Fashion Industry

Debate between Jim Cunningham and Mary Creagh

Thursday 31st January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mary Creagh]

I thank the hon. Lady for her interest in this subject. Yes, we did hear such evidence, particularly in relation to Turkey and the Syrian refugee crisis. We heard about two 15-year-old Syrian boys working in a factory. The problem with the current model is that the factories are sending in auditors, but everybody knows when they visit. The factory looks spick and span and shiny, and they get shown the official set of accounts. A different set of accounts goes to the tax authorities and there is another set of accounts that controls workers’ wages. The whole supply chain is almost created to incentivise the abuse of manual workers, often women manual workers or what we would class as child manual workers, and we are just prepared to turn a blind eye. The fashion industry has been marking its own homework for far too long.

The traffic light labelling initiative is interesting. What we have tried to do with the 16 different initiatives is look at the landscape that exists at the moment, which is fragmented, complicated and difficult, to see how we can bring it all together and see what is being engaged with. I hope we can tackle some of these very bad labour abuses, not least in our own country.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on a worthwhile and very thorough report. I am sure you remember, Mr Deputy Speaker, that nearly 20 years ago we investigated Barbie dolls. There were allegations then about child labour, as well as the abuse of adult employees on very low wages. It is amazing, listening to the report, that not a lot has really changed. I hope the Minister will say something encouraging on taking up the issue of health and safety in working conditions, particularly in Bangladesh. Some working conditions are appalling.

[Mary Creagh]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. One difficulty is that a lot of fashion work is piecework done in the home, so there is no ability to work out what the minimum wage that should be paid actually is. In many countries there either is not a minimum wage or it is not a living wage—it is not a wage that people can live on. We received supplementary evidence from Boohoo about its £5 dress, which stated that workers in factories in the UK are making seven or eight dresses an hour. I remember when I was doing textiles at school it took me about four weeks to make my skirt. Sadly, someone sold it at Bishop Ullathorne school so I never got to wear it. It was fantastic and it was going to look really good. That was my one chance to make my own garment. The point is that very skilled workers in factories are working really hard, but I do wonder when they are able to make a cup of tea or go for a loo break. In the UK, they are making seven or eight dresses an hour that are being sold for a fiver. That still raises too many questions.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Jim Cunningham and Mary Creagh

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: Second Day: House of Commons
Wednesday 17th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)]

New clause 12, which stands in my name and those of a number of other Members, seeks to guarantee our management of environmental protection after exit day. The environment has been in the news quite a lot recently. The members of the Cabinet all had reusable coffee cups following their meeting yesterday, although I think we shall need a little bit more from the Environment Agency than bamboo cups if we are to protect our environment after Brexit. I was delighted to receive your letter today, Mr Speaker, saying that the House of Commons Commission and the Administration Committee will be looking into how Parliament can reduce its plastic usage. Last Thursday the Government published their 25 Year Environment Plan. They were very clear about what they wanted to achieve, but there was absolute silence on how that was to be done.

A third of the acquis communautaire which applies in the UK is related to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs—it has brought us huge environmental improvements—and 80% of our environmental protections originated in the EU. A third of those protections cannot simply be cut and pasted. The aim of new clause 12 is to prevent us from ending up with “zombie legislation”, no longer updated or enforced, and vulnerable to being quietly dropped at the stroke of a Minister’s pen. The Environmental Audit Committee, which I chair, called for a new environmental protection Act more than a year ago, and the new clause does the same today: it calls for legislation setting up a strong environmental protection agency to monitor and enforce standards, replacing the European Commission. The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs told my Committee in November that such a body would be needed. We await his proposals, but this must be done quickly.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

What my hon. Friend has said is important for another reason. Environmental protection means development, and, as she will know, that means development jobs in towns such as Coventry. There is, for example, the electric car.

[Mary Creagh]

Absolutely. I was thrilled to learn that the electric black cab is being made in Coventry. It is great that Carbodies has a future.

It is important to drive that great innovation, that green growth, across the country. Let us take the example of waste. Twenty years ago we sent almost half our household waste to landfill; now we recycle almost half of it because of the EU’s waste framework directive. We will have no recycling targets after 2020 unless we adopt the EU’s target of 60% by 2030. We need that new environmental protection Act to set out waste targets: that will drive the innovation that we need in reprocessing.

We need reprocessing capacity urgently. As a result of the Chinese ban on the import of contaminated UK waste, 3 million tonnes of paper and 280,000 tonnes of plastic will no longer go to China, and we will have to do something with it on this island. A hard Brexit means that we could end paying tariffs on our waste exports, so exporting our waste to faraway countries will no longer be an option. The Environmental Services Association told my Committee that the industry had invested £5 billion in new infrastructure in the past five years, and could do so again, given the right policy environment. At present, however, there is the risk of a vacuum.

We hear the same story when it comes to cleaning up our beaches. The bathing water directive ended the discharge of untreated sewage into the sea and drove investment in the replacement of lead pipes. The European Investment Bank is the largest debt investor in the UK water industry, holding 13% of gross outstanding debt. There is a risk that, if we cannot gain access to EIB capital, there could be higher borrowing costs for water companies and higher water bills for consumers.

As for air quality, the EU has set out the targets that we should meet in the ambient air quality directive. We are currently missing those targets. I have been through the 58 impact assessments, and air quality does not feature in any of them, although it is one of the most pressing market failures that we face. There is no air quality industry, which is why it is neglected. We have had our final written warning from the Commission. The danger is that when we leave the EU we will not set ourselves stringent standards. There is no agency to set those standards, no agency to monitor them, and no agency to enforce them. The Prime Minister launched the environmental plan last week. She says she wants to phase out unnecessary plastics by 2042. I can tell her now that I am not waiting until I am 75 to clear up our environment. This House needs a vote on a strong environmental protection Act, and a strong environmental protection agency to make sure we pass on a decent environment to our children and grandchildren.

Local Bus Services

Debate between Jim Cunningham and Mary Creagh

Wednesday 5th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mary Creagh]

I want to make some progress; the hon. Gentleman has made his point. We want more people to use buses, because when they do they are able to participate fully in economic, cultural, and social life.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

It is worth remembering that the previous Conservative Government cut the subsidies and imposed privatisation on local authorities. I support the motion, but we must ensure that local authorities are given the tools to do the job. That means money coming from central Government, not passing the issue on to local authorities so that they have to provide the subsidy.

[Mary Creagh]

My hon. Friend makes a good point, and only this morning I met Councillor John McNicholas from Coventry to discuss some of the issues with Centro and the west midlands.

I want to talk about three big issues. The first is why buses are so important to our economy, and the second is what has happened to buses under this Government. Finally, I will set out how a Labour Government will empower local authorities to take control of local transport.

Let me begin with why buses are important. Buses give people the freedom to work, learn, explore new places and connect with new people. Nearly 5 billion bus trips are made in Britain each year, and three times more trips are made by bus than by train. Buses take the unemployed to job interviews and to work, and they take young people to their exams, colleges and into their futures.

I congratulate Councillor Liam Robinson, chair of Merseytravel, who spotted that young people from larger families were not turning up to school on Thursdays and Fridays. Why? Their families had run out of money for bus fares. He negotiated a young person’s ticket where the fare is capped at £2 a day instead of £1.30 a journey. The number of bus users has grown as a result, and young people in Liverpool and Merseyside no longer miss out on their education.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mary Creagh]

I do indeed welcome that. I welcome any innovation from bus companies. It is important that we get large employers working with bus companies to talk about their shift patterns and, in particular, with NHS hospitals, which often tend to be built by the NHS outside city centres, without any consequential thinking about how people will access those health services or designing a bus service for people to use.

[Mr Jim Cunningham]

Despite the cuts to local authorities, which are horrendous in the West Midlands to say the least, we hope to maintain free bus passes for pensioners, although I am not sure that the same goes for Warwickshire.

[Mary Creagh]

My hon. Friend makes an interesting point. Of course, the Prime Minister famously said that he would protect bus passes for pensioners; what he did not say is that there would be any bus services left for people to get on.

Food Prices and Food Poverty

Debate between Jim Cunningham and Mary Creagh

Monday 23rd January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mary Creagh]

I agree. Charities such as the Salvation Army and HelpAge are seeing an explosion in demand as incomes fall, working hours are cut and prices rise.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

I know that my hon. Friend, like me, comes from Coventry. Would she be surprised to learn that 35,000 children from Coventry and Warwickshire will now be on the poverty line, and does she think that that is an indictment of this Government’s failed policies? More importantly, many families are now struggling with electricity prices, heating bills and so on, which is feeding through—