Child Labour and Artisanal Cobalt Mining in the DRC

Lord Wigley Excerpts

Thursday 30th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I will certainly take that back. I thank the noble and learned Baroness for her work in this area. It is vital that we are able to define accurately and have complete transparency through supply chains. As a previous questioner identified, cobalt is vital for technologies that we want to see that will help lower emissions, and it is used in a whole variety of daily products. We must make sure that it is not mined using child labour or slavery and that we are requiring companies to be transparent in their supply chains.

[Lord Wigley (PC)]

My Lords, may I press the Minister further on that point regarding the specific steps that the Government are now taking to identify whether cobalt-containing products imported into the UK are produced by child labour in the DRC?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

Through our modern slavery legislation and through the work we are doing in a variety of multilateral fora, we are trying to make sure that, with international companies mining not just cobalt but a whole range of other things—for diamonds, for example, using the Kimberley process, or for conflict minerals—we are doing work in-country, leading on partnerships that have seen great benefit, with children going into school as opposed to working in mines. UK taxpayers’ money is doing that, and we are working really hard on this. We want to make sure that companies are playing their part, too, and that their supply chains are transparent.