. It will not tell us what remuneration its officials—who are councillors—are receiving. Why is it that not a single Government Department is prepared to stand up, haul this project in and call it to account, as would be done in the case of any other such project? People are burning public money, literally, on projects that are not wanted by the public and will pollute the atmosphere. Given the COP26 issues, why is that still happening, and may we have a debate about it now?”
“I want to raise an issue affecting my local area. It involves the North London Waste Authority and the unwanted building of a huge incinerator in Edmonton. Not a single Member of Parliament in the area, Labour or Conservative, actually wants the incinerator, and we do not need it and the fumes that it will emit. The key factor is the existence of all the criteria that would normally cause the Government to haul in a project. The cost of this project has doubled from £600 million to £1.2 billion; this is meant to be a competitive bid, but that is not the case because the same organisation is still going to be involved; and, finally, even the chief executive of that organisation now says that this is excessive and unnecessary.”
“Meanwhile, in Hong Kong, British judges and lawyers have been serving in and around those courts and aiding them—not that they were setting out to do so, but their very presence has lent legitimacy. However, just before I came in for this debate, I discovered that the Government have now agreed with us and wish the British judges to withdraw. Although that is not in the Government’s power, we have heard some interesting statements subsequently from the President of the Supreme Court. Will the Minister take this opportunity to intervene and make it clear what exactly the Government have said?”
“I beg to move, That this House has considered the role of British and overseas judges in Hong Kong. It is a pleasure and a privilege to serve under your stewardship, Ms Rees. Today’s debate was meant to be a demand from across parties that the Government should intervene and that British judges now serving in Hong Hong’s courts should withdraw. We have known for some time that the very presence of those judges has lent legitimacy to a brutal, totalitarian regime that has been prosecuting in Hong Kong against the Sino-British agreement terms and has been prosecuting people in Hong Kong whose only crime has been to cry out for freedom—the kind of freedom that we in this Chamber and in this country have taken for granted for years, and that we see the people in Ukraine fighting for.”
“I am grateful to the Minister for intervening on my opening remarks to make it clear what the Government have said, and I welcome that. We set up an organisation, the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, a few years ago. It takes parliamentarians around the world from the left and right. There are 22 or 23 countries involved, from Japan to America, and we have all—as one voice throughout, and from all sides and from different parties—cried out for this for some time, so I unreservedly welcome today’s statement. I understand that my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Swindon (Sir Robert Buckland), who was himself Lord Chancellor, wants to intervene.”
“I am grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend. I know that he has privately been a big supporter of what we have been trying to do, so I appreciate his coming here now that he is no longer Lord Chancellor. I simply say that this is a momentous decision, because right now in Ukraine—I referred to this earlier—we are seeing a totalitarian regime try to stamp out democracy and freedom in another country. In a funny sort of way, maybe we are seeing that the fight for freedom in Ukraine influences all of us to ensure that, whatever we do from the peaceful area that we live in, it does not allow other totalitarian regimes to have the legitimacy that would be given to them by our independent judiciary playing a part in Hong Kong and letting everybody believe that there is nothing wrong.”
“Now that he has made that statement—he was one of those who actually did service in Hong Kong, so it is an extra-powerful statement on that point—I would call on the Bar Council, barristers and other lawyers who work in corporate law, and who now have all their offices in Hong Kong, to very carefully think about their position. If the judiciary are moving, and if the Bar does too, what price their ability to lend legitimacy to an area that is essentially no longer operating seriously under common law?”
“I am grateful for that intervention, because I had a meeting with the Bar Council about this issue. To be fair, its members understood the dilemma that they had. Bear in mind that Essex Court Chambers have been sanctioned by the Chinese Government, as have I and others present. I do not understand how it is viable any longer for those at the Bar to argue that they are not somehow changing, influencing or moderating what may be going on in Hong Kong. I have in front of me the statement from the Lord President. I will not read it out, as that is for others to do.”
“That is why it is so important today that we send out the signal that when a Government dismisses those freedoms and natural rights, what is left is oppression and brutality. I believe that our judiciary has finally recognised that operating in isolation from the terrible new laws bearing down on people’s human rights in such countries is not feasible. I had prepared a speech calling on the Government to do exactly what they did just before I began speaking. As a politician, that would not normally stop me making the speech for the sake of it, but I will restrain myself.”
“The hon. Lady is quite right. As I said earlier, the shockwaves from what is going on in Ukraine will wash around the world. Most of all, the important thing that that teaches us—and why I am doubly pleased that the Foreign Secretary has made the statement today—is that democracy, human rights and the rule of law are delicate. They do not exist by right; they exist only by human endeavour. Underpinning those freedoms is our concept of independent judicial oversight. We may argue with judges, and we may get angry with them here in Parliament, but an independent judiciary is required to oversee the very workings of a democracy, as well as its freedoms, which will sometimes be taken away from people.”
“This is one step in the right direction; the President of the Supreme Court has made a matching step. I hope to hear from the Bar Council and others that they will step up.”
“In this very Chamber, I and others from the APPG on Magnitsky sanctions called on the Government to sanction more people. The hon. Gentleman has listed two people who are responsible for the abuses now in Xinjiang and what I believe to be a genocide. He will note that I have tabled an amendment, which has been signed by many Conservative Members, to today’s Health and Care Bill—the only reason I did so was to send a signal to the Government—saying that we want the NHS no longer to procure a single item that could possibly come from an area that uses forced or slave labour. The fact that we say we are doing that, and now know from reports that we are buying such equipment, is anathema, and we need to end that as well. I agree with him that there is more to be done but steps by Government are welcome.”
“Today, I believe, is a step in that direction, and I congratulate the Government.”
“The job is to represent people in a free and liberal society that understands the human rights of those who may be prosecuted. I end by saying that, in a way, this is an emotional moment, because we have campaigned for this for so long. We have taken testimony in the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China and Hong Kong Watch from so many who have fled Hong Kong and are now here, because they are unable to live in freedom in Hong Kong, under the rules of an international treaty signed by the British and Chinese Governments at the time. The trashing of that, the ending of those rights, the disabusing nature of the Government’s behaviour, prompts us to ask, how can common law exist in a country that does not believe in the rights and freedoms of individuals? What Ukraine shows us is that freedom has to be fought for, nurtured and protected.”
“The length of the intervention matches the exceptional nature of where we are. Normally, one would make a speech asking for the Government to do something, but they have done it before I asked for it. To that extent, I am sure the Chair will give leeway to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). I conclude by saying that I unreservedly welcome the statement from the Government and the action today. I unreservedly welcome the statement from the President of the Supreme Court. I hope that others involved in the oversight of law, such as the Bar Council and the Law Society, will respond in terms to what is happening, not stay as outliers, and recognise the important and vital position of independence of the courts and those who practise in them and ply their trade. I say that as someone with a son who is a criminal barrister.”
“Following on from what the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West) said, however, while welcoming all those sanctions, the problem is that we have sanctioned fewer people than the United States and other countries. I urge the Minister to take back to the Department what we have already said in the all-party parliamentary group and what has been said elsewhere here today. We are behind the curve on this now. These people are abusive and are responsible for the literally deathly imposition of slave labour and genocide. Can she please now catch up with the United States?”
“I know it is complicated, but I also call on the Law Society to make a strong statement about the limits of action that lawyers in Hong Kong, representing companies, should take in the pursuit of commercial interests. Today is not the end, and, as has been said before, it is not the beginning of the end, but it may just become the end of the beginning. The action that we take today may stave off future violent invasions that could come from a country that believes it has impunity. Today we have sent a signal that freedom matters and that people’s freedoms, above all else, are critical to the very way we live our lives. On that basis, I thank the Government for having moved on this matter. Question put and agreed to . Resolved, That this House has considered the role of British and overseas judges in Hong Kong.”
“Democracy, the rule of law, the independent judiciary and human rights are delicate flowers; they cannot be maintained unless we fight for them, talk about and believe in them, and unless, when people end them, we ostracise them and tell them they are wrong. I thank the Government for moving on this issue, and the President of the Supreme Court for accepting independently that judges will not serve. Following many comments on the subject, it is important for others who ply their trade in the same courts to think again about what they do. I call on the Bar Council to recommend, as has the President of the Supreme Court, that its members think carefully about adding legitimacy to these courts in Hong Kong.”
“It is about something much more important—shedding light on the single fact that we are seeing, as I said earlier, literally being fought out in Ukraine. For too long, we have felt that we must accommodate totalitarian regimes that have no regard whatever for the basic things that we believe in and that make us who we are: that sense of human rights, the rule of law and democracy, without which this place could not exist, and this country and so many other countries in the west could not exist in the shape that we do. The reality, writ large, is that we now have to end that accommodation with the Chinese Government. Our dependency on them allows and fuels them to continue to believe that their form of government and their concept of the ending of these rights is the right way to go and the natural order.”
“We should be celebrating the fact that the UK Government have acted, as a result of the continual campaigning by many of us in this area—from Hong Kong Watch to IPAC, and others—for an end to the superficial legitimacy that our judiciary had been lending to a regime that had been breaking, and is breaking, many of the rules regarding human rights, the rule of law and democracy, not just in Hong Kong but more widely across China. In my last few remarks, I want to remind everybody what this matter is all about. It is not really just about judges agreeing not to serve in Hong Kong in a common law system that has become debauched, and it is not just that those judges have taken a self-denying ordinance.”
“Normally, to get up with almost half an hour left in which to summarise a debate would be a sheer joy for a parliamentarian or politician. [ Laughter. ] However, I will not take the full time on this one. I will simply conclude by saying that today is a remarkable day. It may not be a day that people will discuss in the bars and the pubs across the country, because many of them probably do not understand or have not heard much about the issue, but it is something that we, as democrats and politicians, know about.”
“I hope to speak on this subject if I catch your eye, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I want to make the point that right now, even though it is not meant to be allowed, the NHS is using products made by slave labour. Only two days ago, The Spectator demonstrated that products being used in King’s College Hospital actually came from providers in Xinjiang, so it is happening now. Like the hon. Member for Lewisham East, I want to emphasise the urgency of this issue, so I intend to bring it up with my hon. Friend the Minister during the debate.”
“I will vote against slave labour for an amendment coming back from the House of Lords, and I believe that many of my colleagues here—all of them, I hope—will do the same. I am certain that that will be the case for those on the Opposition Benches. I have huge regard for my hon. Friend the Minister, and very much so for the Secretary of State. I have spoken to them at length, and I believe them to be completely onside with my argument. I ask a wider group in the Government to stop it. This is more important than moderated impact assessments, which mean nothing; this is about human lives. When it comes to human lives, the best impact we can have is ending brutality, intolerance and slave labour. If we can bring that to an end, it would be the biggest impact we ever have, and we could be proud of it.”
“I understand the problem with Lords amendment 48; it is that the Government will never recognise genocide, so that amendment would never have a bearing or an effect because they would simply say, “We do not recognise that genocide has taken place in that area and therefore we are let out.” It is let-out for them. This amendment of ours is very specific. It deals with slave labour, and we can prove slave labour. So I say to my hon. and right hon. Friends: this unites the whole House. If this comes back amended either by the Government or by somebody in the House of Lords, I give a little warning—not a threat—to my Government that the choice when this comes back will be: do you support the use of slave labour or do you not support the use of slave labour? There is no other choice. It is not a moderated choice. It is very simple for us.”