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Article

13 Jul 2022

Auteur:
Ben Hatton & Dave Owen, LeicestershireLive

UK: MP calls for national regulator of the garment industry to challenge brands' 'abusive' purchasing practices

"MP calls for fashion watchdog to be set up after Leicester factory scandal", 15 July 2022

An MP has called for a new watchdog to be set up to oversee the fashion industry in the wake of the scandal where workers in Leicester's garment factories were revealed to be working for as little as £3 an hour.

Labour's Liz Twist, who is co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on the future of retail, has introduced a Private Members' Bill in the House of Commons. It would see a new national body set up along similar lines to the Groceries Code Adjudicator, which governs supermarkets.

The Blaydon MP says fashion retailers took advantage of disruption in the clothing sector caused by the pandemic, which resulted in cancelled orders, delayed payments and breaches of contractual obligations that increased the risk of worker exploitation. She told fellow MPs workers in Leicester were being paid as "as little as £3 an hour", with some of them "alleged to have been trafficked, forced to go to work despite testing positive for Covid-19"...

Ms Twist said the problem was a worldwide issue where "millions of workers, largely women" were "made destitute" in 2020, mainly in Asia, when suppliers were unable to pay wages. She said exploitation in the clothing industry are longstanding and desperately needed to be tackled.

"For decades, UK retailers have imposed purchasing practices on their suppliers which have at times amounted to illegal breaches of contract and can be abusive." said said. "That means that the volatility facing suppliers as a result of these practices, and the need to meet their fixed costs, has led to the problem being passed down to workers in the form of wage reductions and mass unemployment."

She added: "To end these abusive purchasing practices and regulate the relationship between retailers and suppliers, the UK Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy should set out a timetable for establishing a garment trading adjudicator.