Democratic Republic of the Congo: Conflict

Lord Collins of Highbury Excerpts

Thursday 8th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

My Lords, we have raised our concerns about the increase in violence at the highest levels with the DRC and Rwanda. That includes messages sent by our Foreign Minister to the President of the DRC and the Rwandan Foreign Minister in November. There has been a joint Great Lakes special envoy statement from the UK, the US, France and Belgium on 18 November and a UN Security Council press statement on 22 November. Various Ministers in the Foreign Office raise the issue regularly with both Rwanda and the DRC. Like the noble Lord, we are extremely concerned by the actions of neighbouring countries in relation to the eastern DRC.

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Alton, is absolutely right to focus on labour standards. I hear what the Minister says about having chats with City people, but the ILO has minimum standards which this Government could ensure apply to other Governments and the multinationals to which the noble Baroness referred. For example, what are we doing to ensure that the ILO Safety and Health in Mines Convention, first adopted in 1995, is applied much more widely? Today, 27 years later, only 34 countries apply it. Supporting the ILO is something this Government could do.

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

My Lords, we will certainly not just conduct chats within the City. The reality is that there is an enormous amount of muscle there; if some of our companies are engaging in activity which is exacerbating the problem, it is right that we should talk to them and address those issues, as the noble Baroness pointed out. The UK is working with international partners across the world to address illicit mining, including through the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, which contributed to the establishment of transparency provisions in the 2018 mining code. We have launched our first critical minerals strategy, which aims to improve the security of supply of critical minerals. That matters because China so dominates that sector at the moment. Through it, we are also using our ODA to help countries develop critical mineral resources in a market-led, transparent way which respects human rights and broader environmental goals.