Mariana Dam Disaster

Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi Excerpts

Thursday 22nd June 2023 Westminster Hall

[Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)]

I thank the Backbench Business Committee, right hon. and hon. Members from across the House who have been involved, and my friend, the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), for securing this emotive and hard-hitting debate. It is about how British companies conduct themselves around the world and whether they implement the highest safety standards, which we rightly expect of them. It is also about how we hold companies headquartered in London or elsewhere in the UK to account when they do not live up to the standards that they claim to uphold.

The House’s sub judice rule—as you rightly pointed out, Mrs Latham—prevents me from commenting on any ongoing court action relating to the hundreds of thousands of claimants seeking compensation for damage caused by this horrific incident. However, as the hon. Member stated, the Mariana dam disaster has been called

“the worst environmental disaster in Brazil’s history.”

The disaster severely impacted indigenous communities including the Krenak people by irreparably damaging the river source and the community’s lifeblood, the Rio Doce. It is important that we recognise the victims and their grieving families, with 19 lives lost because of the disaster. For the people of Brazil and other fair-minded, good people around the world, such disasters must not be forgotten, or we are doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past.

The people of Brazil believe that the disaster could and should have been avoided. Indeed, the 2017 report “The River is Dead” by the London Mining Network states:

“Since the beginning of the operation, in 2008, the Fundão Dam had presented several anomalies related to drainage defects, upwelling, mud and water management errors and saturation of sandy material. In some cases, emergency measures had been required.”

However, the project continued, and production was kept at high levels until the disaster.

A recent report published by the Local Authority Pension Fund Forum, after some of its members visited Brazil, found:

“Nearly seven years after the dam collapse, the end of these reparations and compensation is nowhere in sight. Consequently, affected community members have suffered for over seven years, and the companies and investors continue to accrue costs associated with the delayed provision of reparations and compensation”.

Companies running large operations worldwide cannot be allowed to hide behind their subsidiaries when things go wrong or when there is an ecological and environmental disaster. The UK has an important global role. It can and should lead the way by exploring ways to introduce stronger accountability mechanisms for UK corporations operationally, both domestically and internationally, to help to protect against human rights abuses and protect our fragile environment.

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

I apologise to my hon. Friend and to you, Mrs Latham. It is one of those days when there is a lot going on in the other Chamber that we take an interest in, so I will need to go, but I want to raise one point first.

I completely understand why the Chair is twitchy about sub judice issues, but the whole point of having this debate is so that maybe some good can arise from this tragedy. There is potential for our Government to lead on legislative reforms, which can then be developed internationally to ensure the accountability of companies, prevention of human rights abuses and environmental protections. It is about directors’ responsibilities as well. There is an agenda that the Government could seize to turn this tragedy into something beneficial globally.

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[Mr Dhesi]

My right hon. Friend speaks with a great deal of authority. He has eloquently explained the importance of today’s debate and why many of us are hoping that the Minister and the Government will take corrective action to ensure that we learn from the mistakes of the past and put legislation in place so that there cannot be future environmental disasters without the necessary repercussions.

In conclusion, the only question is: will the Government now recognise that the UK has an important role in preventing similar disasters from ever happening again?

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[Fabian Hamilton]

Okay. That is fine.

The organisation set up to remediate and compensate for the damage caused by the failure of the dam has come under increasing criticism for its lack of transparency in the way it was spending financial resources, as well as the way it excluded affected community representatives from decision making related to the resettlement. Again, we must not let that behaviour set a precedent whereby companies are able to treat indigenous populations like cattle. I would be interested to hear from the Minister whether he believes that that kind of behaviour points to a worrying and wider targeting of indigenous populations, and environmental activists, by multinational companies. It is the same attitude that led to the murder of Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira in Brazil a year ago; and farmers from the El Bajío community in Mexico had their livelihoods destroyed through illegal mining by a FTSE 100 company.

We must note that there has been a radical change in Government in Brazil since the disaster occurred. I would like the Minister to tell us what discussions he has had with his Brazilian counterpart regarding this case and how he is working with the Brazilian Government under President Lula, as well as Governments across Latin America, to prevent man-made disasters like this from destroying communities. I recognise that the Minister here today is not the Minister generally responsible for the region, but perhaps he has some answers to these questions on behalf of his colleague.

[Mr Dhesi]

My hon. Friend the shadow Minister has referred to environmental activists and the damage being done environmentally in Brazil, as well as across the globe. When we look at the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest, and given that we have just passed the one-year anniversary of the brutal murders of Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira, it is important that while we protect our environment and the people, we also prevent those excellent environmental activists, journalists and indigenous activists who are fighting the good fight— not just on their own behalf, but on behalf of all of us—from coming to harm. It is important that our Government work with the Brazilian Government to ensure that the perpetrators of those brutal murders are brought to justice.

[Fabian Hamilton]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. In a way, it is precisely what I wanted to ask the Minister today about how we can work more collaboratively and co-operatively with the Brazilian Government to lend our expertise, to show our support, to do what we can, along with other nations across the world, to preserve the Amazon rainforest and, of course, to protect environmental activists and indigenous people in those countries. It would also be helpful to hear whether the Brazilian Government’s attitude towards these disasters, and the prevention of them in future, has changed since President Lula took office. Obviously, our Government would know that and notice that.

We must of course champion those many excellent British companies that do good work abroad—there are many—but it is also right that we hold them to account for any wrongdoing. Given the tragic stories and experiences we have heard about today, does the Minister agree that British companies should be held to account in British courts for their actions across the world? No company should be able to greenwash its image by painting itself as a net zero leader while at the same time mining the minerals needed for the energy transition in the way that some have done. They simply cannot give with one hand and take away with the other.

I was appalled to learn that this disaster and the actions that followed it disproportionately hurt indigenous peoples and many people of colour. A community in the municipality of Marinara that is closest to the dam and was most affected by the disaster has a population that is 84.3% comprised of black Brazilians.

Will the British Government collaborate on an international law on ecocide to make damage to our ecology, our planet and our environment an internationally recognised criminal offence? The Opposition certainly support that, and it would be good to collaborate with the British Government.

Finally, I pay tribute to Pogust Goodhead, the firm assisting the victims with their case—but mainly to the over 700,000 victims, a few of whom have shown outstanding courage by travelling to the United Kingdom to let English courts know the true extent of the disaster. For the sake of Bento Rodrigues, the town destroyed by the disaster, the Doce river, which was severely polluted, and the 39 municipalities that felt the environmental catastrophe on their doorstep, this injustice must be put right.