Alicia Kearns responds to Canadian Solar allegations in The Times:
"Sir, In her article (May 5; letters, May 6 & 8) about the proposed 2,105-acre Mallard Pass solar plant, Emma Duncan dismisses allegations the developer Canadian Solar has links to Uighur slave labour as “tenuous”, claiming they stem solely from the 2021 Sheffield Hallam University report into slave labour in solar supply chains. Yet the evidence is overwhelming. Canadian Solar in 2021 had four shipments seized by the US government over its links to forced labour in Xinjiang. Then in December Canadian Solar was found guilty by the US Commerce Department of tariff-dodging owing to its exporting of Xinjiang-made solar panels to Thailand for minor processing and re-export to the US. A group of its shareholders even attempted to deselect several board members over the company’s links to Uyghur slave labour. I will continue to fight this proposal because I will not see Rutland’s soil tainted by blood labour from human rights atrocities."
- Alicia Kearns, MP for Rutland and Melton