Contribution
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Sarwar, in giving one of his first ministerial replies, has acquitted himself with some distinction. It is wonderful to hear a Minister describing himself as impatient, and someone who will look at things with fresh eyes. I also agree strongly with what he just said about there being no single outcome. All these different levers have to be applied, and he said that he will look at them carefully. I am very grateful to him.
I thank all noble Lords who have participated in this debate, from left, right and centre. The right reverend Prelate said that we needed a greater sense of outrage; I think that has communicated itself in the speeches today. My noble friend Lady Finlay said that it is our duty to shine a light into dark places. Everyone has done that today.
It struck me, from listening to the references to William Wilberforce, that 200 years ago it was the Select Committee on which he and others appeared—including the slave-trading sea captain from Liverpool, John Newton, who changed his mind and came to describe what he had seen on those vessels—that led to the changes in the law of which this country and Parliament can be so proud. They changed hearts, they changed minds, they changed culture and they changed the law. They did that as an alliance of people who came together from commerce, the law, religious backgrounds and secular backgrounds. They worked with one another. They had campaigners such as Thomas Clarkson, who abandoned his studies at Cambridge University to spend decades trying to bring through the legislation that ultimately made such a difference to the people living in those dark places to which my noble friend referred.
I began by referring to the 50 million people who are victims. That is just a number. Behind every number and every statistic there is a story: a life that is not theirs; a suffering that no one knows about; there is pain, exhaustion and hunger; there are dreams of freedom and dignity. The victims of this blight must remain central to this debate.
In the year since we published our report, we have heard new stories on the use of modern slavery globally in supply chains. I draw attention to reports in the Times and the Independent about North Korean labourers living in conditions “worse than cattle”, and to reports about exploited workers on Chinese fishing boats, children working in deadly conditions in the DRC—as the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, reminded us—and the BBC’s report, seen by the committee, of tomatoes being sold in the UK as Italian tomatoes, but which were actually grown by forced labour in Xinjiang.
You do not have to look very far to see forced labour and modern slavery. What we are going to do about it not about historic reparations; it is about action this day—as Churchill famously demanded of his officials. He was an impatient Minister too, and I hope that that dictum might become one that the Minister will have on his desk as he considers this issue further.
To conclude, it is an honour to have been the first Member of your Lordships’ House to be elected by the members of the Joint Committee on Human Rights as its chair. My tenure now comes to its conclusion. I have chaired around 60 sessions and produced around a dozen reports on everything from transnational repression and the failures to prosecute British nationals responsible for genocidal crimes against minorities in northern Iraq to our report, published only last week, on the human rights of children in social care.
I end by saying that the hard work of our parliamentary Select Committees in crafting challenging reports on public policy is exemplary and a rebuke to those who have only negative things to say about Parliament and parliamentarians. Joint Committees of both Houses are rarities that we need more of. I am glad to see the Government Chief Whip in his place to hear that remark. Today’s debate and our JCHR report on supply chains and modern slavery is a superb example of parliamentary work at its best. I sincerely thank all noble Lords who have participated, both in the committee and in the House today.