"Why New Look is using Leicester supplier it dropped in 2017 following undercover Channel 4 exposé", 13 October 2019

High street clothes chain New Look has started working again with a Leicester supplier it dropped in 2017 following an undercover exposé... [that] showed the supplier had subcontracted work to another factory... which apparently paid staff just £3.50 an hour.

New Look... dropped TS Knitwear with “immediate effect” after hearing about the issue. At the time TS Knitwear, said it worked to “clear ethical guidelines”.

A list of current New Look suppliers shows... TS Knitwear to be back among... UK factories it uses...

Chief operating officer Nigel Oddy said: “Working with TS Knitwear again was not a decision we took lightly... New Look undertook a full factory audit in line with the Fast Forward programme... [W]e have also... introduce[d] a trial of a new software system which... [helps] the factory understand all labour costs associated with manufacturing a particular item so that they can cost it appropriately... [and provides] us with an auditable log of all New Look products being manufactured inside their own manufacturing unit. “This provides an indicator of whether there was any potential for unauthorised subcontracting...

Thulsi Narayanasamy... at the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre... said there were fears suppliers in Leicester were being squeezed by tight margins imposed by big fashion brands, which needed to be held to account so that they did not put “profit before people”... “More needs to be done to guarantee factory workers in the UK aren’t exploited on poverty wages.”