Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps the Government takes to ensure that British businesses abroad uphold (a) international law on free, prior and informed consent, (b) the International Labour Organisation Convention 169 on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and (c) the rights of land and environmental activists operational in other countries.

The Government’s National Action Plan on Business and Human Rights implements the United Nations’ voluntary Guiding Principles and sets out expectations of businesses to respect human rights wherever they operate. As part of this, businesses are encouraged to adopt appropriate due diligence policies to identify, prevent and mitigate human rights risks and to consult people who may be affected at all stages of project design and implementation, in ways which ensure their participation and take into account language or other potential barriers, and to pay particular attention to indigenous peoples. The Government’s Overseas Business Risk service helps with this by providing geopolitical and economic analysis on overseas markets to exporters, including information on potential human rights risks.