Lonmin is just the most recent example that proves corporate responsibility can have a significant impact on a company’s financial value. That last week’s tragedy in South Africa made headlines in the UK and around the world shouldn’t be surprising, given the scale of the event and the appalling treatment by Lonmin of its own workers. Yet too rarely are similar cases given the media attention they deserve, and too rarely are the perpetrators’ links with London highlighted.

The London Stock Exchange is currently host to a plethora of companies that have been accused and found guilty of gross violations of human rights, particularly in countries that are in conflict or deemed high risk. Cases like this, involving Rio Tinto, G4S, Vedanta and Barrick Gold, to name a few, surface on an alarmingly regular basis. Yet they receive little attention from anyone save a dedicated number of NGOs and, worse still, the victims of such appalling corporate crime rarely get access to justice.

In the aftermath of the financial crisis, few would dispute the need for more forward thinking and long-term planning from our corporate giants and for greater cognisance of the wider impact of business. However, recent government changes to civil litigation have made it virtually impossible for victims to sue the corporations responsible for their harm in the UK.

But there are measures the British government could take to improve this situation, particularly through the regulation of the stock exchange.

In May, I tabled an amendment to the financial services bill with the support of many parliamentary colleagues to try to do just that. The bill creates a new financial regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority, which takes over the duties of the UK Listing Authority and is tasked with upholding the “integrity” of the financial markets. In order for it to do so successfully it must uphold integrity in its widest possible sense, and include environmental, social and human rights obligations on companies that are to be listed in London.

Many other countries have taken similar steps to give their stock exchanges a role in upholding high standards of corporate behaviour, placing a premium on respect for human rights and sustainability. The UK is trailing behind countries including Turkey, South Africa, Brazil and, surprisingly, China. Hong Kong requires its minerals companies to comply with specific listing requirements, including disclosure of environmental, social, and health and safety issues and claims that may exist over the land on which mining activity is being carried out.

My amendments to the financial services bill, which will be tabled again by colleagues in the Lords in October, are backed by a coalition of investors who recognise that a company’s poor social and environmental record bear a long-term financial risk and want all such information to be publicly available.

Richard Lambert, the former director general of the CBI, wrote in the Financial Times in June last year: “It never occurred to those of us who helped launch the FTSE 100 index 27 years ago that one day it would be providing a cloak of respectability and lots of passive investors for companies that challenge the canons of corporate governance … Perhaps it is time for those responsible for the index to rethink its purpose.”

Given that a significant proportion of the world’s biggest mining companies are listed in London, the government has a prime opportunity to ensure that social and environmental standards are upheld through its stock exchange, that victims have a right to redress and that no more Lonmin or G4S-type scandals are allowed to further damage the reputation of British business around the world.