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Ministers are set to restrict Britain’s new state-owned energy company from using any solar panels linked to Chinese slave labour in a victory for human rights campaigners.
Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, will on Wednesday introduce an amendment to legislation going through parliament that will force Great British Energy to ensure “slavery and human trafficking is not taking place” in any of its supply chains, according to people with knowledge of the details.
There have been concerns that solar panels purchased by the company may contain polysilicon from China’s Xinjiang region, where there have been suspected human rights abuses of the Uyghur community.
One government official said the planned change was in recognition that there was “cross-party consensus for a pragmatic solution” over the problem.
In March, the House of Lords backed an amendment from crossbench peer Lord David Alton to prevent GB Energy from buying any solar panels manufactured by forced labour in China.
Sir Keir Starmer’s government had previously opposed Alton’s proposal because of concerns that restricting the use of materials from China would hamstring the drive towards low-carbon energy given that country’s dominance of the supply of solar panels and batteries.
Last month, the government voted down the same amendment when it returned to the House of Commons, with energy minister Michael Shanks insisting that GB Energy would use an existing “debarment list” to ensure it did not work with suppliers with unethical supply chains.
However, 92 Labour MPs abstained on the measure in one of the biggest rebellions since the party took power last July.
Under the existing Modern Slavery Act of 2015, major companies already have to publish annual Transparency in Supply Chains statements setting out the steps they have taken to ensure modern slavery and human trafficking is not occurring in their supply chains.
However, supporters of the government’s planned intervention are privately sceptical that GB Energy will be able to source sufficient solar panels without using Xinjiang materials, because of its dominance in the sector.
Andrew Bowie, acting shadow energy secretary, said the change in policy raised questions about the speed of the government’s drive to meet climate targets: “Labour need to answer serious questions about whether their own self-imposed targets can be met.”
Another Labour aide insisted ministers were confident that enough alternatives could be found, however. “We wouldn’t be doing this if we didn’t think it was possible,” he said.
Labour MP Alex Sobel said he welcomed the news that the government had listened to criticism and changed position. “It is vitally important that people are confident the electricity coming through their plug isn’t generated by solar panels built in forced labour factories,” he said.
Solar Energy UK, which represents the industry, said it “welcomes the government’s proposed amendment” and urged ministers to “take a global leadership position on the issue through more active engagement in the Solar Stewardship Initiative”, a grouping of companies that works to improve sustainability in the solar supply chain.
It added: “If we continue in alignment with European partners, we are confident there will be no slowdown in solar deployment or that the amendment threatens the attainment of clean power by 2030 or net zero by 2050.”
However, the new ban only applies to GB Energy — which is an investment company — and not to private sector operators building their own solar farms in the UK who may receive generous state subsidies through “contracts for difference”.
Luke de Pulford, executive director of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, an international cross-party group of legislators concerned about Beijing, welcomed the opportunity for the government to “use its huge purchasing power to change business behaviour for good”.
But he urged ministers to set out how Britain will avoid slave-made renewable technology more generally “when the problem is so widespread in a sector heavily dependent on China”.
Andrew Moore, chief executive of UKSOL, a British solar panel producer with operations in China, welcomed the “increased focus on ethics”, saying: “The UK solar market has been dominated by China for over 10 years without much regard to where the components have been coming from. Price, rather than ethics, has been the dominant factor in buyers’ minds.”
The Labour government set up GB Energy as a publicly owned company with a mission to invest in the generation and supply of clean energy to accelerate the decarbonisation of the electricity grid. The company had been promised £8.3bn in taxpayer money over the five-year parliament, but was only given an initial £100mn in October’s Budget to cover the first two years.
GB Energy’s primary remit is to invest in cutting-edge new renewable technologies such as floating offshore wind rather than ploughing money into established, low-cost energy schemes such as solar farms.
However, the body has also earmarked £3.3bn for “community projects” whereby it will provide low-interest loans through councils for projects such as solar panels on roofs.
Miliband’s pivot on the issue — which was first reported by The Times — comes after he travelled to Beijing last month, becoming the latest UK cabinet minister to make the trip as the Labour administration seeks to warm relations with the Chinese government in the hope of deepening economic ties.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves and foreign secretary David Lammy have also visited in recent months, while Starmer is expected to go later this year.
