§ 37. Mr. BayleyTo ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make it the policy of the Overseas Development Administration to use 16 the aid budget to seek to eliminate the employment of children in dangerous or unhealthy conditions in recipient countries.
§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Mark Lennox-Boyd)It is the policy of the Overseas Development Administration to help those children who are forced, through poverty, to work in dangerous and unhealthy conditions.
§ Mr. BayleyIs the Minister aware that an increase in the volume of exports of Colombian coal is forcing more and more people in Colombia to buy from the domestic market serviced by small mines? According to a recent statement by the Anti-Slavery Society for the Protection of Human Rights, 900 of those small mines employ children, some as young as five years old.
Does the Minister accept that the Government's policy of electricity privatisation has led to the purchase of considerable amounts of Colombian coal by PowerGen and National Power, and that compulsory competitive tendering has forced local authorities to do the same? Will he make it his policy to use the development budget to support development projects that will eliminate the use of child labour in Colombia?
§ Mr. Lennox-BoydWe have been informed by Carbocol, the Colombian coal company, that no coal exported to Britain from Colombia is produced through the use of child labour. If the hon. Gentleman has any evidence of the contrary, I shall of course want it to be considered very carefully.
It is very much the Government's policy to use ODA resources to help with the awkward problem of child labour throughout the world. Children are sent to work because of the great poverty that exists throughout the world. All our projects take cognisance of that, and try to improve living standards so that child labour is no longer used.