Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what recent representations he has made to his international counterparts for the rights of indigenous peoples to be embedded into the proposed International Treaty on Human Rights and Transnational Corporations.

​I have not made any such representations. The British Government regards the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) as the authoritative global standard for preventing and addressing the risk of adverse human rights impacts with business. The United Kingdom has a strong legal and policy framework to promote and protect human rights for all individuals, including indigenous people. We continue to work overseas and through international institutions such as the United Nations to improve the situation of those facing discrimination. In 2007, the UK supported the adoption of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and in May 2017 the European Union’s Foreign Affairs Council adopted conclusions on indigenous peoples.