Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)

I am indebted to the Minister—I will come back to that in a moment—and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Offord, and the noble Earl, Lord Russell, for their contributions to this debate. I was heartened by the in-principle support that they gave for what these amendments are seeking to achieve. I pick up a point from the noble Lord, Lord Offord, about the consumer having the right to know the origins of products. I feel very strongly about that and there is much more that we can do about it in due course. I am a free trader, but I am always struck that it was Richard Cobden who drew lines in the sand. He said no to free trade when it came to human beings in the slave trade and no when it came to the opium trade. A three-day debate in the House of Commons led to the overturning of that trade, which to this day has some relevance in the context of China. Consumers can play their part in those activities and campaigns, because they can say no by voting with their feet, but they have to know what the origins are. That means that we have to do more to detect them. The noble Lord, Lord Rooker, often says that we can look at the cotton that comes out of places such as Xinjiang to detect its DNA, or at silicon or other raw materials. And we should go right back in those supply chains. I made the point at Second Reading that 25,000 children are believed to work in cobalt and lithium mines in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. So these are things that matter a great deal to a lot of people in different places, and we can do more about them. I know the Minister is no stranger to these issues. He was right to mention the Procurement Act and the joint efforts we made successfully to raise amendments to that. As he knows, I was involved in the modern slavery legislation in 2015, and I always give great credit to noble Baroness, Lady May, as she now is, who was then the Home Secretary, in bringing forward what was bipartisan and bicameral legislation. Picking up a point that others have made this evening, the noble Lord, Lord Cryer—whose father I had the privilege of serving with in the other place— said earlier today that what he likes about this House is the willingness to try to find solutions, being less confrontational and working with one another to find ways forward. I hope we will try to do that. It is difficult to square the circle. There are contradictions and inconsistencies here; it feels almost like Jekyll and Hyde in some respects. We have the Business Secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, saying: “I give … an absolute assurance that I would expect and demand there to be no modern slavery in any part of a supply chain that affects products or goods sold in the UK … I promise … that, where there are specific allegations, I will look at those to ensure that” this happens. “It is an area where we have existing legislation, and indeed we would go further if that was required”.—[Official Report, Commons, 5/9/24; cols. 418-19.] So I welcome what the Government have been saying, but the reality, when you start to look at supply chains and where these products are made, does not sit very comfortably with those promises. On the basis of what has been said evening, I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 43, and I hope we can find scope to come forward with something on which we can agree at Report stage.