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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“The UN has said that China has no right to it at all, yet it is demanding and controlling whole areas. It has been involved in border disputes—aggressive behaviour—recently with India, in which Indian soldiers have been killed. Then there is the situation in Hong Kong. How much more can we say about Hong Kong? China is abusing what is going on and has dismissed an international agreement with regards to the legalities, leading to the incarceration of many peaceful protestors and their shipment to China for prosecution, where they will certainly not get a fair trial. By the way, I asked the Government what they think of British judges being employed still on the bench in Hong Kong. Surely it is time that we said, “Enough!” They can no longer give cover to what is going on in Hong Kong. It has to stop, for goodness’ sake.”
“I also ask the Government to demand reciprocal access to Tibet and other regions, such as Xinjiang, in order to allow for independent international investigation into the reports of forced labour, and to call for a UN special rapporteur on Tibet. The peculiarity of the situation is that if China were any other country in the world, every Government would call it out. They would demand change. Imagine if it were a country in Europe, Africa or anywhere else—there would immediately be demands and debates in the UN. That does not happen. Far too much of what we think and do about China is now influenced massively by the concern about getting goods, manufacturers, investment and so on organised. China is involved in occupying the South China sea.”
“It incentivises companies through illegal discounts, tax breaks and subsidies. Even Volkswagen reported that it had to buy a quota of components from local Chinese suppliers or pay more than double the standard import tax on such parts, which violates the WTO rules that everybody else is meant to obey. China favours exporting finished products, which means that it basically forces companies to manufacture and produce. The supply chain risk profiles are all in the report, and they are there for us as well. The supply chains in Tibet, Xinjiang and other regions are linked to forced labour, and the Government have to make it clear to British business that it is unacceptable to be in the slightest bit involved with those chains.”
“I urge the Government to support amendment 68 to the Trade Bill in the Lords to nullify trade arrangements past and future if the High Court makes a preliminary determination that a proposed trade partner has perpetrated genocide. I can tell the Government now that, should such a new clause come to the Commons, I will absolutely support it. I also urge the Government to consider that, to meet GDP targets. China’s economy needs to grow by some 7.5% a year. Under the cover of that, China is being given the capacity to behave in the way it does by western companies and Governments, which are turning a blind eye. It is worth reminding ourselves that, beyond even the human rights abuses, China is now in breach of World Trade Organisation rules endlessly across the piece.”
“She was forced to consume faeces and toilet water, and was given unidentifiable drugs to make her lose consciousness. I urge the Government to call that out. I also urge the Government to do a series of things so that the UK becomes a lead advocate in all of this. First, we need to look at mandatory sanctions with regard to global human rights abuses: sanctions such as travel bans or asset freezes. The officials responsible should have Magnitsky arrangements applied to them for the use of forced compulsory labour in Tibet and in other areas, too. The Government should also open a way for similar judgments to be issued on cases regarding abuses against Xinjiang’s Uyghurs and other minorities in China that I have touched on.”
“The Falun Gong has experienced the most appalling behaviour. The 610 Office is the security agency charged with solely persecuting the Falun Gong. If detainees do not renounce Falun Gong beliefs, they are subject to re-education through labour. There are reports of beatings, solitary confinement, 24-hour monitoring, rack torture, tiger bench torture, water torture, stress position torture, forced feeding for those on hunger strike and forced injections of unknown drugs, and now, most shockingly of all, there are confirmed stories of organ harvesting from those who have been incarcerated. Liu Guifu, a Falun Gong practitioner from Beijing, was twice sent to RTL camps—retraining camps—in Beijing. She reports being deprived of sleep, not allowed to use a bathroom or drink water.”
“It is a pleasure to give way to the right hon. Gentleman, who came early to this issue. He has been calling it out for some time, and I congratulate him on that. I agree with him. We have to look at the starting point. People took their eyes off Tibet, but we can see now what is happening. People did not want to talk about the Uyghurs, but we have advanced. Repression is happening everywhere. My point about the Christians is that it has been going on for a long time. There are threats, for example, to withhold state support from low-income Christian families who do not give up their religious belief, and there is a similar experience among Catholic churches. It is not only about churches that the Government do not consider to be registered; it is also even churches that they might consider to be registered.”
“Does my hon. Friend not agree that right now there must be a very public statement by the Government saying to those who take money from China and then promptly defend it that that has to cease?”
“Friend the Minister, will let the Government know that we can no longer just say that we want a good and constructive relationship with China. We want an honest relationship with China—one in which, when something is wrong, we say it is wrong. In this case, if genocide and abuses of human rights are taking place, we now, as a Government and as a people, must call them out and take action. Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House has considered reports of China’s rapid expansion of the labour programme in Tibet co-published by the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China.”
“We must make sure that Magnitsky sanctions are applied to those mentioned in the reports, as well reports on Xinjiang and the Uyghurs and all those other areas as well, particularly Hong Kong. It is time now to call them out and put those sanctions in place; we have spent too long thinking about it. We need to condemn those companies involved with and linked to modern-day slavery and abuse in China. The Government should call out those companies. The way to act here is to agree to amendment 68 to the Trade Bill in the House of Lords, which would immediately stop that activity. I ask my hon. Friend to tell those in the Government that it is time to take a position on the Olympics, no matter what. I hope that the calling out of those abuses in Tibet for a long time by many of my right hon. and hon. Friends, including my hon.”
“I thank my hon. Friend the Minister for his comments at the end of this really powerful debate, featuring many right hon. and hon. Members from both sides of the House. It is clear from the debate that there is now a growing strength and unity of feeling across all parts of the House of Commons that the policy—as referenced by the Opposition spokesman, the hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock)—initiated by the then Chancellor and Prime Minister of a Government in whom I served, which was referred to in turn as “Project Kowtow”, can no longer exist. We now need to bear down on Chinese abuse. The point of the debate was to highlight the latest abuse in Tibet, but more than that, across the board, I urge my hon. Friend the Minister to take the following points forward.”
“I want to quote this, as it is quite important: “first and foremost, to preserve the constitutional framework created by the Treaty…it would be wrong to conclude that, once the Community is bound by a rule of international law…The relationship between international law and the Community legal order”— that is their constitution— “is governed by the Community legal order itself, and international law can permeate that legal order only under the conditions set by the constitutional principles of the Community.” So the EU itself has the principle that it will vet its obligations and not necessarily implement them, as it requires.”
“The hon. Gentleman says that this is about a collapse in trust. The collapse in trust in that description is one way; that is to say with the UK Government, because they are apparently breaching treaty law. However, if he were to go to the case Kadi v. Commission, he would see that the Advocate General at the time of the case made it very clear.”
“Friends in the Government are absolutely right to use these clauses of the Bill to make it clear to the European Union that, should it wish to pursue the line that it does not agree to work hard in the Joint Committee to resolve these matters about application, which are always a problem, the UK still reserves its right not to breach its own constitutional settlement, which is a primary cause of most breaches of international law around the world.”
“It took 10 years before that was resolved. It was not resolved because the UK Government—I think at that stage it was a Conservative Government and my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) was Prime Minister—implemented it. No, they negotiated again over its implementation and observance, and came up with a fudge. That is the point about international law: it is not always directly applicable by the letter. Ultimately, when it is not agreed that things should be brought in, they require negotiation subsequently. That is why I say that my right hon.”
“They do so time and again, which has given us a very long list of occasions when the EU has done just that and refused to implement all or part of international treaties. I do not extol its virtues in that regard; I simply regard that as a reality. What does that say? Does the rest of the world say that the EU cannot be trusted in international agreements? So far, apparently not. So far, it has done deals with a number of different countries and not one of them has said, “We don’t trust you, because you breach international law,” which it does. But the UK has also breached international law. In fact, it was a Labour Government that refused to implement, in about 2005, as I recall, prisoners’ voting rights, which came directly from the European Court of Human Rights. All that happened was that the Government said no.”
“The point I was making was that we talk a lot about trust, and there is a lot of debate here about trust, with people saying, “The UK will lose all trust should it do this; no one will ever trust us again”—I do not believe a word of that, by the way, because so many other countries, including the UK, have previously breached international law, for lots of good reasons—but the EU binds it in that it is its right to breach international law. That was very clear, as I said earlier, in Kadi v. Council and Commission in 2008. The Advocate General made it very clear that the EU does not necessarily have to bind into international treaties with direct effect if they clash with its constitutional settlement.”
“That therefore makes it impossible for the Government, should they see that the EU is not acting in good faith at this point, to ensure that there is, in a sense, a backstop. I raised a point with the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) earlier about the EU’s behaviour in this. My point was not, “Look, the EU doesn’t always recognise international law, as applied internally, and therefore we shouldn’t.” That was not the point.”
“I do not believe that the Bill actually breaks international treaties, particularly not at this stage. I think article 46 in the Vienna convention on the law of treaties is clear about that. These things are always open to interpretation —I accept that—and different lawyers will take different views, but generally I think that at this stage in particular the Bill does not do that. My hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) was clear that that was one of the reasons he is prepared to go along and accommodate the Government on this point, and that is quite reasonable. The combined effect of article 4 of the withdrawal agreement and section 7A of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 is that key parts of the withdrawal agreement and the NIP are already part of domestic law.”
“If the EU disagreed with that provision or disagreed with the principle, it should not have ratified the treaty at its end, but it made no bones about it and did it. The effect of clauses 40 to 45 is just to protect the basic implementation of the UK’s internal market in terms of its constitution. I recognise the concerns of my colleagues in Northern Ireland about the application of state aids in Northern Ireland as well, but in this case the provisions allow state aids in Great Britain to be dispensed under the framework devised in this country, and not elsewhere. It seems intolerable to me that we should leave the EU only to find that it has hold of us in a number of ways that, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers) said, were categorically never the intention.”
“I remind colleagues that in the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020—nobody seems to have referenced this—our potential intentions were very clear in section 38, which was part of the legislation when it was passed. As I recall, the Opposition did not vote against that provision. If that was the case, it sent a very strong signal to the EU that there was every likelihood that we considered that constitutional settlement in the UK to be above the implementation of the withdrawal agreement, should the agreement end up damaging the settlement. That was quite clear. In fact, it was so clear that when the 2020 Act had passed both Houses, interestingly the EU still went ahead and ratified its end of the agreement through the European Parliament, knowing full well that that was in the Act.”
“I am conscious that everyone needs to get in, so I will try to be as brief as possible. Most of the things I will say have probably already been said and certainly will be said in the course of the debate. I make no claim to uniqueness. I rise to support the Government’s Bill with particular reference to clauses 40 to 45, which we are considering today. After all, the free flow of goods and trade in the UK is critical and is part of the constitutional settlement—the settlements between Ireland and GB and, later, Northern Ireland and, earlier, Scotland and England. Those principles are at the core of what we believe and what we consider to be immutable, and therefore they cannot be changed. There are areas in the protocol that, if improperly used, could affect those principles, and that cannot be allowed.”
“Friend said, we did not vote to be a subsidiary state; we voted for independence. That is the key point. I am going to vote for this Bill, and I vote for it with a clean heart. I vote for it because so many areas—from state aid to transfer of goods and agriproducts to labelling—will be affected unnecessarily. If the EU seriously wants to help and to get this done, it needs to return to the table, go into the Joint Committee as it said it would and accept what we are saying: we will not allow our constitution to become the prisoner of an EU that wants to have all power over the UK.”
“I think there are now 137 countries that would have third country status, but apparently to Mr Barnier, it would be quite acceptable for a country that has been very close to the EU for years not to have third country status. I think it is a hollow threat, but it is a peculiar threat to make, and it gives an indication of bad faith. The EU is meant to avoid bad faith in this, and so are we. The whole idea of the Bill is to say, “Stop. Let’s consider this again. We do not want—and you should not want—to end up in a situation where we are running around on your laws. This is not what the agreement was meant to be, and we are not prepared to see our constitutional settlement trashed in the pursuit of your own vainglorious idea that somehow you’re going to keep hold of us and run us afterwards.” As my right hon.”
“I see that Monsieur Barnier has threatened our negotiators that, if they do not agree with him—he has not, by the way, wanted to move anywhere near the Joint Committee to discuss these matters—the EU will, if necessary, not give us the status of third country. That seems a bizarre threat to make. The list of third countries, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers) mentioned, is long and peculiar. Belarus, for example, which we watch almost nightly on the television, would have third country status. We would not have it, apparently. Others include the Central African Republic, China, the Islamic Republic of Iran—the list goes on.”
“Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) initiated. That made it very clear that we would, if necessary, place our constitutional law ahead of both of those. I make that point because in truth, we are now in exactly that state. That is why I believe that I can happily vote for this tonight. I am happy that, following the debate between my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst and the Government, they have tabled amendment 66, which will give Parliament a chance to say yea or nay when the moment comes. But we are not in breach until we decide to implement this. This has been done before. It is important to show that we want to do this if necessary, but we would rather find an agreement between the parties. I come back to the point that I made about good faith in principle.”
“That is why I gave way to my right hon. Friend—because he was there. I think he was a very good Minister too, by the way, for what it is worth. The point is that for 10 years, Labour Governments and other Governments simply refused to put prisoners’ voting rights through. Finally, there was a fudge negotiation, where not all of what was asked for was agreed, but it was agreed that what had been done, I think on furlough—as I recall, prisoners on furlough had voting rights—was okay. That was not what was asked for. Let us not be too pompous about this idea that international law is some God-given gospel that says, “Absolutely nobody can ever trespass away from this.” Many of these things are fudged anyway, and implementation is very important. I come back to section 38, which my hon.”
“My concern is that HMRC and the Government need to add extra months—six months more would help enormously—and I therefore make that representation, and ask if my hon. Friend could pass it on to the Treasury. Furthermore, I think it is time for us to have another debate in Government time on the process. It is vital, if our constituents are to have any sense that this place represents them, for us to show that HMRC has behaved badly, leaving many of our constituents in deep financial difficulty, in depression and with some having even committed suicide.”
“Like many others in the House, I have campaigned long and hard on the unfair treatment of those suffering under the loan charge—including many in and around my constituency—and I know that the issue unites the House. HMRC has historically behaved appallingly with regard to those people, including by the retrospective nature of what it has done, but now it appears that those facing these issues have been asked essentially to put their representations in to HMRC before September—this month. The problem is that HMRC is not capable of processing all those representations now, which means that many of them will not get any justice or any help and assistance and may suffer even further financial penalties.”
“I wonder if my right hon. Friend recalls that in clause 38—the sovereignty clause—of the Act that gave effect to the withdrawal agreement the Government reserved to themselves the right to make clarifications. Given that, and given that when the protocol was signed, the Government recognised that state aid rules would apply to Northern Ireland, their extension to the rest of the Great Britain is an interpretation by the EU, and the Government are quite within their rights to dispute that interpretation and use clause 38 to explain that they do not agree with that and will not implement such an agreement.”
“I beg to move amendment 1, in page 1, line 6, at end insert— ‘( ) Nothing in this Act changes the effect of any rule of law or any enactment in force before the date on which this Act is passed in relation to extradition requests by or on behalf of— (a) the People’s Republic of China, or (b) the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China.’ This amendment is intended to ensure the provisional arrest arrangements proposed under this Bill do not apply to extradition requests from China and/or Hong Kong.”
“I hope that the Government will listen to people whose lives have been under threat and whose families are still in Hong Kong and yet are brave enough to call for such sanctions, knowing full well that that might bring further problems for them.”
“We have nothing to lose any more by holding back. It is not as if the Chinese Government are going to turn around and thank us, because they already think that we have caused problems, so my answer is: let us get on with it. The deterioration of the situation has accelerated over the summer, and the US Government have already sanctioned Hong Kong and Chinese officials responsible for the implementation of the new law and for human rights abuses. I urge my right hon. Friend and the Foreign Secretary, who is not here, to move on to that and listen to Nathan Law, who fled directly after the Hong Kong Government did not agree to his standing. Others have also had to flee, and they have all called for those sanctions to be applied.”
“That brings me to the next phase. The Government are right to have reacted and to have ceased the extradition procedures, but yet more needs to be done. I like to think this is something that unites us all. The sanctions that come from the Magnitsky amendments need seriously to be deployed by the Government. When I was most recently in the Chamber for exchanges on this issue, the Foreign Secretary said that the Government would review other actions that need to be taken with regard to Hong Kong, and that they would take it as the situation develops. The situation has been developing. It has been developing at a pace which, if my right hon. Friend the Minister for Security will forgive my saying so, is faster than the pace at which the Government or the Foreign Office seem to be able to move.”
“It is also worth pointing out that the Hong Kong rate of infection is lower than pretty much any of the countries that have held elections already. The idea that they can latch on to covid as some kind of excuse for cancelling elections had nothing to do with the reality; the reality was that they did not approve of the opposition and wanted to stop the election so that they had time to make sure they arrested the key elements so that they would never be able to stand. Many members of the opposition have fled here to the UK and I have met and seen them. There are two points, really, that dismantle the whole process. I made the point earlier that a number of countries—dozens, I think—have held elections. It is part of the total crackdown and acquiescence with what is in essence an illegal process going on in Hong Kong.”
“In fact, two journalists who were due to leave were stopped from leaving and ended up in the consulate. They have now finally left, but the authorities wanted to question them for writing stuff of which they did not approve. The whole point of this issue then comes into focus. It is the co-operation of the Chinese officials that I find perhaps the most galling. In the announcement by Chief Executive Carrie Lam that they were postponing the LegCo elections that were due to take place on Sunday 5 September—the weekend just gone—she cited covid cases as a reason for the delay. I have heard a few excuses in my time but that one really did take the biscuit, because so many other countries have had elections, both local and national, even during the covid saga.”
“I say the free world because it is not just a western issue; it is an issue of all those who believe in rights and freedom around the world, whether they be in the far east or in the west. The New York Times has to relocate its staff, completely—lock, stock and barrel—to Seoul after the visa renewal of a senior journalist was rejected; the threat was clearly there that the rest would follow. A senior journalist at the Hong Kong Free Press had their visa rejected. The Foreign Correspondents’ Club in Hong Kong described the trend as a weaponisation of visas by China. We even saw on the news the other day that the Australians are being heavily targeted—brutally targeted—and not only with sanctions; their journalists are now having to flee the country.”
“If somebody says the wrong thing, or something that is considered the wrong thing, or if someone is remembered to have said the wrong thing, all such talk invokes the use of the security law. There is a new national security centre in Shenzhen to re-educate those who do not comply. Benny Tai, the organiser of the yellow umbrella protest, which is a peaceful movement—I stress that these are all peaceful movements —was fired from his teaching post at a university simply because he was party to that movement. The censorship of university content is now gathering pace, as they are filleting out anything that refers to any concerns or issues around the nature of China, and even its historical nature. The latest issue that should concern the Government completely is that we are now seeing problems for journalists from the free world.”
“The targeting of Hong Kong activists overseas is going on apace and gathering pace, as is retrospectively applying the law to supposed crimes that took place before it even came into force, which I find remarkable—perhaps I should not, but I do. There are then all the elements that the UK Government will find themselves having to deal with, and I believe all the devolved Administrations are united in this sense as well. The evidence around censorship is really quite astonishing. References to the Tiananmen Square massacre have now been removed from all textbooks and all materials that might say anything at all about it—they are simply blanked out. There is a new cultural revolution, with teachers and students being asked and encouraged to spy on each other.”
“On that basis, the Government have acted correctly in cutting off any potential problem that may arise as a result of the use of the extradition agreement—but there is more, even now, as we speak. Quite recently, we have seen action against a number of people who have done nothing other than use the kind of rights that we would take for granted in this House. Jimmy Lai, the owner of the largest pro-democracy publication in the city, has been charged with undermining the state. There have been arrests of young activists, some of which we have seen on television, but others go on. There have been media posts and people holding blank pieces of paper at protests. People have been arrested in shopping malls for sedition.”
“I thank the Government for finally agreeing to rule out the extradition arrangements with Hong Kong, but it is worth noting what has been going on since the imposition of the national security law, which is now making the lives of many in Hong Kong a misery. More than that, they now fear very much indeed not only for their lives but for their liberty in a way that none of us here, I sometimes think, could possibly imagine—or imagine what it is like to live in such an environment. We have a historical relationship with Hong Kong, and we have a legal right, under the Sino-British treaty, to have an opinion and view on what is happening in Hong Kong. No matter what the Chinese Government may say, that is our right in international law. The imposition of the national security law runs counter to that arrangement—that treaty.”
“I rise to speak to amendment 1, but with it are a whole bunch of other amendments that I have tabled alongside my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely) and the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion). I had intended when I originally tabled them to speak on the basis that the Government needed to act, but since then they have acted—and that is never a bad thing. Although I, with my colleagues, may well have provoked the Government to act, I still want to speak, because things are happening at the moment which mean, I hope, that the Government will pay full attention to further action that may be required, stretching across extradition and into sanctions.”
“Amendment proposed : 13, page 3, line 37, leave out from beginning to end of line 2 on page 4.— (James Brokenshire.) This amendment leaves out a provision inserted in the Lords imposing certain conditions relating to consultation, assessments and reports on the making of regulations under new section 74B(7).”
“Schedule Power of arrest for extradition purposes Amendment made: 12, page 3, line 22, leave out from beginning to end of line 24 and insert— ‘(3A) The “designated authority” is the National Crime Agency. (4) The Secretary of State may by regulations amend this section so as to change the meaning of “designated authority”.’— (James Brokenshire.) The Bill currently provides for the Secretary of State to designate the “designated authority” in regulations. This amendment instead provides, on the face of the Bill, that the National Crime Agency is the designated authority and confers a power on the Secretary of State to amend new section 74B to designate a different authority.”
“Clause 2 Extent, commencement and short title Amendment made: 11, page 1, line 16, at end insert ‘, but paragraph 3A of the Schedule may not be commenced so as to come into force in relation to a territory before that territory is a category 2 territory for the purposes of the Extradition Act 2003.’— (James Brokenshire.) This amendment is consequential on amendment 15 and provides that the amendments that are to be made by amendment 15 to Schedule A1 to the Extradition Act 2003 (inserted by paragraph 3 of the Schedule to the Bill) cannot be brought into force in relation to a territory before the territory is designated as a category 2 territory for the purposes of that Act. Clause 2, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.”
“I have listened carefully to my right hon. Friend and, given the nature of what the Government have already undertaken since the amendments were tabled by my right hon. Friends and me, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Clause 1 ordered to stand part of the Bill.”
“Friends and Opposition Members, encourage him to do what he can to get officials to look at that urgently, so that we may force sanctions on those responsible for what is happening to the Uyghur, and on Hong Kong—people such as Carrie Lam and her predecessor, Mr Leung?”
“I unreservedly welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement; he has taken the right decision. We have had good cause to suspend the extradition treaty, and I will now withdraw my amendments to the Extradition (Provisional Arrest) Bill, although I suspect that that has not been keeping him awake at night. I associate myself with the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat) on the Uyghurs. The Foreign Secretary is right that he has to be careful on the legal elements of what he does with regard to sanctions on individuals, now that we have the Magnitsky changes. The Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China published a report on the forced sterilisation of the Uyghur women a few weeks ago, and there is lots of evidence of the officials who are involved in that. May I, along with many of my hon.”
“On human rights, we know that Huawei has lied in its declaration under the Modern Slavery Act 2015 that it has had no involvement in slavery. We know that now from Xinjiang Province. If we can prove that and are able to demonstrate it to this Government, will this Government ban Huawei altogether?”
“I welcome the decision to eradicate Huawei from the 5G system, but I think that the Secretary of State can do it more quickly than he says. I was listening to the “Today” programme the other day, and the head of BT said seven years, yes, but it could be done in five. Let us bring it forward to five, and make sure that it happens quickly. There is no reason why that cannot be done. The key point I want to make is that there were two contradictions in the Secretary of State’s statement. He said that he is getting rid of Huawei in 5G, but it is apparently fine for it to continue in 4G and 3G; it can go on for as long as anyone. It will be upgraded in software upgrades for the next decade. If it is a risk in 5G, why is it not a risk to us generally?”