Lord Oates
To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the United Kingdom’s responsibility to ensure that mining companies which operated in former British colonies during colonial rule address pollution that their activities caused in those countries.
Lord Oates (LD)
My Lords, I tabled this debate to tell the story of the people of Kabwe, a city in Zambia which has been described as the world’s most polluted town, and to highlight the dangers of their experiences being replicated in the scramble for African resources currently under way. In doing so, I pay tribute to the people of Kabwe and those who are supporting them in their fight for justice and restitution, including Environment Africa, Action for Southern Africa—ACTSA—other civil society organisations and their legal advisers. In particular, I highlight the tireless work of ACTSA’s former director, Tricia Sibbons, who, with many others, has done so much to raise the profile of this issue in the United Kingdom. I also look forward to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Hain, who as chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on South Africa has championed the cause of Kabwe’s people.
Broken Hill mine, later Kabwe mine, operated from 1906 to 1994. Between 1925 and 1974, the most productive phase of its operation, it was owned by a now defunct company which was within the Anglo American group. The parent company of that group at the time was Anglo American South Africa Limited, AASA. During most of the period that the mine was operational, until Zambian independence in October 1964, the UK was the legal authority. The town and the mine were named after Broken Hill in New South Wales, where lead mining also took place and where the health impacts of lead poisoning were identified as early as 1893 in a report commissioned by the New South Wales Government.
Widespread and severe lead poisoning and the deaths of several children in the villages close to the Kabwe mine were identified by a series of Kabwe mine doctors, and in 1970 Professor Ronald Lane, a renowned public health expert from Manchester University, was commissioned by Anglo American to investigate and advise on the situation. He confirmed the mine doctors’ findings and advised on remedial measures, including replacing the topsoil and relocating communities. This advice was not heeded, on the grounds that it would be “far too expensive”.
The mine ceased operations in 1994, leaving an estimated 6.4 million tonnes of lead-bearing waste piles, leaching lead into the soil and water. The biggest waste heap left behind is known as “Black Mountain”, which blows dust into neighbouring areas with the wind. Very young children are the worst affected. They ingest the dust, which is all around them, when they suck their fingers. Many children develop an addiction to lead, which can taste sweet, leading them to eat contaminated soil.
In a powerful report, Life in the World’s Most Polluted Town, published by Environment Africa and ACTSA last October, Mary from the mine area of Kabwe says of her 14 year-old daughter Precious:
“Her health is not ok. When she is coughing it gets intense and she has flu most of the time, bleeding from the nose, low body weight and a poor appetite. She likes to eat soil and she eats it in huge quantities. It’s very difficult to stop her because she hides it most of the time and I know that it’s the very soil that contains lead. We took her to the clinic and it was discovered that she has lead in her blood”.
Bertha Musonda, the mother of children aged nine and 15, from the Kabwe district of Makululu, said:
“Before taking my children to the clinic I wondered why they were always coughing and were very forgetful … When I did, the results showed that they both had lead in their blood”.
Lead pollution is everywhere, blown as dust into homes and ingested through vegetables grown in contaminated soil. The US Environmental Protection Agency defines lead contamination in soil above 200 milligrams per kilogram as a hazard for residents. In Kabwe it reaches as high as 60,000 milligrams. There is no safe level of lead in the blood. Leading medical experts advise that brain damage, in particular cognitive impairment, occurs with any elevated blood lead level—BLL—above zero. It is estimated that 140,000 people in Kabwe have lead poisoning—that is, BLLs above 5 milligrams per decilitre of blood.
Loveness, the mother of a six year-old girl and a three year-old boy, also from Makululu in Kabwe, took her children to the clinic to be tested for lead poisoning, because they were constantly sick. They had blood lead levels of 40 milligrams and 45 milligrams respectively, far in excess of the WHO reference point for blood poisoning of 5 milligrams. Studies have found that in Kabwe’s “Central Villages”, average BLLs for children exceed 50 milligrams. By way of comparison, a 2021 £467 million settlement relating to water contamination in Flint, Michigan, comprised 90,000 individuals whose BLLs were almost entirely below 10 milligrams per decilitre.
An application to allow a class action against Anglo American South Africa is currently before the South African courts. AASA denies liability. The legal action is a last resort because, as the ACTSA/Environment Africa report says:
“The Kabwe story should not be about legal wrangling over who left what when: there is no doubt that the pollution results from the extractive process, negligence in waste disposal, and refusal to protect residents … The Kabwe story should be one of deep regret by those responsible, of negotiation with and compensation from those who profited, as well as health testing and urgent care for those already affected … we must see full remediation of the environment, such that all children and adults live free from lead poisoning, that subsistence farming by families is again possible, agriculture is restored, and a green and pleasant land—every Zambian’s birthright—is finally a reality for future generations”.
In responding to this debate, I hope that the Minister will address the following questions. As the colonial authority during most of the period in which the Kabwe mine operated and produced pollution, what assessment have the UK Government made of their moral responsibility to bring their influence to bear on the relevant parties to address this issue? What discussions have the Government had specifically with Anglo American to encourage it to clean up the toxic legacy left behind by one of its own group companies? What assessment have the UK Government made of the impact of the severe cuts to UK bilateral development support to Zambia on Zambia’s ability to mitigate the social and economic impacts of the British legacy in Kabwe?
Sadly, the people of Kabwe are far from alone in suffering from the impacts of extractive industries around the world, and a new scramble for African resources threatens to create yet more toxic legacies. So what role is the UK playing in international fora to hold mining companies and other extractive industries accountable for the damage that they inflict on local communities? We owe it to Mary, Bertha, Loveness and their children, and tens of thousands of others in Kabwe, to ensure not only that they receive justice and restitution but that we do all we can to prevent the current scramble for African resources creating a plethora of new Kabwes.
Lord Hain (Lab)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Oates, on a very good speech, on securing this debate and on his solidarity work for the charity Action for Southern Africa, of which I am an honorary vice-president. It organised an excellent event in a room in your Lordships’ House, which I hosted, at which a victim still resident in Kabwe spoke movingly alongside Her Excellency the Zambian High Commissioner.
The main point I want to raise is that, on 21 November 2025, Anglo American announced a “partnership” with the United Kingdom Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office to
“support inclusive growth and sustainable development through Anglo American’s Impact Finance Network (IFN) in South Africa”.
Beginning this month, January 2026, the FCDO will provide £4.5 million, which is 100 million in Zambia’s currency, over four years to support Anglo American’s impact finance network programme in South Africa.
Since the aim of the grant is to
“support inclusive growth and sustainable development”,
how does this square with Anglo being accused by communities around the world of working against that very aim? Did the FCDO consult any relevant communities, NGOs or civil society organisations, such as Action for Southern Africa, before making that grant? Was any due diligence conducted into Anglo American’s role in the contracting by thousands of Southern African miners of TB and silicosis, and in the deliberate delaying of those miners receiving the compensation they won in a landmark 2019 legal case?
Was due diligence conducted in regard to Anglo American’s role in lead pollution in Kabwe, about which the noble Lord, Lord Oates, spoke so movingly and accurately, particularly in the light of class action proceedings revealing how much the company knew about the lead pollution and the serious nature of it, before it handed on to its successor company one of the world’s most polluted towns—if not the world’s most polluted town—where 95% of children have lead poisoning?
I ask these questions while recognising that Anglo American played an important role in developing employment and growth across the African continent and elsewhere. However, this surely must be compatible with social justice and human rights. The UK Labour Government are supposed to support those principles, as I, as a former Labour Minister on Africa for the United Kingdom, once did as well.
The Lord Bishop of Norwich
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Oates, for his excellent introduction, because stories touch both the heart and the mind, harrowing as those stories of the people of Kabwe were that he shared with your Lordships.
This debate is timely because of the geopolitical tensions that we face currently, many of them connected to minerals needed to power our economies today as well as the economy of the future. Although much of the attention is focused on new mineral deposits, a key issue that is deeply relevant to the whole mining sector is how the legacy is addressed. Many companies that existed in the past no longer exist or have been subsumed into very different entities today. Some of these are still listed on the London Stock Exchange and therefore still have a relationship with their historic legacy, while others do not. The consequence is that many countries to which the UK has historic ties have legacy mine sites that can be anything from waste from a site, such as tailings waste, through to the old mine site itself.
Through the Church of England Pensions Board, which is a £3.6 billion pension fund serving the long-term interests of 44,000 members who have been members of the clergy or otherwise working for the Church, the role of mining has been a particular focus in recent years. The board recognises the systemic importance of mining to many of the other sectors upon which modern life depends and which the board is also invested in, such as aviation, shipping, construction, autos, technology and energy, to name but a few. But a particular focus of the board’s work has been on this issue of legacy, particularly related to mine waste, often contained in tailings dams, which, if not managed correctly, can cause significant social and environmental impacts. We have seen major disasters such as at Brumadinho in Brazil, killing 272 people, and at Jagersfontein in South Africa, killing two people and causing significant environmental damage.
To address this issue, the pensions board has led a global initiative with the support of both the UN and the mining industry to drive safety in tailings waste management by companies today. This has resulted in a global industry standard on tailings management with the creation of an independent Global Tailings Management Institute headquartered in South Africa. However, this still leaves the issue of the wider legacy of sites that are not operated by companies today or that are classed as orphaned, which litter the landscape of so many former British colonies and pose risks to communities and the environment around them.
Addressing that issue, which is deeply relevant to companies today whether they have legal liability or not due to the need to gain and retain the industry’s social licence to extract, requires an additional set of interventions. Through the Global Investor Commission on Mining 2030, which was set up and is chaired by the Church of England’s Pensions Board and backed by 100 investors with over $17 trillion under management, the commission laid out at the end of last year a set of recommendations on legacy. They will form a key part of conversations between the commission and the presidency of South Africa next month.
A couple of points arise from that. First, the commission notes that with many operations transitioning to closure in the next 10 or 20 years, coupled with the opening of new mines in so many different places, it is crucial to reflect on historical as well as future legacies and the role of investors in shaping a positive legacy for all. Investors have clearly indicated their expectation that the industry must address existing legacies while ensuring that new and operating sites create lasting value for people and nature.
Secondly, the commission has called for and is now working to support national-based legacy initiatives to rehabilitate unsafe or abandoned facilities using innovative financial mechanisms that incentivise reprocessing old mine waste to extract both the original and other minerals, as well as repurposing mine site land. Importantly, the investor commission is now working with the United Nations to create a global legacy fund to support the rehabilitation of lost or abandoned sites that do not have economic potential. Such a fund could support national-based solutions to long-standing abandoned mine sites, while also creating opportunities for local employment and economic diversification. The hope is that the first such demonstration of such an approach could be in South Africa and could provide a model that, if successful, could be replicated in other nations.
Given this unique collaboration and the historic relationship of the United Kingdom to many of the countries in which these legacy sites still exist, would the Minister be willing to meet staff of the Church of England Pensions Board? Will she commit to assessing whether His Majesty’s Government might support such a legacy fund through the UN? Indeed, joining the potential pilot in South Africa may be a very practical first step for His Majesty’s Government in supporting an approach to addressing this difficult issue of legacy. The benefit of doing so will be not only to the local communities of which the noble Lord, Lord Oates, gave such an incredibly moving snapshot case study—local communities blighted by the legacy of these mines—but to the whole mining sector and to our economy, which is intimately linked to what we extract.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Norwich, to thank very sincerely the noble Lord, Lord Oates, for securing this important debate and essentially to say that I agree with pretty well everything that has been said. The noble Lord, Lord Oates, set out very clearly for us the absolute horror and tragedy of Kabwe. In preparing for this debate, I found out about the FCDO action mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Hain. I would like to say that I was surprised, but I am afraid I was not. It is very concerning, and there are serious questions. I hope we will hear some answers from the Minister.
I am not going to repeat the tale so powerfully presented to us by the noble Lord, Lord Oates, about Kabwe, the world’s most toxic town, but we are primarily talking about the actions of Anglo American. It is, I am afraid, a company now notorious in history. It is facing calls for accountability in South Africa, Peru and Chile, as well as in Zambia. In Chile, its actions have led to the irreversible destruction of glaciers, and that has compounded water scarcity issues in Peru. Local agriculture and indigenous ways of life have been endangered.
Of course, it is not just one company; we are talking about a systemic problem with an industry with a terrible track record. I am going to make two arguments for why we need to see urgent action from the Government on cleaning up colonial legacies and looking towards the present and the future. There are normative arguments. The noble Lord, Lord Oates, spoke about doing the moral thing, the right thing, but I will make some practical arguments about why it is in the interests of our health and security to ensure that we have a clean-up and do not make further messes. This toxic legacy of colonialism has real impacts on our health and security today.
I note that that the UK has endorsed the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, but it has failed to ensure that British companies are complying with them. There has been great concern about the critical minerals strategy released in November, which has attracted criticism from communities around the world as well as from non-governmental organisations. We are talking about signing several critical mineral partnerships and agreements with nine countries, including Saudi Arabia, Kazakhstan and South Africa. There are real concerns attached to those agreements. Communities living on the front lines have warned that the actions associated with British government action will have destructive environmental and human health impacts.
Eric Mokuoa of the Bench Marks Foundation in South Africa said that the British action is going to
“fuel social and environmental injustices across global supply chains”.
That is why I am very happy to associate the Green Party, as I have before, with the call for a business, human rights and environment Act, as has been called for by the Corporate Justice Coalition of more than 40 organisations across the UK. We have to not keep making the same mistakes as we have made again and again over the centuries.
I also note a briefing that I received from Spotlight on Corruption, the London Mining Network and Culture Unstained about the Adani Group, which is the world’s largest private coal developer, associated with huge problems with pollution, particularly in India, violent displacement of indigenous communities and, in Australia, serious ecological harms to indigenous sites and delicate ecosystems such as the Great Barrier Reef. That, of course, is not a colonial company, but the British links are very large and very clear. UK banks Barclays and Standard Chartered arranged in March 2024 a $409 million bond issue for Adani Green Energy, which is a publicly traded company listed in India, but Adani Energy Holdings Ltd is registered in the UK. I note also that there are considerable questions about the financial arrangements of the Adani Group.
That brings me to a broader point about how mining pollution is often physical, but pollution is also often connected to corruption, in terms of theft from local communities and theft from nations, and these are all interrelated. Those are the moral arguments, but I come now to the practical arguments.
I am going to raise an issue that I am sure will surprise some noble Lords. No, I have not picked up the wrong page from another speech. I am going to raise the issue of antimicrobial resistance. There is definite evidence for mining activity and sites being associated with elevated levels of antimicrobial resistance. We come to the point that we learned during Covid that no one is safe until everyone is safe from infectious diseases. Public health is a global issue, and antimicrobial resistance essentially threatens the health of us all: it threatens the survival of modern medicine.
I go first to a study from the journal Environmental Pollution in 2022, about antibiotic-resistant bacteria and antibiotic-resistant genes in a uranium mine. This is a study from China. What you are looking at is heavy metals co-selecting for antibiotic resistance. Essentially, if you think about this, the organism gets a threat to its own health. It boosts up its own defences, and those defences can work both against heavy metals and against antibiotics. That was work in China, and that was also citing some work done with two iron ore mines and a lead/zinc mine in Iran, where they found elevated AMR.
If we want to look at our own colonial legacy, there is a very interesting paper put out by researchers from Newcastle University and IIT Delhi, looking at urban rivers in the UK and India. In our own River Tyne, there are elevated levels of AMR associated with historic mining and industrial activity, and the same thing was found in India. We do not know very much about this yet, but everywhere we look we find what we expect to find. Those AMR genes and AMR organisms do not stay in those places: they move.
Another study, not on heavy metals or on mining directly, came out last month on PFAS, the forever chemicals, which showed how the seafood trade is actually spreading PFAS around the world. From areas of hotspots of PFAS, the seafood is then exported to other places and eaten. I have no doubt that we are going to see the same sort of thing happening with heavy metal- and mining-related pollution.
To conclude, we need to think very hard about what we are doing now. We need to acknowledge that every form of mining is going to have a deleterious environmental impact. We need to minimise that, but we also need to think about what we are mining these materials for, and what they are being used for. This is a small plea for mindful mining: for not trashing more of this fragile planet and not causing damage that we do not need to cause.
Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD)
My Lords, I join others in congratulating my noble friend Lord Oates on securing this debate, the powerful way he introduced it and exposing the shame and the scandal of Kabwe. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Hain, for his continued campaign in that area, and the Church of England pensions board’s work on legacy, which I found interesting and worth while.
I want to make a more general point about where this has come from, and where it is going. “The flag follows trade” was the describing motto of the growth of the British Empire and started with the East India Company before extending everywhere. I have statistics for 1906, which show that the percentages of the world’s yield of mining production from the British Empire were as follows: gold, 60%; silver, 12%; tin, 73%; copper, 9%; lead, 15%; iron, 18%; nickel, 60%; manganese, 40%l coal, 30%; asbestos, 90%; graphite, 45%; mica, 90%; and diamonds, 98%. Mining continued throughout the colonial period and beyond, even if newly independent countries had a little more control.
I do not make a wholesale denunciation of the Empire: there were benefits in terms of infrastructure, the rule of law, education and the English language. But the prime objective of the Empire was to benefit Britain, and the consequences—good and bad—for the local populations were just incidental. When Harold Macmillan made his “wind of change” speech in South Africa in 1960, he set in train the process of decolonisation. It is worth recording. He said:
“The wind of change is blowing through this continent and, whether we like it or not, this growth of national consciousness is a political fact. We must all accept it as a fact, and our national policies must take account of it”.
In the 10 years I had the privilege of chairing the International Development Committee, I travelled to many former British colonies. I found a remarkable amount of good will for the positive aspects of the legacy, and appreciation of our aid, in the amounts and the way in which it was delivered, but disappointment at our distance and lack of post-independence partnership. Of course, all this was before the slashing of our official development assistance. I am disappointed, to put it mildly, and sometimes outraged by the language used by Ministers to justify these cuts. Referring to our development assistance as a
“giant cashpoint in the sky”,
as Boris Johnson did, was as ignorant as it was offensive.
However, saying that that is outdated and patronising also undermines the impressive way that delivery of aid and development assistance matured under successive Governments, as we moved to deliver 0.7%. The drive behind the post-war settlement, the creation of the Bretton Woods institutions and the commitment to 0.7% were an acknowledgement that industrialised countries had grown rich partially, but very significantly, on the back of exploiting poorer countries; in other words, there is a moral imperative to work with former colonies today to help them achieve poverty elimination and prosperity.
I never denied the challenges, and always looked for what worked, what could be replicated, and how corruption could be curtailed and capacity and resilience strengthened. I think that UK aid focused well on that. What impressed me was how we focused on poverty reduction, with support for health systems, education, and the rights of women and girls as an essential underpinning. But now, faced with the world’s challenges, we choose to downgrade our commitment to continue to help the countries we exploited to help them secure their place in the world, or at least to the ambition of ending absolute poverty and leaving no one behind. What chance in the present circumstances do we now have of achieving that by 2030?
Our influence in what, for shorthand, is called the global South is diminishing and being displaced by an expansionist China and a disruptive, exploitative Russia. It is therefore not just a moral responsibility to acknowledge our legacy but in our direct current interests to show our former colonies that we are here to co-operate in helping their development and the elimination of poverty. I know, because I have heard the Minister before, that she will say that we aim to do things differently and it is not all about aid. However, quoting the Premier League, trade, investment, culture, education and so on goes only so far, mostly because they are beyond the Government’s control, financial support and responsibility. It is difficult to see how new ambitions can be achieved on the back of such a dramatic reduction in the funding of initiatives.
Can the Minister tell us what practical steps the Government will take to promote trade and investment in former colonies, especially in Africa? What soft power initiatives are planned to highlight the positive impact of UK plc across developing countries? How will the Government work with the private sector to promote trade and investment, and get it to consider funding development initiatives such as education, skills training, and upgrading infrastructure to deliver clean water and energy to more people? It is this that will create the climate where their businesses will flourish.
I can give examples of where the private sector can help. For example, when Botswana discovered diamonds shortly after achieving independence, it sought the best advice as to how to optimise this benefit, appointing one of the world’s leading diamond valuers. This led to a 50:50 partnership with De Beers, a company called Debswana. This partnership has added value by bringing diamond finishing to Botswana and has enabled Botswana to use the funds for public good and improve living standards. That is the positive way it could be done but, sadly, not the way it is often done.
I also chair a charity, Water Unite, which has attracted private funding to invest in sustainable businesses in developing countries to produce clean water, improve sanitation and recycle plastics. Funding has come from a levy on the sale of bottled water and soft drinks by the Co-op and other retailers, as well as an impact fund, which has attracted funding from private high net worth individuals and foundations. This has a potential to develop, free of taxpayers and on the back on the private sector. It would be helpful if the Government could help promote more of these kinds of initiatives.
The Government say that public support for aid and development has diminished. I am not convinced they are right about that, but to the extent that it is true it is because political leadership has undermined what was a strong cross-party initiative.
We are still exploiting people from poor developing countries by encouraging them to come here to do the jobs our people do not want to do, and paying them less. We then give them a lowly and vulnerable status and change the rules under which they came and can stay. If we truly want to reduce immigration then we need to ensure that developing countries are able to offer hope and prospects at home. We need to find ways of reducing dependence on immigration by attracting UK-based labour to fill vacancies.
Perhaps the Government could do more to test public opinion by offering more support for UK Aid Match—I declare an interest as co-chair of the All-Party Group for Aid Match—to see how generous the public will be if they know the Government will match their contribution, and I mean really match by giving extra funds, not just moving the budget around. The test for government rhetoric will be how all threads of UK engagement are woven together and the extent to which this delivers genuine progress in partner countries. We exploited many countries; we are still doing it. I do not support the case for reparations, but I understand how the demand may grow if we sow such indifference to our legacy and lack a positive current engagement to make a difference.
Lord Callanan (Con)
My Lords, I also pay tribute to and congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Oates, on securing this debate and the powerful way in which he introduced it. No one could have failed to have been moved by the case that he outlined, so ably reinforced by the remarks from the noble Lord, Lord Hain. I am afraid I have not had the opportunity to research the details of the case he mentioned, so I will not comment on it. I am sure what he says is absolutely correct, but as I do not know the details so it would be wrong for me to express a view. I address my remarks, like the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, more on the generality of the issue.
Putting that case aside, it is generally unclear how much pollution was caused by mining companies in former colonies during colonial rule. It is difficult even to estimate the extent of mining which took place. The environmental impacts of different mining activities in different settings will be varied. Our understanding and the metrics of pollution are now, rightly, undoubtedly far more advanced than those of our predecessors. Mining is an essential activity for many of the advances in human existence that we all want to see but, like the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, I also want to see it done responsibly and with the appropriate controls.
There are many cases throughout history, as well as today, of environmental damage being caused by mining malpractice, not least in our own country. In February last year, at least 50,000 tonnes of acidic debris were spilled from a tailings dam at a copper mine in Zambia, operated by a subsidiary of a Chinese state-owned company. Even that figure is probably an underestimate of the damage. It is entirely right that such cases are investigated where laws may have been broken, and the strongest possible action should be taken.
Mining activities took place long before and after the British Empire, including in former colonies. Moreover, the mining industry continues to make a valuable contribution to our economy to this day, with 2,000 mines and quarries still active in our own country. It is inevitable that mining activities have some environmental impact; what is important is how they are regulated and how to minimise those impacts as much as possible. Our knowledge and the technology to enable us to do that is advancing all the time. For example, in some instances the British Empire implemented environmental laws, licensing systems for mining companies to manage resources and proper regulation to protect mine workers. I am sure we could have done more, but we did a lot.
In this century, the previous Government took action on the environment with the international community, investing £2.4 billion-worth of international climate finance between 2016 and 2020 into adaptation, including areas of loss and damage. Moreover, UK Export Finance added climate resilience debt clauses to loan agreements with 12 African and Caribbean countries.
However, although we support international co-operation, this Question for Short Debate asserts that it is the UK’s responsibility to determine how mining companies should behave in now independent countries. The problem, of course, is that this would mean acting as though they were almost still colonies, unable to determine their own laws and regulations or make their own agreements with the private sector.
As I have mentioned, determining the pollution caused by mining activities during the colonial period is far from straightforward. I am aware that Carbon Brief ranks the UK fourth in the world when accounting for colonial emissions, but this is not specific to mining, nor does it recognise that these colonies had their own mining sectors prior to the colonial period. Furthermore, those ranked at the top for carbon emissions happen to be a former British colony, the US, and China.
I fear that some of the arguments, as the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, indicated, mirror the arguments for reparations more broadly, which my noble friend Lord Biggar has so expertly countered in his writing and articles. To clarify, I am not saying that the UK should do nothing on the world stage to address pollution. As I have said, the previous Government were strongly committed to international co-operation on the environment. The All-Party Group for Africa, which the noble Lord, Lord Oates, co-chairs, published in May last year its report on how the UK can help to support Africa’s energy transition, recommending that the Government increase support for private sector investment in the continent’s renewable energy sources.
The UK should also offer support to Commonwealth countries to help them put in place their own enforceable regulations, especially against those with no interest in good practice at all. This is not the same as requiring mining companies to address pollution they may or may not have caused during historical periods when the impacts were not fully understood and the same standards that we have today were not in place.
It is vital to interpret analyses of historical mining pollution with caution and think carefully about the ethical and legal approaches involved when it comes to making requirements on surviving mining companies. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s contribution on this topic.
The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Baroness Chapman of Darlington) (Lab)
My Lords, I start by saying how grateful I am to the noble Lord, Lord Oates, for his speech. I was moved by what he had to say and the accounts he shared with us. They really brought to life the issues that we are turning our attention to, which too often can seem very distant and abstract. I was affected a great deal by what the noble Lord said about mothers and the children they are caring for, and the impact this is having on their health, possibly for the rest of their lives. I appreciate the way that he talked about that. I also thank him for his leadership and tenacity on this over some time, and I extend that compliment to my noble friend Lord Hain; I know that they have worked together on this over probably many years.
The noble Lord, Lord Oates, started with a plea that the episode at Kabwe should serve as a lesson. I hear that. Some clear lessons can be learned, and they should instruct our approach to extractive industries in the future. There is no doubt, from what I have learned, that extractive industries are here to stay and that we will not be able to decarbonise without them, so it is vital that, in future, mining is always done responsibly, to the highest standards, and that those standards are required internationally. The UK is working to make sure that those standards can be agreed, implemented and enforced. That is not straightforward, as was reflected in some of your Lordships’ speeches, but it is certainly the intention of the United Kingdom.
The noble Lord, Lord Oates, asked specifically what the UK Government are doing. I can assure him that I have been in touch with the British high commissioner in Pretoria, who is following the legal case that is still taking place, which my noble friend Lord Hain also referred to. It is being followed carefully and closely, and the high commissioner in Pretoria is in close contact with everybody he needs to be about that. I will get back in touch with him following this debate to get an up-to-date assessment of where that is and what we can expect to see.
My noble friend Lord Hain asked me about the FCDO’s partnership. The partnership is with the Anglo American Foundation, so it is separate from the corporation. We always do due diligence ahead of these things. He asked us to make sure that social justice and human rights are fundamental to our approach, and I assure him that they are. Anglo American is an important company. It is difficult to see how mining can continue globally to the extent needed without Anglo American, but what really matters is that we confront the legacies of the past and appropriate steps are taken in that regard, and that, moving forward, mining is done responsibly so that we never again see the kind of impact on a community that we have seen.
The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Norwich spoke about the pension investments and invited me to meet to discuss legacy issues with trustees there. I am very happy to do that. I thank the Church of England Pensions Board for its participation in the emerging markets and developing economies taskforce, where we work with big investors in the City to try to encourage them to invest more in developing economies. In a moment, I will get on to the points put to me by the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, around development assistance more generally, but part of our more modern approach is that we need to work with the City and public markets, where the many trillions of dollars are held that we need to get flowing into those developing economies. In the end, that is how development will happen on a sustainable basis. As the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, said, our approach to overseas assistance has developed—not that there was anything wrong with what was happening before; it is just that we will be doing things differently. The Church of England is a full participant in that, and I am grateful for it and happy to have the meetings that he suggested.
The noble Lord, Lord Bruce, is a lovely man, who I respect very much. He has done a huge amount for international development through the years and has forgotten more than I will probably ever know. He has heard me say this several times before, but perhaps this is an opportunity to persuade him a little that what we are doing in our approach to development has some merit. I point out that the size of African economies combined is $2.8 trillion and the amount of development assistance in Africa at peak ODA was around $70 billion, so about 2.5% of the money in Africa has come from development assistance. This is the scale of the challenge that we have an ambition to meet in Africa. It is vital that we meet it, because turning away and leaving conditions to deteriorate as they have—I know that the Sahel is a particular concern for many Members of this House—makes the whole world less secure. We see problems with extremism and antimicrobial resistance, as has been mentioned. Health is a good example of intervention from the UK, not just through development assistance but through technical expertise and work to promote health security. The Ebola and mpox outbreaks were dealt with quickly and effectively, and we did not see the more widespread infection that we might have done because of the work that we were able to do, alongside partners in-country, to support communities and countries to handle them in the right way.
The noble Lord asked how we are working to promote trade. We have some practical initiatives to promote trade in Africa. Previous approaches have been good—this is not a criticism at all, it is just that we have to continue to refresh and evolve our approach—but what will make the biggest difference is allowing countries to trade with one another, and then, when they want to, to trade with us freely as well. Our developing countries trading scheme removes rules of origin requirements on countries, for example, so they can trade with us without having to prove where every last component came from, if they came from developing countries. That encourages more trade with Africa.
We are working closely through the BII, UKEF and the World Bank on how we improve African infrastructure. That is how they will be able to facilitate more of that trade, grow their economies, and become self-sufficient and less dependent on aid, which is what they tell us they want. This is how they want us to work. The reason we had such a strong World Bank IDA pledge this year is that we know that, by working that way, we get far more money into developing economies than we have ever been able to do through bilateral aid programmes, which in some cases have fostered dependency and undermined the ability of countries to lead their own processes and strengthen their own systems. They want to educate their own children and devise their own healthcare, appropriate to them, and that is what we want to support them in doing.
Where bilateral aid is the best way in which to do that, we will continue to do it, and we will continue to be leaders in humanitarian support. More often now, it is about investment and support for building systems, and enabling countries such as Ghana, Rwanda and Ethiopia, by supporting them in growing their own tax base so that they can get every year more than they have ever had in ODA to spend on their own public services. That is what they say they want and that is how we are going to work with them. We had a good launch of our new Africa approach—I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Collins, for the work that he did to bring that about. It is all about moving more towards partnership and away from some of the paternalistic approaches of the past.
To return to the main subject of the debate this afternoon, it is right to say that we have seen the enduring scars that have been left by damaging mining practices around the world. Sympathy is not a sufficient word, but we have complete respect for and a desire to work to support those who have been affected. The Government are determined to ensure that future mining does not repeat those mistakes and that we embed responsible and sustainable practices that put local communities at their heart.
I was able to visit Anglo American when I was in Chile last year. I think the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, mentioned that, in many countries in Latin America and Africa, too often there have been situations where local communities have not been prioritised in any way—I come from the north-east; mining is part of my region, and to this day I see the scars that can be left. The mine was operated from an office block in central Santiago. Men who had worked underground at the face of the mine for years were now working in an office building close to their homes, so they did not have to travel and be away from their families for days or weeks on end and they could work safely using high-tech equipment. It was clear that that is something of the future of mining, and it is the kind of approach that we are going to see more often.
There is a big leap to be taken from the practices that we still too often see to that new, modern and safe approach, but that is what the UK is working to achieve. Governance is essential to this. From my perspective as a Development Minister, this is about ensuring that mineral wealth can translate into long-term development gains, rather than environmental degradation, corruption or, too often, conflict.
We know that critical mineral reserves in the developing world can support inclusive and sustainable economic development, but that must be done under the right conditions. We are going to work alongside our partners so that mining and mineral processing are carried out to high environmental, social and government standards. Very often, we see the extraction take place in a country, but the processing—the piece of the process where the biggest value is added—takes place somewhere else. We need to look at that and make sure that the countries that hold mineral wealth can get the benefit of it.
This is all part of the Government’s commitment to supporting UK business in pursuit of economic growth. We want British companies to be successful, but we expect them to follow relevant law and align with appropriate international standards. Under the Companies Act 2006, all directors in the UK are required to consider the impact of operations, including on the community and environment, when they make decisions. Since 2019, large companies are required to disclose in their annual reports how they have done that. In addition, quoted companies and large public interest entities are required to report on social matters in respect of human rights as part of their annual reports and accounts.
Responsibility is central to the UK’s international approach to critical minerals. We are using our multilateral and bilateral agreements to promote high standards globally. In addition, we are reviewing our approach to responsible business conduct policy, focusing on the global supply chains of businesses operating in the UK.
We advocate for binding frameworks and voluntary standards. That includes the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, OECD standards, and the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights, which we helped to establish. These encourage companies to avoid, mitigate and remediate environmental and social impacts in areas at high risk and affected by conflict.
We support transparency and good governance. The UK co-founded the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative and funds the Natural Resource Governance Institute to help countries manage mining revenues responsibly. Through our global initiatives, we help countries to ensure that the mining of metals and minerals, particularly in tropical forest regions, is carried out responsibly. This is how we minimise harm to nature, as well as harm to indigenous peoples and local communities, which is most relevant to this debate. It is their forests and their home, and they are the people who preserve these precious global assets on the world’s behalf.
The UK works alongside countries on everything from investigations to scholarships to satellite technology, and we must continue to do so. Some 30% of known global critical mineral deposits are in Africa, and this is at the heart of the UK’s new approach to the continent, which is ongoing dialogue and partnership built on fairness and respect. We are focused on making progress on many priorities, from security to education, health and the growth and opportunity that people everywhere want.
All this is part of our commitment to tackling the climate and nature crisis in a socially just and responsible way, leading by example wherever we can. This includes our 2035 nationally determined contributions target to reduce all greenhouse gas emissions by at least 81% on 1990 levels. We are cutting emissions faster than any other country in the G7 while growing our economy.
The world has seen too often what can go devastatingly wrong when Governments do not take a lead and when they step back. We are improving the international approach to mining and, again, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Oates, for his moving introduction, which reminds us why this matters so much, not just on an environmental and industrial level but, at the end of the day, for people trying to live their lives with dignity and securing the health of their children. I am very grateful to him for what he said at the beginning of this debate.