Clothing Industry: Ethical and Sustainable Fashion

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts

Thursday 3rd March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall]

My Lords, I join all those who have spoken in congratulating my noble friend—because she is my friend—Lady Young of Hornsey on securing this debate at, as she said, an extraordinarily timely moment; and on her tremendous vigour in seizing this issue and in getting the all-party group going, which is a good and helpful way to bring these issues to the attention of a lot more people. As part of declaring my interests, I am delighted to say that I have joined that group, and I hope that many other noble Lords and Members of the other place will do so in due course.

I should declare another interest in that my son is a member of the small but extremely effective team that makes up the Centre for Sustainable Fashion at the London College of Fashion, which has been mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Young. I am indebted to him and his colleague Dr Kate Fletcher for useful briefing for this debate. As a result of taking on that briefing, I may, rather like my noble friend Lord Sugar, go slightly off-piste in terms of the way that this debate might have been expected to develop. I hope that your Lordships will forgive me.

The fashion industry divides opinion. For those involved in it, it is all consuming and endlessly fascinating. For others, it represents some of the most repellent aspects of a vain, consumerist culture. Personally, I confess to being more fascinated than repelled. I love clothes and I love fashion. What has not yet been said in this debate is that we have to recognise that fashion is part of the entertainment industry, at least to some extent. There is a lot of fun in fashion, and that is what attracts people to it. I particularly love the imagination and creativity of designers, and I admire the artistry of the photographers and stylists through whose eyes we understand their work. Frankly, most of us never get on to the front row, or even the back row, of a catwalk show in fashion week. It is therefore a tremendous pleasure to have the opportunity to talk about these matters in this House.

The noble Baroness, Lady Young, has framed her topic carefully. It refers to the,

“ethical and sustainable fashion and clothing industry”.

Another thing that has not quite been teased out—and I am not going to try to—is the definition of the difference between fashion and clothes; but there is something there that is quite interesting. I want to concentrate on “sustainable” and “clothing”, but in a slightly different way—in perhaps a micro, rather than a macro, way. I want to talk about the old fashioned concept of “make do and mend”—perhaps appropriately in these straitened times.

We have already heard that most of the clothes available today on the high street are made far away in China, Asia or eastern Europe by people who we will probably never meet, working in conditions we would prefer not to think about, for wages that would barely buy us a cup of coffee. These clothes are, as a consequence, absurdly cheap—as we have heard—which allows them to be regarded as disposable. The human, economic and environmental consequences of our overconsumption have been graphically spelt out by other speakers. However, this is a fairly recent phenomenon. Other speakers have touched on how different it was when they were growing up. Certainly, when I was growing up, clothes were relatively much more expensive and there was much less choice.

If you go back a bit further into the 19th century and beyond, the picture is even more starkly different. Clothes had to be made by hand, either by the person who was going to wear them or, for the better off, by a professional tailor or seamstress in the community. Making clothes was hard work. They had to last and they were often therefore reinvented by the addition of small embellishments, such as lace or ribbons, remade to suit changed shape or fashion, or passed on to others. How do I know this? It is not from serious study, but from reading novels—not, I regret, the novels of my noble friend Lady Rendell, but mostly the novels of the 19th century. If you take any of the great writers of that period—Dickens, Trollope, George Eliot, Wilkie Collins, and who remembers The Moonstone and the vital importance of a handmade nightgown to the plot of that novel?—you will find it all there in the detail of those novels. Most women and some men, until two or three generations ago, whatever social class they belonged to, would have had some skill in sewing, knitting, perhaps even lace-making or embroidery, and most importantly in repairing clothes. Such simple domestic accomplishments became unfashionable, I think largely from the point at which women began to seek a wider role in public life. Of course I do not regret that, but it had this consequence, among many others.

Now these skills have become the preserve of specialists. In the theatre, for example, where I have spent most of my professional life, clothes—costumes—are hugely important, both to the people who wear them and to the audiences who look at them. Many, especially in large classical theatre or opera companies, are tailor-made for individual performers, and require not only exceptional skill in cutting and making— comparable to that in fashion houses—but often the application of detailed research into style, fabric and decoration. They must also be made to withstand the rigours of whatever a performance may demand. Consequently, each piece costs a lot to produce and has to be maintained carefully throughout its life, which can be long. Many costumes, once their initial use is fulfilled, go into store, and in time reappear having been refurbished and changed in a completely different production.

This is sustainability in action. We have to ask, in a world of austerity and diminishing resources, whether we should not be learning again to value the ability to make things last, not just as a rare specialism, but as a normal part of everyone’s personal toolkit. Dr Fletcher of the London College of Fashion, to whom I referred earlier, points out that today the extreme cheapness of new clothes has pretty much consigned repair to history, overtaken by a new philosophy of “discard and repurchase”, about which we have heard a great deal this evening. The commercial imperative behind this, from the point of view of the industry, is pretty obvious. She also observes that the fact that most of us lack the practical skills nowadays to repair things ourselves must be partly to do with a general undervaluing of manual skills-based education, compared with academic subjects. It is timely to remember this on the day that the Wolf report is produced. We are not talking about it today, but I note it.

Furthermore, if we want to have our clothes repaired or altered professionally, it is increasingly difficult to find people able to do it. Even when we do, I fear that we are reluctant to pay properly for their services, thus making it hard for small businesses, to which my noble friend Lord Sugar referred—there are lots of them in this industry—to survive. When the Minister replies, I wonder whether he would consider the following questions; they are small but not entirely insignificant, I hope. First, how can the Government help to underline, through our education system and beyond, the importance of having basic skills necessary to get the maximum use from everything we consume? Secondly, what help can the Government give, perhaps through reductions in VAT or other tax breaks, to small businesses such as clothing repair services, aiming at this kind of sustainability?

The fashion industry is highly influential, particularly on young people. If it began to move away from its focus on cheapness and disposability, and started to construct some messages about the importance of conserving, reusing and repairing—it would be very difficult for it, I entirely understand—then the generation that needs to hear might begin to listen. There are some signs that this is about to happen. I hope that they will grow.

Higher Education (Basic Amount) (England) Regulations 2010

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts

Tuesday 14th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Shephard of Northwold]

I intend to make very brief comments because a lot of noble Lords obviously wish to come in and a lot of arguments have already been aired. I welcome the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, as I have not had the chance to welcome him to his present position. I note that the same silky tongue is at work and I am certainly one of those who in the past had very cordial relations with the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, when he was in his trade union situation. Indeed, it extended to him sending me Christmas cards but I do not think that he will send me one this year. Well, he might; yes, he is telling me that he may.

I must declare three interests: I am chairman of the council of the Royal Veterinary College, chairman of the Institute of Education and chairman of the Oxford University Society. This debate is being conducted against cries of outrage from the Opposition but those cries cannot and must not conceal the facts of the matter—the situation in which we are. The Opposition, when in Government, introduced the fee system and the mechanism for uprating which we are debating. We have been castigated for doing this in a hasty manner but that mechanism was put in place by the Opposition. As Steve Smith has said, writing in the Times on 6 December, the coalition Government,

“has chosen a system that builds on the logic of the one introduced in 2006”.

The Opposition, when in Government, set up the Browne review which recommended, among many other things, the lifting of the fees cap. It was a great pleasure and a great illumination to hear from the noble Lord, Lord Browne, today. Liam Byrne, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, left office with the previous Government uttering the immortal words, “There is no money”. I have sympathy with a number of the sentiments expressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, because self-evidently the Opposition have no solution for the problem that they have created and it is down to the coalition Government to find the solution. It is obvious that they have no solution because when the noble Lord, Lord Ashdown, asked the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, for his own policies the noble Lord threw no light. We remain in darkness in that respect.

In contrast, the coalition Government have promised a White Paper—I believe that it will be in the New Year—so that the many detailed complexities and implications of the fees decisions can be examined and consulted upon. I look forward to that White Paper because there are questions that need answering about, for example, the funding of students who are already graduates. We do not have those answers at the moment. I should have thought that almost everyone in this House would be able to produce other questions for which we need the clarity that a White Paper would provide.

The Government have proposed help with fees for the least well-off students for the first year of study and, possibly, for the second. They will invest £150 million to provide a national scholarship programme. Universities which charge fees of over £6,000 will have to demonstrate how they will attract students from the least advantaged backgrounds. The income threshold for the repayment of fees is to be raised from £15,000 to £21,000, which will make around a quarter of graduates better off than with the threshold left in place by the Opposition—not that, from listening to this debate, you would have guessed that—while for the first time, part-time students will be eligible for loan support for tuition costs on the same basis as full-time students.

I believe that the Government have made the best possible fist of the situation bequeathed to them by the previous Government. That is why I will most certainly be supporting the Government today. However, if the fee rise is rejected today, Universities UK has calculated that some 59 per cent—that is its figure, not a government figure—of current higher education places will be lost. I do not see that as fair, inclusive, or socially advantageous but it may be that some of the contributors from the party opposite will explain how they see that as fair and advantageous.

There are also those who advocate delay today. I suggest that if they have ever run an institution, an organisation or a business, they ask themselves how they could make any attempt at planning staff numbers, course numbers or student numbers if they do not know the most basic thing: what the income will be of the institution that they run. By rejecting the fee increase today, we will be imposing on all our higher education institutions the chaos of confusion and uncertainty. Everyone in this House supports higher education. Many of us are the beneficiaries of it. But I would not want to impose that uncertainty on those institutions that we hold dear by withholding a decision today.

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall]

Will the noble Baroness not concede that part of the reason why Universities UK and other institutions that are not members of that organisation are worried about the possibility that this regulation may not go through is that they know that the Government propose to withdraw the teaching grant? That is what will make their financial situation so unpredictable, not the question of whether fees go up.

[Baroness Shephard of Northwold]

Who does the noble Baroness think is responsible for the situation that we are in? It is her party, the party opposite.

Queen's Speech

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall]

My Lords, I begin by joining in the congratulations that have been offered to the two new Ministers. I should like also to extend my own commiserations to the noble Lord, Lord Henley, in the task he faces in summing up this extraordinarily wide-ranging debate. I should also like to congratulate my noble friend Lord Myners, who gave us an absolutely barnstorming speech. His intention to retreat to the Back Benches has provoked what it would be fair to say are lamentations around the House, so I invite him to consider his contribution today as perhaps the first of many final appearances at the Dispatch Box.

I want to talk about a particular aspect of business but, before I do, I should like to say something about transport. As a supporter of the stop Stansted expansion campaign for some years, I welcome the withdrawal of BAA’s planning applications for additional runways at Heathrow and Stansted airports and the part that the new Government’s declaration of intent has played in provoking that long overdue decision. How much it was attributable to government action and how much to BAA losing the will to live in the face of very well organised and effectively marshalled economic and environmental arguments I could not say but, either way, I hope the Government will remain steadfast on the critical issue of airport expansion. When they come to review aviation policy, I hope they will not revive the crippling uncertainties that have blighted communities in Sipson and north Essex for nearly a decade. When the Minister comes to reply I hope he can reassure me on this point.

I turn now to business, albeit of a kind that does not often get mentioned in the same breath as the City and high finance, so I am taking this opportunity to discuss the creative industries where they belong—in company with other significant contributors to this country’s economic effort. Too often they are assumed to inhabit a different bit of the political universe. The term “creative industries” covers everything from the mega-commercial, mega-successful worlds of computer gaming, blockbuster publishing and multi-million dollar film franchises such as Harry Potter and James Bond, right down to tiny one or two-person enterprises making, for example, hand-crafted jewellery, designing fashion or creating i-phone applications. The result of this diversity is a mass of output and a body of talented people whose skills are in demand all over the world. The UK creative industries are a success, accounting for, according to DCMS figures published earlier this year, 6.2 per cent of gross value added in 2007; exporting £16.6 billion worth of services in the same year, which was 4.5 per cent of all goods and services exported; and in 2008 there were coming up to 2 million jobs in the sector, of which 1.1 million were in the creative industries themselves and a further 800,000 plus creative jobs were within other businesses.

By any standards these are significant figures generated by businesses which deserve our respect and support and not the lofty disdain manifested, for example, in a curiously sour piece in a recent edition of Prospect, which makes the fundamental error of assuming that, because we talk about the economic benefits of a strong creative and cultural sector, we elevate the importance of those benefits over the quality of what is created. That is simply wrong.

In a thoughtful speech last month, the new Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport, Jeremy Hunt, said:

“For me, culture is not just about the value of our creative industries—not just about more than 3 million visits to UK cinemas each week, more than 40 million visits to our national museums and galleries each year, or more than 14 million visits to the theatre in London alone—it is what defines us as a civilised nation.

I agree with that sentiment from the bottom of my heart, but I also recognise the economic impact creative industries have had and can continue to have as long as they are not cut off at the knees by the insensitive application of harsh economic correctives or the loss of support for fledgling enterprise.

The noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, emphasised the new Government’s belief that economic recovery in this country must be led by the private sector, particularly SMEs. Contrary to popular belief, most creative businesses are in the private sector and many are SMEs—for instance, in independent television production, the fashion industry or, indeed, computer gaming—but their market is globalised and highly competitive and they need to be encouraged in two significant ways, both of which require government to play a part. The first is that many of them depend on high skills levels, including in design, mathematics and computing. I refer your Lordships to the findings on this subject in a report published earlier this year by the House of Lords Select Committee on Communications looking into the film and television industries. Higher education has an important part to play in delivering these skills—and here I acknowledge the remarks of my noble friend Lord Jones—and severe cuts to that sector will have a negative impact on our creative industries. Secondly, the commercial viability of, for example, London theatre, which has an astonishing track record of success both here and overseas, depends significantly on talent and material nurtured in publicly funded organisations such as the National Theatre, the Chichester Festival Theatre and the Royal Court. The recent 4 per cent cut administered to the Arts Council, which was more than to other DCMS bodies, makes me wonder whether the Government have yet fully understood the symbiotic nature of public and private enterprise in the cultural sector.

However, I recognise that, at a time when the national watchword appears to be austerity, there can be no expectation of special treatment and I do not ask for it. What I do ask is that our creative industries, for which the UK is very widely admired, should not be treated less well than other sectors and that their particular needs and unique contribution should be properly respected.