Bhopal Gas Explosion Investigations

Catherine West Excerpts

Tuesday 15th November 2022 Westminster Hall

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to contribute to the debate under your chairmanship, Ms McVey. As my hon. Friends the Members for Slough (Mr Dhesi) and for Stockport (Navendu Mishra) said, there is no question but that the industrial disaster in 1984 was a catastrophe of epic proportions, with even the most conservative estimates acknowledging that thousands of people, mainly from poorer, informal settlements around the factory, were killed instantly. Many, many more families and their children were harmed, and the local economy and environment were fatally harmed. As my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Kim Johnson) said, countless more victims were injured or saw their lives altered by the lingering effects of exposure, with the Indian Government in 2012 putting the number of severely affected survivors at a staggering 33,000. As my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport said, justice delayed is justice denied.

Naturally the communities involved, and the Indian people more broadly, have demanded justice and relief in order to begin to come to terms with the loss of life and the environmental damage that continue to leave a daunting legacy over the community. Their pain will continue until true justice has been delivered.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stockport, who is chair of the all-party parliamentary group, has taken on the mantle of supporting the victims of this appalling tragedy. His attempts to secure redress for the survivors and the bereaved, both today in his remarks and in a series of written questions, deserve praise from Members across the House, and I know that the Minister will have heard him. Her predecessors have responded to the parliamentary questions he has tabled, and I wish to leave as much time as possible for her to respond in full. I also recognise the role that the international trade union movement, including British Unison, have played in exposing this tragic industrial accident.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) said, there has been a disproportionate impact on women victims of this terrible environmental accident. Half the women who were pregnant at the time of the catastrophe lost their unborn babies. He made the important point that we have still not seen the environmental degradation put right, let alone the provision of full financial recompense and of health and social care services commensurate with the damage that occurred as a result of this tragedy.

What is the UK Government’s response? I have three questions for the Minister. First, what dialogue has she had with her opposite number in the Government of India regarding UK support for them to bring to justice those responsible for the ongoing effects of this disaster? We should be an ally in supporting India in pursuing justice in this cause.

Secondly, if required by the Government of India, will the UK support further investigations into the health impacts and the cause of, and culpability for, the explosion? Will they support further efforts to alleviate the daily suffering and the need for medical, health and social care services?

My final question is an important one for future generations and has been debated in full this afternoon. What dialogue has the Minister had on supporting the Indian Government’s claim to make good the environment of Bhopal to international standards, in order to compensate people for this dreadful catastrophe?

[The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Anne-Marie Trevelyan)]

I thank the hon. Member for Stockport (Navendu Mishra) for securing the debate and raising awareness, nearly four decades on, of the brutal impact of the Bhopal disaster on so many. I am grateful to him and to all hon. and right hon. Members for their contributions, which could not have been clearer on the immediate and long-term impacts of the Union Carbide factory gas explosion.

For many of us—the older ones in the room—the disaster at the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal is seared into our memories as one of the worst industrial accidents in history. As a teenager, I remember watching television footage and being genuinely incredulous at the failures of industry and aware, as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said, of the need to help—in a very simple way—those so shockingly affected.

On 3 December 1984 this gas leak from a pesticide plant killed 3,800 people immediately. It has left up to half a million more with significant illness and has caused premature deaths. I thank colleagues for setting out many of those cases in brutal detail; it is important that they are heard and repeated so that we all understand exactly what the impacts of the disaster were.

The responsibility to respond to the tragic disaster has always lain with Union Carbide, an American company, and with the Government of India. Investigations by the Indian authorities established at the time that substandard operating and safety procedures and lack of maintenance had led to the catastrophe. As discussed earlier, Union Carbide provided a settlement of $470 million to the Indian Government to fund the clean-up, compensate the injured, support the families of those killed and provide ongoing welfare support to those affected. Hon. Members have made clear their view that the levels of compensation and support are considered inadequate and that the lack of clearance of contamination has had a very long impact on all in those Bhopali communities. These issues remain a matter for the Indian authorities, in particular the Madhya Pradesh state government, which has had control of the site and its remediation since 1998.

The UK did not provide any additional funding or direct support to India in response to the tragedy. However, the Department for International Development, under previous Administrations, supported development in the state of Madhya Pradesh that has benefited people, including those affected by the disaster living in Bhopal. The UK Government have also worked with the government of Madhya Pradesh to provide 11,000 slum dwellers with clean water and to increase the incomes of more than 66,000 rural households in the state, including in eight affected slums in Bhopal. We also supported the Madhya Pradesh health department to improve public healthcare, which also benefited victims of the Bhopal tragedy. Our support doubled the number of births taking place in hospitals and clinics, which increased the survival chances of newborns across the state.

Union Carbide compensation ended in 2013, and DFID humanitarian programmes to the Government of India ended in 2015. Since 2015, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office has had no direct engagement with the national Government or with state governments on the Bhopal tragedy, but we continued to work with the state of Madhya Pradesh from 2017 to 2021 on issues around human trafficking and the establishment of a gender resource centre. The FCDO’s poorest states inclusive growth programme currently operates in four Indian states, including Madhya Pradesh, and the UK Government invested through it to increase the incomes of over 9 million people, make financial services available to 12 million people and improve the social status of over 5 million women.

Turning to the present day, our relationship with India is central to our foreign policy tilt toward the Indo-Pacific, as India’s economic success stories continue year on year and the UK and Indian Governments strengthen their relationship through our new comprehensive strategic partnership, which we launched last year. Our 2030 road map, launched by Prime Ministers Johnson and Modi last year, is guiding our co-operation in a range of priority areas, benefiting people across both countries.

Our 1.7 million-strong Indian diaspora community provides a unique living bridge of people, commerce, ideas and culture between our countries, which is why so many colleagues closely feel the importance of the debate. We are at an advanced stage of negotiations for a comprehensive free trade agreement that will benefit all regions of the UK and India, and we are working with India to support its transition to net zero, including through a $1 billion green guarantee and the British International Investment partnership. Co-operation between our countries has global impacts, perhaps best demonstrated through the global roll-out of 1.5 billion Oxford University AstraZeneca vaccines that were produced at the Serum Institute of India.

I hope that sets out the depth of the relationship that we are building with India. The Bhopal disaster was a truly shocking tragedy that, as colleagues have set out so well, highlighted appalling shortcomings in industrial safety standards. It is absolutely right that we remember the victims and work, as many have since, to prevent similar tragedies.

[Catherine West]

Would the Minister, as a result of this very moving debate, undertake to mention it in her next interactions with her opposite member in the course of her duties and in the conversations the Government are having with India, in order to express the solidarity of the House and to be an ally in seeking justice for those affected?