Rachel Reeves was today challenged over Chinese slave labour and jailed British citizen Jimmy Lai as she scrambled to defend her visit to Beijing and Shanghai.
The recently-returned Chancellor updated MPs on her controversial overseas trip, which she went ahead with despite growing economic alarm in Britain.
Speaking in the House of Commons, Ms Reeves’ hailed how she had secured £600million of investment in the UK over five years as a result of her talks in China.
But MPs branded it ‘small beer’, while also noting it was a fraction of the estimated impact of soaring Government borrowing costs amid recent market turmoil.
In her statement to the Commons, the Chancellor insisted that ‘not engaging is simply not an option’ when it comes to Britain’s relationship with China.
She highlighted how the Asian giant is the ‘second biggest economy in the world and our fourth largest trading partner.
‘Growth is the number one mission of this Labour Government,’ Ms Reeves said.
‘And to grow the economy, we need to help great British businesses export around the world, that includes to China.’
But former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith expressed concerns about Labour’s re-engagement with China, after relations with Beijing cooled under the Conservatives.
Rachel Reeves was today challenged over Chinese slave labour and jailed British citizen Jimmy Lai as she scrambled to defend her visit to Beijing and Shanghai
Former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith expressed concerns about Labour’s re-engagement with China, after relations with Beijing cooled under the Conservatives
Liberal Democrat Treasury spokeswoman Daisy Cooper told Ms Reeves that she ‘should not have gone to China unless there was a commitment that Jimmy Lai was going to be released’
Mr Lai, a media tycoon and pro-democracy activist, was jailed in late 2020 in Hong Kong
Sir Iain said the UK-China Economic and Financial Dialogue, which Ms Reeves re-started on her trip, was previously paused after the ‘brutal imposition’ of new national security laws in Hong Kong.
‘When the Chancellor and the Government now go back to engage and re-open that dialogue, she does so on the basis that things have got worse, not better,’ Sir Iain told Ms Reeves of China’s crackdown in Hong Kong.
Sir Iain also note how, while Ms Reeves was abroad, fast-fashion retailer Shein ‘point blank’ refused to tell a committee of MPs whether they had slave labour in their supply chains.
The company has faced claims that some of its clothes contain cotton from Xinjiang, where China has been accused of subjecting Uyghurs to forced labour and genocide.
Ms Reeves insisted the Government was ‘committed to working with international partners and businesses’ to ensure supply chains are free from human rights abuses.
Sir Iain wore a ‘Free Jimmy Lai’ badge on the lapel of his jacket as he grilled Ms Reeves, and he was not the only MP to highlight the case of the detained British citizen.
Liberal Democrat Treasury spokeswoman Daisy Cooper earlier told Ms Reeves that she ‘should not have gone to China unless there was a commitment that Jimmy Lai was going to be released’.
The media tycoon and pro-democracy activist was jailed in late 2020 in Hong Kong.
He is currently being held in solitary confinement after being accused of violating the territory’s new national security law, which was imposed by China.
Ms Reeves said she was only able to raise issues around human rights, forced labour, Hong Kong, Jimmy Lai, and China’s sanctioning of UK parliamentarians because she had travelled to Beijing.
‘You can’t raise those issues unless you are in the room,’ the Chancellor told MPs.
Ms Cooper had also swiped that Ms Reeves’ ‘much-lauded’ trip to China ‘is only worth £600 million to the UK over the next five years, adding: ‘This really is small beer.’
Quizzed by TUV MP Jim Allister on the outcome of her conversations with Chinese ministers about Mr Lai, Ms Reeves refused to divulge the details of her talks.
‘I’m not going to go into the details of those conversations,’ she said.