Ed Miliband will heap further pressure on the Government’s net zero ambitions today when he announces that Britain’s state-owned energy company will not use solar panels linked to Chinese slave labour.
As part of this policy climbdown, the energy minister will make an amendment to legislation that will force GB Energy to ensure “slavery and human trafficking is not taking place” in its supply chain.
The reversal means all solar panels, wind turbines and batteries used by GB Energy must not contain materials suspected to have been produced through slave labour.
Polysilicon, the raw material in the solar and electronics industries, is predominately found in the Xinjiang region, where there are suspected human rights abuses of the Uighur population.
Campaign groups, whose members include a number of Labour MPs, claim that 97 per cent of solar panels sold in the UK include materials from Xinjiang.
Last month, Labour MPs were ordered to block the same proposed ban when it was tabled by peers, even though some had previously campaigned on the issue.
The reversal means all solar panels, wind turbines and batteries used by GB Energy must not contain materials suspected to have been produced through slave labour. Picture: Getty
Those campaigners claimed that 97 per cent of solar panels sold in the UK include materials from Xinjiang. They had also provided case studies of solar panels which were linked to slave labour being installed on Britain’s public buildings.
The amendment from the Lords would have changed the Great British Energy Bill, preventing ministers from providing financial assistance to GB Energy if there were credible evidence of modern slavery in the company’s supply chains.
The 92 Labour MPs who abstained from that vote will welcome this policy reversal, which came about after the government had recognised "the strength of feeling” within the party, a source told the Times.
Expressing her "relief" at the latest decision, Sarah Champion, the Labour MP for Rotherham who has long campaigned on the issue, said: “This is the only way to make sure our transition to net zero is not carried through on the backs of slavery and exploitation.”
It means the pace of the UK’s transition away from fossil fuels will be reduced, dealing a huge blow to the government’s 2050 net-zero ambitions 2030 clean energy goals.
But ministers have been told that GB Energy needs to be an industry leader” in rooting out slavery from supply chains.
Critics such as acting shadow energy secretary Andrew Bowie believes the move would lead to a “real slowdown in the deployment of solar in the United Kingdom”.
"It’s a belated realisation that the use of slave labour in the manufacturing of solar technology is real, but Labour really need to answer serious questions about whether their own self-imposed targets can be met without these solar panels, and what they’re going to do to address this,’ he told the Times.
John Flesher, deputy director of the Conservative Environment Network, welcomed the "long overdue move", but called on the government to make sure this "knee-jerk U-turn doesn’t damage our environmental goals and the solar industry".
“If the government doesn’t act, we will not only hurt efforts to decarbonise but miss out on an enormous opportunity for economic growth," he added.
Senior government sources insisted pledges would still be met due to the building-up of domestic supply chains and pressure put on China.
Miliband had also stressed on a recent visit to China that the country’s officials were “beginning to understand how important and serious this is” for nations buying materials from them.
And sources say the UK sees itself as part of a "buyer’s group of countries" who were ’demanding change’ from China.
According to campaigners, the solar and wind industries are heavily linked to forced labour, with more than 500 allegations of human rights abuses associated with the extraction of key minerals.
About 40 per cent of Britain’s solar industry has been reported as being at risk of being linked to Uighur forced labour.
Read more similar news:
Comments:
comments powered by Disqus
