Textiles and Clothing Sectors: Environmental Sustainability

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts

Monday 22nd July 2019 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch to ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to improve the environmental sustainability of the textiles and clothing sectors.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Gardiner of Kimble) (Con)]

My Lords, we are working with WRAP and the industry through the Sustainable Clothing Action Plan to reduce the industry’s carbon emissions, water usage and waste. Recently we launched a £4.7 million grant scheme to support innovation in plastic and textile recycling. We are also undertaking the necessary research to develop an extended producer responsibility scheme for textiles. To drive the market towards durable, repairable and recyclable products, we are developing proposals on regulatory standards and labels.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for that reply, but does he share my concern about the huge environmental impact of throwaway fashion trends? In the UK, we buy more clothes per person than in any other country in Europe—five times what we bought in the 1980s—and we have created 1.3 million tonnes of waste. At the same time, textile production creates 1.2 billion tonnes of carbon every year—more than aviation and shipping combined. What are the Government doing to educate consumers to act more sustainably and wear their clothes for longer, and why do they not make textile producers pay for the environmental cost of materials that cannot be reused, repaired or recycled?

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, that is precisely why it is very important that the Sustainable Clothing Action Plan, which includes 60% of those involved in the clothing industry in this country, bears fruit. There has already been an 11.9% drop in carbon per tonne and a 17.7% drop in water per tonne of clothing. We need to ensure that that is our direction of travel, and it is why I mentioned labelling. Clearly, most consumers want to do the right thing. I find fast fashion a strange concept, in so far as I am not a good example of it. I think we should use clothes for longer and repair them, and I am in the market for knowing where my shirts can be repaired.