The hon. Gentleman asks a genuinely interesting question. One thing that became clear to me at the first round table I held on this issue was that the industry and the campaigners started in quite contradictory positions. Getting people to a position where they have agreed to make progress has been a rather long and perhaps slightly tortuous process, which has required a great deal of engagement. Both sides have had concerns, but, to their credit, they have both recognised that tweaks to their proposals might be needed, and genuine points have been made that ultimately led to concessions. Certainly when I joined those discussions, we were getting to a much clearer position, particularly with the catalyst of the strong US rules, and that is very welcome. It is important to have strong rules on transparency, but the industry recognises that it must comply with the US rules, and it wants to make sure that it is not a bad neighbour, as it were, in the countries in which it operates. There is therefore a recognition that change is necessary.
The EU negotiations are in the trialogue process, the delights of which are not always as swift as we would like. We are keen to make sure that, if possible, that agreement is reached through the First Reading process, because that would allow us to implement the rules. I understand that there have been three sets of meetings so far. They are practically weekly at the moment, and I think the dates were 7, 9 and 14 November, but do not quote me on that. Things are prone to change in the EU—for example, there was due to be a meeting on Friday, but I heard it was off and then that it was possibly on again. None the less, whatever the specific dates, there are very regular meetings of COREPER—and other lovely EU acronyms—to ensure we get some progress.
On a range of issues, particularly the three I mentioned—exemptions, and threshold-level and project-level reporting—we are getting a greater degree of consensus. The European Parliament is still pushing
some elements, in relation to the involvement of other parts of industry, on which it wants to go beyond what the US does. That runs the risk of just delaying or preventing the process, when there is a lot of consensus on extractives, so there will be further discussions.
As the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) explained, he has unfortunately had to leave for another engagement. He made a point about outsourcing parts of the mining industry to avoid transparency. It is worth putting it on the record that the project definition is likely to tie in contracts and licences in such a way that avoidance will not be straightforward and that subcontracting will still be captured. The hon. Member for Falkirk talked about how listing companies in London might be a positive step, even when they were not UK-based. The hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) was characteristically forthright and passionate about some of the failings that he has identified. I am sure that he appreciates why I cannot go into the individual cases that he mentioned.
On the overarching issue of corporate governance, it is important that investors have information to hold companies to account. The London stock exchange has four of the top five mining exploration and extraction companies by market capitalisation—BHP, Rio Tinto, Xstrata and Anglo American. There are 119 extractive and mining companies listed on the London exchanges, of which 12 are UK companies. We want to ensure that investors can hold boards to account and encourage responsible business behaviour. We have high standards of corporate governance, but it is important that we are not complacent. Further strengthening those standards will help London stock markets, because it will give major investors more confidence.