Textiles and Clothing Sectors: Environmental Sustainability

Baroness Benjamin Excerpts

Monday 22nd July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, I am a great fan of wool and of pastoral farming. When I was at the Hampton Court flower show, I saw the latest compost made, without the need for peat, from bracken and wool; that great product has many important qualities. I am delighted that Bradford is leading the way but we also need behaviour change. I was intrigued to discover that if we lower temperatures in our washing, we will reduce the CO₂ emissions quite considerably. There are a lot of things we can all do to play our part.

[Baroness Benjamin (LD)]

My Lords, when I was young, my mother decided we should move to Beckenham in Kent because we would get the best healthcare, the best education and the best jumble sales. The dress I am wearing is over 50 years old; I bought it in a charity shop. It was made in Britain of high-quality material—that is what you call recycling and sustainability. Should the Government not encourage the fashion industry, both retailers and customers, to invest in high-quality British-made clothes, perhaps by considering a levy on cheap, throwaway garments made in sweatshops abroad, which end up in landfill?

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, we must work to ensure that the worst of the waste hierarchy, landfill, is not where our clothes go. I have to say that it cannot be many years ago that the noble Baroness moved to Beckenham; certainly, we need to pay more attention to words such as “reuse” and “second-hand” over fast fashion; I find the ridiculous number of clothes that are used only once absurd. We need to bear down on this. It is about consumer behaviour as well as industry behaving responsibly. We want to work to extend that responsibility, for that very reason.