My Lords, it is a great pleasure to be able to follow the noble Lord, Lord Ribeiro, and to support the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, my noble friend Lady Finlay and other noble Lords who have spoken to the amendment. In doing so, I return to an issue that I raised at Second Reading and declare my interests as set out in the register.
On 2 August 2018, the Times published a letter signed by me, Professor Jo Martin, President of the Royal College of Pathologists, and 55 others, including Dr Adnan Sharif, a consultant nephrologist in Birmingham, who is the secretary of Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting. We began the letter by recalling the Liverpool Alder Hey Children’s Hospital scandal, which had involved the retention of human organs and tissue, without consent, and which led to the Human Tissue Act 2004.
With my antecedents as a Liverpool Member of Parliament and a one-time grateful parent, deeply appreciative of the skills of Alder Hey doctors, I was appalled that such an ill-judged breach of ethics had inflicted such damage on a wonderful hospital. Fourteen years later, and notwithstanding that scandal and that important Act of Parliament in 2004, I was incredulous that in 2018 an exhibition, entitled “Real Bodies”, of Chinese corpses and body parts preserved with silicon in a process called plastination, was being staged for commercial gain at the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham—denigrating ethics, science, and human rights, and far worse than even the scandal of Alder Hey.
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In our letter, Professor Martin and I said:
“We believe that the legislation requires reform”,
and we pointed to what we described as
“a loophole being relied upon by a number of exhibitions that obtain bodies from countries with poor human rights records.”
In 2010, the Lancet called for reform to plug that loophole, and between then and 2018 there were at least three such exhibitions, all promoted under the banner of enhancing understanding of medicine, the anatomy and science. But dress it up as you may, this was a commercial exhibition staged for financial gain. In 2018, we pointed out that the US organisers, Imagine Exhibitions, were unable to provide any evidence of
consent for the use of these cadavers. The organisers merely said that the cadavers were unclaimed bodies obtained from Dalian Hoffen Bio-Technique, China. Imagine Exhibitions CEO, Tom Zaller, admitted in an interview that the bodies were “absolutely from China” but added that there was “no documentation” to prove their identities or to show they had agreed in life to donate their corpses in death.
It is the lack of consent and documentation, referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Ribeiro, a few moments ago, which is deeply troubling. It should have troubled the UK Government, who said that they would not intervene in answer to Parliamentary Questions from me at the time. It is deeply troubling that the UK has allowed the bodies of unknown Chinese citizens, who may have been victims of torture, human rights violations, persecution or organ theft, to be turned into a travelling circus. It is disrespectful and disgraceful in equal measure. How can the Government say that we have sufficient legislative measures in place?
The Human Tissue Act 2004 governs licences connected to the display and use of human corpses and remains. Prior consent for bodies to be used for research, display or education is one of the founding principles of that Act. However, current regulations mean there is a huge disparity between regulations for bodies coming from within the United Kingdom and those coming from outside it. That makes absolutely no sense, and it is dilatory on the part of government to decline to rectify this. The noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, my noble friend Lady Finlay, and I raised this issue at a meeting with the noble Baroness, Lady Manzoor, when she was a Minister.
Significantly, when considering the requirement contained in this amendment involving validation and consent, a similar exhibit entitled “Bodies: The Exhibition” by Premier, which also sourced plastinated bodies from Dalian Hoffen Bio-Technique, reached a settlement with the New York State Attorney-General in 2008 to display a disclaimer stating:
“This exhibit displays human remains of Chinese citizens or residents which were originally received by the Chinese Bureau of Police. The Chinese Bureau of Police may receive bodies from Chinese prisons. Premier cannot independently verify that the human remains you are viewing are not those of persons who were incarcerated in Chinese prisons.”
The Birmingham exhibition was little different to the exhibition in New York but carried no such disclaimer. I might add that I am arguing not for disclaimers but for prohibition, as happens in other jurisdictions such as Israel and France, where commercial exhibitions of body parts imported without valid consent are forbidden. They should be outlawed here, too.
Article 16-1-1, paragraph 2, of the French civil code requires the remains of deceased persons to be treated with respect, dignity and decency. Clearly, an exhibition of cadavers aimed at making money does not respect that requirement. By contrast, human tissue from abroad has no consent or traceability requirements to enter the UK, nor to be put on display for commercial gain—nor is consent or traceability required for imported human tissue to be used in medical research. The UK
has, arguably, some of the most ethical and comprehensive consent requirements for human tissue in the world, yet imported human tissue slips through the net.
Noble Lords will see that this amendment would take a welcome step in closing that net by at least requiring the users of organs and tissue being appropriated for the development of medicines and treatments to identify their origins. It would enable the relevant authority, through regulations, to insist on a rebuttable presumption requiring the users of such organs or tissue to demonstrate that informed, valid, uncoerced and demonstrably documented consent had been given for the harvesting of such human tissue and organs. How likely is it, in the case of the Chinese Communist Party, that such valid documentation could be produced?
In 2018, I asked that question of Ministers and was appalled by the complacency of the replies. Like a game of pass the parcel, a Foreign Office Minister said that no other government department had asked the Foreign Office,
“to make formal representations to the Chinese authorities”
and they had
“no evidence … that the … exhibition … contains cadavers of Chinese political or religious prisoners”.
But did they even bother to look—and why was the FCO waiting for other departments to raise it with them? I asked a government law officer, who complacently told me it was not his concern and that it was a matter for the coroner.
Meanwhile, in a series of other questions, I specifically raised the plight of Falun Gong practitioners, 1 million incarcerated Uighurs, Tibetan Buddhists, house church Christians, underground Catholics, and a whole host of cases involving abductions, disappearances, torture, ethnic cleansing, executions and potential genocide. In parenthesis, only today I received a reply to a Parliamentary Question from the FCDO about Zhang Zhan, a citizen journalist abducted by the authorities in China five months ago, after she reported on Covid-19. She is reported to now be on a hunger strike; the Government say that they have made no representations on her behalf.
The bodies that I refer to, put on public parade in Birmingham, had their origins in China, where we are all too well aware of the plight of dissenters and believers and the imprisonment, arrest and disappearance of lawyers who have challenged everything from the one-child policy to abuse of power—women like the citizen journalist, Zhang Zhan. The connection with Dalian is particularly troubling, because the Dalian district of north-west China, and specifically Dalian’s public security bureau—the local police and prison service—is known for human rights violations, organ transplant activity and the persecution of Falun Gong. During the “Real Bodies” exhibition, the NEC stated that all bodies on display were “unclaimed bodies” which had been donated legally, but how could it possibly verify that? The connection with the PSB and unclaimed bodies used in the exhibitions had long been suspected and, in 2012, the chairman of the Dalian Hoffen Bio-Technique, Sui Hongjin, admitted:
“Dozens of corpses came from Public Security. They were procured by the Public Security Bureau”.
In China, the term “unclaimed bodies” can be interpreted in multiple ways. First, this can be a term for people who have died in hospitals with no known next of kin but, equally, it can be a term for prisoners of conscience who have, while suffering detention and imprisonment, refused to provide their real identities through fear of repercussions for their family and friends. Multiple investigations from different sources have concluded that large-scale unexplained organ transplant activity has taken place and continues to do so. In these investigations, the PSB has been documented as a key element between the prison and labour camps and hospitals performing organ transplants.
In June 2019, the China Tribunal referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and others and chaired by the redoubtable lawyer, Sir Geoffrey Nice QC, a prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, said in a unanimous determination—set out in detail in his Gresham lecture, which can be watched online—that it was
“certain that Falun Gong was a source—probably the principal source—of organs for forced organ harvesting”.
In an interview with the Daily Telegraph, Sir Geoffrey said that the UK Government ignored continued organ harvesting in China to avoid acknowledging “an inconvenient truth”.
Along with others, I have urged the Government to be more committed to shining a light on this horrific practice, and to raise the matter directly with the World Health Organization—an issue which the noble Lord, Lord Collins, and I have both asked the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, about. On 23 September, the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, confirmed that a letter to the WHO had now been sent. I welcome that, but when I asked in an Oral Question for them to publish the contents of that letter, the Government refused to do so. So much for open government. I have submitted a freedom of information request to the FCDO. Surely, as a principle of transparency and openness, this correspondence should be in the public domain. This is a global issue with national repercussions. It is a global trade involving both Chinese nationals and foreign tourists using organs linked to abuse of prisoners, ethnic and religious minorities and prisoners of conscience, and with some reports suggesting that victims are killed on demand for their organs.
Underlining the international activities of these mafias, I was recently given a report about how poverty-stricken Pakistanis have been lured into transplant tourism, selling their organs to make some survival money. In September, the Pakistani Federal Investigation Agency arrested seven suspects involved in an international racket transporting Pakistanis to China for illegal surgery. The country’s Human Organ Transplant Authority says it is largely impotent, with one doctor describing how agents enlisted the poor with offers of riches in return for their liver or kidneys and as a way of escaping the slavery of bonded labour. At least 20 companies —and maybe as many as 28—have supplied China, in some cases for over 20 years, with materials, drugs, and devices supporting the development of the transplantation business, while being aware of the facts and evidence related to illegal organ harvesting. It is a lucrative
business with the revenue reaching billions of dollars. Sir Geoffrey’s tribunal says that such companies, along with Governments, which
“interact in any substantial way with the PRC including: Doctors and medical institutions; Industry, and businesses … should now recognise that they are … interacting with a criminal state.”
The WHO should be leading the campaign to ensure that every country is challenged to put national legislation into place to ensure that both international and national action is taken to end this criminal trade. The UK as a principal donor to the WHO should be using that leverage, but it should also be sanctioning individuals who are known to be involved in the trade and passing legislation, such as this amendment, to show that it is not telling others to do what it is not willing to do itself. It should also show more courage in dealing with the CCP and, instead of suggesting it has no evidence, listen instead to witnesses such as the courageous former surgeon in China, Dr Enver Tohti, who was referred to by my noble friend Lady Finlay, and whom I have met and taken a statement from. He told me that he was ordered to
“cut deep and work fast”,
on a victim who was still alive. Dr Tohti has spoken here in Parliament.
On 16 October 2018, at one such meeting to highlight forced organ harvesting, I argued for legislation—whether for commercial gain through staging macabre, grotesque exhibitions of body parts from unknown victims, or using their mortal remains to supplement the profits of giant pharmaceuticals, or providing organs for people involved in organ tourism. Parliament needed to force the hand of the Government. I encouraged a long-standing colleague and friend from Merseyside, Marie Rimmer, the Member of Parliament for St Helens South, to attend. She has valiantly and diligently pursued this issue in the House of Commons during the debates on this Bill. Through the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, we now have the opportunity to give a name and an identity to those who, in both death and life, have been so outrageously violated, and to put far more stringent provisions into law.
In 1832, Parliament passed the Anatomy Act after two Scots were convicted of murder and—along with other body snatchers and grave robbers: the so-called resurrection men—of supplying bodies for dissection for use by Robert Knox in his anatomy lectures. In 2020, and with new international challenges, similar legislative action is surely necessary. I therefore have great pleasure in supporting the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt.