My Lords, I too support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra. As we are really talking about procurement in the NHS, I should declare my interest as president of the Health Care Supply Association.
It is entirely reasonable to use NHS procurement rules in this way. The noble Earl knows that Clause 70 is intended to give wide discretion to Ministers to bring in a new procurement regime. I see no reason why this cannot be part of that regime.
I sometimes think the NHS operates in isolation from what is happening in the world, but it cannot operate in isolation from the terrible things that the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, and other noble Lords have spoken about. I hope the noble Earl will be sympathetic.
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I have a later group of separate but linked amendments that would serve to prevent UK citizens from complicity in forced organ harvesting in China. This is the link to this group, because over the years evidence has grown, from whistleblowers and authoritative sources, of the scale of this crime against humanity.
In June this year, 12 UN special procedures experts raised the issue of organ harvesting with the Chinese Government, in response to credible information that Falun Gong practitioners—Uighurs, Tibetans, Muslims and Christians—were being killed for their organs in China, and that that has become a huge billion-pound export trade.
My noble friend Lady Kennedy referred to the Uyghur Tribunal and I had the privilege of meeting Sir Geoffrey on a number of occasions. The noble Lord, Lord Alton, talked about the harrowing experience of listening to the evidence, and reading that report is harrowing indeed:
“Hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs—with some estimates well in excess of a million—have been detained … without any … reason, and subjected to acts of unconscionable cruelty, depravity and inhumanity. Sometimes up to 50 have been detained in a cell of 22 square metres so that it was not possible for all to lie on concrete … floors, with buckets for toilets to be used in view of all … observed at every moment by CCTV … Many of those detained have been tortured for no reason … Many… have been shackled by heavy metal weights at their feet … Detained women—and men—have been raped and subjected to extreme sexual violence … Detainees were fed with food barely sufficient to sustain life and … Detainees were subjected to solitary confinement in cells permanently dark or permanently lit, deprived of sleep for days at a time and ritually humiliated.”
Reading and reflecting on this must lead us to the conclusion that we should not be allowing our public authorities to do business in this way. I really hope the Government will be sympathetic to this.