Member

What will those MPs say to their constituents—to their voters? How will they explain this vote in the week that we mark 10 years since the Modern Slavery Act 2015? Indeed, how will they explain it to themselves? We are proud to have introduced that Act 10 years ago. It was a landmark piece of legislation. However, it is right that we recognise now that the protections against the use of public money in supply chains with exposure to the use of modern slave labour need to be more robust. They are voting against this incredibly sensible amendment that seeks to protect some of the most oppressed people in the world, and to ensure that our net zero objectives, whatever one’s view of them, will not be built on the back of slave labour, or on the backs of the Uyghur Muslims of Xinjiang and elsewhere. The vast majority of solar panels are exposed to Xinjiang silicon, where manufacturers have been found to have links to Uyghur forced labour.