OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises (Hansard, 2 December 2002)

HC Deb 02 December 2002 vol 395 cc516-7W 517W

§ Dr. Tonge
To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry when she expects the UN panel of experts on the illegal exploitation of natural resources of the Democratic Republic of the Congo to present substantiated evidence regarding alleged breaches of the OECD Guidelines for multinational enterprises committed by UK companies, as listed in Annex III of their report. [83730]

§ Ms Hewitt
The expert panel's mandate expired when it submitted its last report. There is currently no UN process or mechanism in place to follow up the report and supply the information the UK and others have requested. Discussions are under way in the UN on how to proceed. We are pressing for a resolution to this problem and continue to press for the information we have requested to be supplied as soon as possible.