MP in calls for fashion watchdog after expose 

A CITY MP is call­ing for a “fash­ion watch­dog” fol­low­ing a Pan­or­ama expose alleged online brand Boo­hoo failed to stick to prom­ises to over­haul its pro­cesses to ensure gar­ment work­ers were being treated fairly.

Claudia Webbe, inde­pend­ent MP for Leicester East, has deman­ded a new stat­utory regime, includ­ing pen­al­ties and crim­inal sanc­tions to force brands and retail­ers to behave eth­ic­ally and sus­tain­ably – after the BBC doc­u­ment­ary revealed ongo­ing sharp prac­tice and exploit­a­tion at Boo­hoo, one of the UK’s biggest online fast fash­ion cloth­ing retail­ers.

It pur­por­ted to show Boo­hoo engaged in price cut­ting among its sup­pli­ers in a race to the bot­tom and the prac­tice of amend­ing prices and dis­count­ing fur­ther after the stock had already been made.

It also alleged a breach of the reforms Boo­hoo prom­ised through its Agenda for Change, after its agree­ment to imple­ment recom­mend­a­tions arising from the Alison Levitt KC’s invest­ig­a­tion into uneth­ical and dan­ger­ous prac­tices in its sup­ply chain

The com­pany was shown impos­ing cuts to agreed prices when its sup­pli­ers were just about to deliver and pen­al­ising its sup­ply chain of factor­ies for fail­ing to meet arbit­rary and unachiev­able dead­lines, with con­sequences for gar­ment work­ers.

Boo­hoo last year made a repor­ted £1.7 bil­lion worth of sales.

Claudia said: “The new BBC Pan­or­ama rev­el­a­tions about Boo­hoo are appalling but not sur­pris­ing. Exploi­and uneth­ical prac­tice are built into the global gar­ment industry, and it is always the work­ers, usu­ally women from racial­ised groups, who suf­fer most. The com­pany’s silence and aban­don­ment of the prom­ises it made in 2020 when its uneth­ical sup­ply chain was exposed is deeply con­cern­ing.

“In Leicester’s gar­ment industry, work­ers, over­whelm­ingly women, suf­fer poverty pay, long hours and unsafe work­ing con­di­tions fuelled by the greed of brands, who cut prices uni­lat­er­ally to fat­ten profits at the expense of those least able to afford it. Sup­pli­ers and gar­ment factor­ies rather than being left out of pocket are passing the price cuts on to work­ers with fur­ther reduced pay, loss of work and rights.

“This race to the bot­tom leads to sup­pli­ers and man­u­fac­tur­ers under­pay­ing their work­ers and demandta­tion ing uncon­trac­ted and unpaid over­time, as well as short­cuts on safety and work­ing con­di­tions.”

A BBC reporter who spent 10 weeks work­ing under­cover at Boo­hoo’s head office, in Manchester, alleged she had learned just 1 per cent of Boo­hoo orders were being made at the com­pany’s new Leicester fact­ory – which Boo­hoo had said would be a “centre of excel­lence”.

Claudia said: “The doc­u­ment­ary appears to show Boo­hoo’s ‘flag­ship’ pro­duc­tion facil­ity in Leicester East on Thur­ma­s­ton Lane is little more than a front for more cheap imports from coun­tries where work­ers are even easier to abuse and exploit. Gar­ment work­ers tell me all they do is falsely change the label to ‘made in Bri­tain.’

“Boo­hoo’s repeated dis­reg­ard of its eth­ical pledge shows brands and retail­ers can­not be trus­ted to police them­selves. New legis­la­tion is needed urgently to force com­pan­ies to behave eth­ic­ally, sus­tain­ably, with severe fin­an­cial and even crim­inal pen­al­ties for those who do not.

“And the gov­ern­ment needs to prop­erly fund and con­duct enforce­ment of laws already in place to pro­tect work­ers from wage exploit­a­tion and dan­ger­ous work­ing con­di­tions. At the moment enforce­ment is a sham: over a three-year period in Leicester, only 60 health and safety inspec­tions and 28 fire safety inspec­tions have taken place among more than 1,000 Leicester gar­ment factor­ies.

“Dur­ing the same period, HMRC made just 36 invest­ig­a­tions into fail­ures to pay the leg­ally required national min­imum wage. I have called in Par­lia­ment for urgent new legis­la­tion to intro­duce a gar­ment trade adju­dic­ator or fash­ion watch­dog to hold brands to proper eth­ical and sus­tain­able stand­ards.”

About the BBC’s alleg­a­tions, a Boo­hoo spoke­man said: “Alison Levitt KC con­duc­ted an inde­pend­ent review and made a num­ber of recom­mend­a­tions to improve work­ing con­di­tions and trans­par­ency. We have imple­men­ted every one of these recom­mend­a­tions includ­ing improv­ing cor­por­ate gov­ernance, strength­en­ing the eth­ical and com­pli­ance oblig­a­tions on those wish­ing to sup­ply Boo­hoo, reg­u­larly pub­lish­ing our full list of approved global man­u­fac­tur­ers, and more.

“We will con­tinue to deliver on the com­mit­ments we’ve made.”

Claudia Webbe MP is the member of Parliament for Leicester East. You can follow her at www.facebook.com/claudiaforLE and twitter.com/ClaudiaWebbe