"Ed Miliband bows to pressure with ban on solar panels linked to Chinese slavery", 23 April 2025

"Ed Miliband will ban the UK’s national energy company from investing in projects that use solar panels linked to Chinese slave labour after bowing to pressure from Labour and Conservative MPs.

The energy secretary has dropped his previous resistance to rewriting the bill establishing Great British Energy and will now introduce an amendment that forces the company to make sure there is no slavery or human trafficking in its supply chain.

The decision, which was first reported by the Times, was welcomed by MPs and campaigners seeking to highlight Chinese human rights abuses, but could make Britain’s net zero push more expensive. It comes a month after the government whipped Labour MPs to vote down a similar amendment from the Lords.

A government source said: “We are committed to ensuring Great British Energy is a sector leader in this area, developing resilient, homegrown supply chains free from forced labour, and will bring forward proposals shortly on this.”...

China dominates the market for green technology and the scale of its development has helped push prices of solar panels down 90% in the last decade. Between 35% and 40% of polysilicon, the key raw material for solar panels, is produced in Xinjiang where the Muslim Uyghur population has been subject to arbitrary detention and forced labour.

MPs and peers have campaigned for months for changes to the Great British Energy bill to make clear the company, which has been promised more than £8bn to spend, will not invest in projects where there is credible evidence of modern slavery in the supply chains..."