The Government must act fast or risk the UK becoming a “dumping ground” for solar panels and green tech made using forced labour, a parliamentary watchdog has warned.
A report by the Joint Committee on Human Rights (JCHR) examined the UK’s mitigations towards products linked to forced labour practices and found the UK is “currently inadequate” in addressing the issue in supply chains of green technologies.
It warned that the UK has fallen behind Europe and the US in its approach to addressing forced labour in supply chains and is at risk of becoming a dumping ground for goods made using slave labour.
The report said it is “inevitable” these goods are entering the UK because “no effective safeguards” are in place to prevent them.
In particular, the Joint Committee found the “risks of forced labour presented by the solar industry” were “not being effectively addressed,” and urged government ministers to act fast on the issue.
It comes after an investigation by The i Paper exposed the scale of Britain’s use of solar panels made by firms alleged to have used components made from the forced labour of minorities in China.
Solar panels with suspected links to Chinese slave labour have been installed by dozens of organisations including Manchester City, Cheltenham Racecourse and David Lloyd gyms. There is no suggestion that any of the organisations installed solar panels with knowledge of links to Chinese slave labour.
The report states: “The Government should urgently address the omissions in the Solar Roadmap in relation to global supply chains and develop a viable strategy to address the risks of forced labour in the UK’s solar supply chain.”
Lord David Alton, the Joint Committee’s Chair, said: “We want to see strong leadership from the Government. It’s intolerable in the 21st century that we profiteer on the broken backs of slave labour, from Uyghur servitude in Xinjiang to child labour in the cobalt mines of the Congo, and elsewhere.
“The Government knows nature of the problem and the challenge but meaningful action has been lacking.
“We are calling for a range of measures to give the UK robust protections against these goods entering the market.”
square NEWS ExclusiveSolar panels used by Man City and David Lloyd linked to Chinese slave labour claims
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A critical component of Chinese solar panels is polysilicon that has regularly been been produced by its persecuted Uyghur minority, trapped in forced labour schemes and subject to human rights abuses.
China strongly denies all claims its solar panels are produced using forced labour and in February its foreign ministry spokesperson said these allegations were among the “lies of the century”.
The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero told the Joint Committee that polysilicon is the primary component of over 95 per cent of all solar photovoltaic (PV) modules produced globally.
“The UK has no domestic manufacturing capacity for conventional silicon solar PV,” they said. “And as such is completely dependent on global suppliers who, over the last decade, have increasingly moved from Europe, Japan, and the U.S, across to China.”
The i Paper mapped 84 non-residential locations where solar panels have been installed with links to alleged slave labour. The data is based on evidence provided by Sheffield Hallam University’s Helena Kennedy Centre for International Justice, the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) and open source analysis.
In response to the Parliamentary Committee’s report, Luke De Pulford, the founder of IPAC said the “powerful” report isn’t telling the government anything it “hasn’t known for years.”
He told The i Paper: “Beijing is using slave Labour to gain economic advantage and make the rest of the world dependent for critical supplies.
“We haven’t left it too late if we act now, and after this report the government really has no excuse to sit on its hands.”
Technology underpinning the UK’s green energy transition are reliant on critical minerals from China, a sector with a high risk of forced labour. The Joint Committee said it was “disappointed” by the lack of focus on forced labour in the Government’s green energy plans.
Earlier this year, growing concerns over Britain’s use of Chinese panels with links to Uyghur oppression forced Energy Secretary Ed Miliband into banning them from being used by the state-funded Great British Energy company unless it can “ensure that slavery and human trafficking is not taking place” in its business or supply chains.
But the Joint Committee’s report found that the UK still had no adequate legal framework for confronting abuses in global supply chains and called for new measures to be put in place to mitigate risks, including bans on goods linked to slave labour, more responsibility and penalties issued on private industry, and clearer legal frameworks for victims of forced labour to bring cases in UK courts.
“There is a lack of visible leadership and coordination within government on tackling forced labour in UK supply chains,” the report found. “The Government should consider how it can provide visible leadership and coordination on the issue of forced labour in supply chains within government.”
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