UK Must Remove Uyghur Slave Labour From Green Energy Supply Chain, Peers Told

Lord Alton speaks on the genocide amendment in the House of Lords, Westminster, London, on Feb. 23, 2021. Screenshot via The Epoch Times

A peer and human rights campaigner has urged the government to ensure that renewable energy supply chains are free from modern slavery, warning that Chinese solar products are “badly tainted” by Uyghur slave labour.

Crossbench peer Lord David Alton of Liverpool made the remarks in the House of Lords on Dec. 3 as peers continued to scrutinise the Great British Energy Bill, which will establish a new, publicly funded green energy company.

The peer said that the Chinese communist regime “has a stranglehold on the renewables supply chain.”

He added that a large proportion of solar panels are made using polysilicon from China’s Xinjiang region and is tied to the forced labour from Uyghurs, the ethnic Muslim minorities who live in the province.

Alton told his fellow peers, “The conundrum is that we appear to need Chinese solar to meet our climate targets, but Chinese solar is badly tainted, as I have described, with modern slavery.”

He added that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) regime is the world’s biggest polluter, “and it uses the Uyghur region as its national hub for oil, gas and coal, fuelling their factories with cheap coal.”

“So, the solar panels of Xinjiang are not only made by slave labour but have a higher carbon footprint than those manufactured elsewhere in the world,” he said.

Alton is one of seven MPs, including former Conservative Party leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith, who Beijing sanctioned in March 2021 over his critical stance on the CCP’s treatment of the Uyghurs.

Net Zero ‘Unachievable’ Without China

The peer added that currently, net zero targets are “unachievable without Chinese-made renewables” and therefore 2030 renewable energy commitments “cannot be achieved without slavery.”

Alton said that in order to remove unethical products from the green energy supply chain, the UK should follow the lead from other nations such as Australia, which has called for more local green manufacturing, and the United States, which has a ban on imports of silica-based products from Xinjiang.

“What is clear is that if democratic nations like ours are to achieve decarbonisation, this will need a mix of approaches: developing alternatives not dependent on polysilicon, rebuilding domestic solar supply chains, focusing procurement on companies that have shifted supply chains out of Xinjiang, and developing better tools for reliable sourcing,” he said.

“All this hinges on our Government insisting that they will not be purchasing solar panels from companies that use slave labour, prioritising instead ethical sourcing and labour practices and recognising that such firm action is the way to create demand for responsible production.”

Shadow energy minister Lord Malcolm Offord of Garvel agreed with Alton, and called for an amendment to the bill that would “bind the Government to ensure clean energy does not come at the expense of human rights, ethical labour practices or transparency.”

Committed to Tackling Slavery

Responding to the crossbench peer’s remarks, Energy Minister Lord Philip Hunt of Kings Heath said the bill “is not the appropriate vehicle for tackling this issue,” but that the government remained committed to tackling forced labour in supply chains, “including the mining of polysilicon used in the manufacture of solar panels.”

Hunt said Great British Energy (GBE) will be respecting human rights under the Human Rights Act and will be subjected to existing provisions in law on forced labour under the Modern Slavery Act 2015 and the Procurement Act 2023.

Under the Procurement Act, which will be fully enforced by February 2025, GBE will be able to reject tenders “where it is aware of forced labour or modern slavery existing in the supply chain,” the peer said.

Large solar panels are seen in a solar power plant in Hami, in northwest China's Xinjiang region, on May 8, 2013. STR/AFP via Getty Images

“GBE will also be committed to building supply chain activity in the UK to accelerate the deployment of key UK energy projects,” he said.

‘Dumping Ground’ for Slave-Produced Goods

Parliament was previously told of the risks of unethically produced goods entering the market.

In July, the charity Anti-Slavery International said that the UK was becoming a “dumping ground” for goods that may be tainted by human rights abuses because of looser import rules compared to other nations.

Construction workers install solar panels at Hami Solar Power Station in Hami, in northwest China's Xinjiang region, on Aug. 22, 2011. VCG/VCG via Getty Images

Chloe Cranston, Anti-Slavery International’s head of thematic advocacy programmes, told the Foreign Affairs Select Committee that the Modern Slavery Act was “entirely insufficient to address Uyghur forced labour” or “any forms of forced labour around the world.”

Cranston also pointed to goods being reexported from the United States to the UK, after they had been rejected by U.S. customs for failing to provide evidence of the absence of forced labour.