Readers of North East Bylines may have noticed that Newcastle Amnesty Saudi Arabia Sub Group has corresponded with numerous business organisations concerning their potential condonement of human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia. Our latest letters have been sent to North East Mayor Kim McGuinness following comments she made in press releases issued by Northumbria and Newcastle Universities and went as follows:
Our original letter to Kim McGuinness
22 January 2025
Dear Kim McGuinness,
Last month I was very disappointed to read the following statement by yourself in press releases issued by Newcastle and Northumbria Universities or, more specifically, by what it does NOT say:
“The North East is an academic and an engineering powerhouse which I am determined should become the home of the green energy revolution. I have worked alongside the Prime Minister to bring together universities in Saudi Arabia and the North East as we build the New Joint International Institute for Clean Hydrogen and I look forward and seek further green energy investment and opportunities for our region.”
I cannot believe that as an experienced politician, you are unaware of the vast scale of human rights abuses occurring in Saudi Arabia which have been well-documented. You must already know that they include the widespread use of the death penalty often for minor offences, often against foreign nationals and still in the case of offences committed by juveniles. You will no doubt also be aware of severe penalties without due legal process against individuals speaking out on various issues for so-called ‘terrorist’ offences, the continuing repression of women’s rights and of various minority groups, and the total lack of civic organisations or a free press.
In view of the above statement I wonder however if you are unaware of the extreme abuse of foreign workers, who represent over 70% of the Saudi workforce, via the kafala system. Key features are illegal recruitment charges, confiscation of passports, workplace violence, exploitative wages, overwork, poor accommodation, and exposure to occupational health and safety risks including work-related illnesses and workplace deaths.
North East companies need to be cautious when dealing with Saudi business partners. The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights make it clear that businesses have a responsibility to undertake human rights due diligence to identify, prevent, mitigate and account for how they address their adverse human rights impacts.
This should cover adverse human rights impacts that the business may cause or contribute to through its own activities, or which may be directly linked to its operations, products or services by its business relationships. In the event of a failure to take these steps, companies would be failing in their responsibility to respect human rights and expose themselves to claims for remedy, typically financial compensation, as well as suffering reputational damage.
Major international companies Amazon and Carrefour have already fallen foul of these provisions due to a failure to monitor the activities of Saudi subcontractors, while nearer to home, the organisation Equidem has established a pattern of abuse by Newcastle United’s shirt sponsor NOON which clearly contradicts the club’s modern slavery statement.
On the basis of this, I want to ask you two questions:
- What is your own position on the human rights situation in Saudi Arabia?
- What advice will you offer in future to North East companies looking to trade with Saudi Arabia?
I look forward to publishing this letter as an open letter, together with your response to it next month.
Yours sincerely,
Colin Taylor,
Chair,
Saudi Arabia Sub Group,
Newcastle upon Tyne Amnesty Group
Reply from Kim McGuinness
As we felt that this reply left a number of matters unclear, we decided on a follow-up letter sent by email on 31 March:
Follow-up Letter to Kim McGuinness
Dear Kim McGuiness, (sic)
Thank you for your reply to my original letter dated 11 March, which was discussed at a meeting of the Saudi Arabia Sub Group on 12 March.
We were pleased to hear that you thought carefully about your involvement with the Saudi Trades Mission and to note that you draw attention to the opportunity to raise human rights concerns on visits to Saudi Arabia and to review what progress is being made.
Before we publish the correspondence, which we would still like to do, we had some follow-up questions on this subject:
- What human rights issues were discussed with Saudi representatives during the original Trades Mission?
- What improvements in the human rights situation in Saudi Arabia have you noted to date? Our impression is that they have over the past three years been fragmentary or cosmetic.
- Understanding that you would be unable to disclose commercially sensitive details, to what extent have specific plans for future investments in the North East been discussed to date?
- In the light of the work of the Joint International Institute for Clean Hydrogen and your own enthusiasm for a clean energy future, what efforts are being made to persuade Saudi Arabia to decrease its oil and plastics production, both of which they declined to do at recent international summits?
- What cultural exchanges are likely to take place that will offer opportunities for discussions about human rights?
- We also wondered if you discussed your participation in the Saudi Trades Mission with the Cabinet members of the North East Combined Authority and what their comments were on the subject?
While fully accepting that a boycott of all trade with Saudi Arabia would be both unrealistic and counterproductive for the North East Region, we were disappointed that you have not answered my question asking what advice you will offer to North East companies wishing to do business with Saudi Arabia in the light of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.
We therefore invite you to comment on this matter further.
Thank you for taking the time to engage with the issues we have raised.
All the best,
Colin Taylor
Chair,
Saudi Arabia Sub Group,
Newcastle upon Tyne Amnesty Group
Reply from the Mayor’s Office
Dear Colin,
Thank you for your email to North East Mayor Kim McGuinness. The Mayor has asked me to provide the following response in regards to your email:
Thank you for getting in touch. I am sure you will understand that I am limited in what I can say about private conversations and commercial discussions which have taken place. We do want to encourage Saudi investment in the North East on a range of fronts including clean energy, the hospitality sector and urban regeneration alongside continued investment in Newcastle United Football Club, which is itself supporting jobs and bringing more visitors to our region. We will continue to encourage cultural exchange and discuss human rights as we take forward this relationship.
Best wishes,
Jess Douglas
Commentary
While the initial response from Kim McGuinness does (as noted) imply an encouraging awareness of the problems attached to trade with Saudi Arabia and a willingness to raise human rights issues with partners in Saudi Arabia, the second response via Jess Douglas offers precious little in the way of detail and ignores most of the points raised. All it really adds is a broad indication of what sectors forthcoming trade deals might concentrate on and a mention of the Newcastle United investment already in progress.
A general reassurance that human rights issues are being raised may mean that something is happening but we still have no indication that it is or what the focus is. Indeed we are not in a position to believe without any evidence that any such discussions have taken place at all. Hopefully they have.
Bearing in mind the business context of this exchange, an ideal response might have been to flag up the need to pursue specifically the supposed reforms of the kafala system by encouraging the Saudis to establish means whereby victims of abuse have the opportunity to register complaints, ideally through the recognition of Trades Unions. One might have thought that a Labour politician would have been keen to address such issues.
Perhaps most worrying however is the failure to recognise the need to alert local companies to the provisions of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, which may leave them at risk of getting into situations that potentially involve reputational and financial damage.
Colin Taylor
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