Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government what representations they have made to their counterparts in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in relation to the issues of fair pricing and child labour in the cobalt mining industry; and what practical assistance they have provided to that country to address these issues.

Illicit mining in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and the use of child labour remains a problem. We regularly raise the issue of child labour in DRC's mining sector both with the DRC government and through multilateral fora such as the Human Rights Council. The UK supports the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) which aims to improve transparency and governance in the mining sector. The UK provided funding to the "Effective Approaches to Ending the Worst Forms of Child Labour in Fragile Contexts", a multi-stakeholder consortium which develops innovative approaches to ending child labour in DRC. In addition, the Home Office is funding work through the Modern Slavery Innovation Fund with the objective of strengthening partnerships to prevent and remedy forced labour in supply chains from DRC.