My hon. Friend is absolutely right, especially in terms of pension funds. People do not always know which companies their pension funds are investing in and what those companies are investing in—are they investing in Malaysia or in large cattle ranches in Brazil, where deforestation may be taking place? We need to tighten up on this, and I very much welcome his intervention.
Not only are rainforests a carbon sink, but they hold 80% of the world’s terrestrial biodiversity. They help to maintain our delicate global ecosystem, so I am pleased that, as part of the Bill, companies that cause illegal deforestation will be held accountable. The requirement for large companies to undertake due diligence on their supply chains is an important step, but the Bill should go further in tackling the practice.
As Members will know, I have tabled two amendments to the Bill to ensure that the measures have the teeth to tackle the problem. First, amendment 26 proposes that we put into law protections for the rights of indigenous people, requiring that
“free, prior and informed consent has been obtained from affected indigenous peoples and local communities”
before big companies go in and develop land. That is important because, while the Government’s new provisions reference the need for companies to ensure that local laws are respected, they do not consider that the rights of indigenous communities are not always respected in law.
I have visited Brazil; I have seen the trucks going through the forest and the people in the back of them with sub-machine-guns. I can assure the Government that it is not easy for indigenous people to have rights in places where there is no real rule of law in parts. Indeed, 80% of indigenous lands do not yet have secure legal rights. In those places, local people are rightly defending their own land from aggressive development, but at great risk. In February 2019, I had the honour of meeting the chief of the indigenous population in the Amazon. He told me of the daily struggles that he and his people experience in protecting their homes from illegal land clearance. Research shows that more people than ever were killed in 2019 for defending their land. Over 200 were killed—an average of around four people a week. Not only are indigenous people being killed, but many are seeing the land on which their livelihoods depend being destroyed. Amendment 26 would not only save lives but would save livelihoods—something that I know the Government care greatly about. I ask them to look carefully at this issue.
The second measure that I would like the Government to implement to tighten up the Bill is amendment 27. I firmly believe that we must ensure that the legislation includes the financial sector, which is in many cases bank-rolling deforestation in places such as Brazil and Malaysia. If we do not include the financial sector in these measures, we are missing out one of the most integral parts of the supply chain and leaving a large loophole in the law.