GOVERNMENT and fashion giants are “clearly failing” on a “vast scale” to protect workers and the environment, socialist MP Claudia Webbe has told the Morning Star.

The MP for Leicester East said that Britain must do its part immediately as she backed a new War On Want report calling for workers and communities bearing the brunt of climate change to be at the heart of plans to make the industry sustainable.

She said exploitative employers bear a “huge responsibility” for building an industry at the expense of the poorest and most vulnerable, but that the “most guilty are the vast corporations and brands who insist on the lowest cost regardless of the consequences, while governments stand by and do nothing.”

“Only in May, we saw reports that BooHoo has been unilaterally cutting prices it pays to garment manufacturers in our city while its directors were awarded bonuses that doubled their handsome salaries,” Ms Webbe pointed out.

She warned that, globally, the consequences are even worse, with workers facing “appalling” poverty and workplace abuses that have led to disasters such as the Rana Plaza collapse in Bangladesh, which killed more than 1,100 people a decade ago, while blighting environments and accounting for up to 10 per cent of global greenhouse emissions.

“Governments and companies have a legal and moral duty duty to protect workers and the environment that they are clearly failing in or disregarding on a vast scale,” she said.

“The global injustice of the industry and the environmental damage that it causes are destroying the planet that we all rely upon and undermining the need of billions in all parts of the globe for a clean, just world.

“I commend this report and call on the government to ensure that the UK does its own part immediately.”

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