Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of reports that mining companies listed on the London Stock Exchange are engaging in illegal land grabs in protected tribal lands in India.

The FCO has not made an assessment. Nor has the FCO received any recent representation on this issue. The Government expects multinational enterprises to operate responsibly abroad, and encourages them to do so, in line with the domestic laws of the countries in which they operate, in the spirit of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, and international standards including the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises.