UK Company Supply Chains

Jo Swinson Excerpts

Tuesday 16th December 2014 Westminster Hall

[Chris Williamson (Derby North) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to be serving under your chairmanship this morning, Mr Crausby.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery) on securing this vital debate, and him and my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Jim Sheridan) on their excellent work in highlighting the appalling abuse in the tobacco fields of North Carolina. The exploitation of the workers there shocked me. One hears about the American dream, but those workers were clearly not living the American dream; they were living what can only be described as an American nightmare, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wansbeck pointed out.

Depressingly, such exploitation is happening all around the world, not only in the most powerful nation on the planet, the United States of America. Exploitation is happening not only in developing nations, but in so-called highly developed western democracies. It is also happening, as my hon. Friends mentioned in their contributions, in what is, per capita, the richest nation on earth—Qatar.

I visited Qatar earlier this year with a delegation led by the construction workers’ union UCATT—the Union of Construction, Allied Trades and Technicians—and by the Building and Woodworkers’ International. We went to look at the impact of the World cup, the transformation taking place in that country and the terrible abuses to which construction workers and migrant workers across the piece are being subjected there. Again, I was absolutely shocked. When my hon. Friend the Member for Wansbeck was talking about the squalid circumstances in which the tobacco workers in North Carolina were living, it struck a chord, because that was precisely the kind of thing that I witnessed in Qatar. The working conditions, too, were appalling.

At one level, we can look at Qatar and say, “An amazing transformation is being made in that nation.” I visited what I believe to be the largest construction site anywhere in the world and it is incredible what is being done in the country, but there is absolutely no excuse for the kind of exploitation that migrant workers are being subjected to in order to make the transformation. Money cannot be the reason why people are being exploited, because Qatar is the richest nation on the planet, as I said. Nevertheless, it is subjecting workers to terrible working conditions, such as the heat of the day, and terrible living conditions.

When we arrived in Qatar, 1,200 workers had already lost their lives since the World cup had been awarded to the country. At an attrition rate of that level, 4,000 construction workers will have lost their lives before a ball is kicked in the World cup. That cannot be right and cannot be allowed to go on. There can be no excuse. What saddened me most of all was the fact that British companies are implicated in such exploitation.

On our trip, we visited Balfour Beatty, which at the time was carrying out some work in Qatar. A senior Balfour Beatty representative to whom we spoke told us, when we put it to him that workers were being subjected to such terrible exploitation, “You mustn’t look at this through western eyes. These people like to live together—in these appalling squalid circumstances.” He did not say the last bit, but that is what the circumstances in which they are living are like.

People are brought to Qatar by disreputable recruitment agencies, who lie to them about how they will be able to earn riches beyond their dreams, to send money back to their families and in effect to be set up for life. They are charged up to £1,500 for the privilege of getting there, but when they arrive they are told, “The salary you were told you were going to earn is not true. We will rip up that contract that you thought you had signed and give you this one. You can’t go back to your home country, by the way, because we will have your passport off you.” So people are trapped and, before they start to earn anything, they have to pay back the recruitment agency up to £1,500. They were told that they would earn a huge sum, but they are only earning about £30 a week. Those are skilled people—skilled tradesmen—who at best are earning about £30 to £35 a week. That is completely wrong and it is disgraceful that British companies are involved in that process.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies) hit the nail on the head when he talked about how the senior representatives in companies say, “We didn’t know anything about it.” I took it upon myself to get the House of Commons Library to provide me with a list, as best they could, of all the British companies operating in Qatar today. I have written to each and every single one of them demanding to know what steps they are taking to stop that exploitation.

When people are working incredibly hard, they are entitled to live in decent accommodation. In Qatar, not only do they work long days, but the labour camps are miles away from the construction sites; before people even start their day’s work, they have a one or two-hour bus journey and they have another at the end of the day. I was absolutely shocked. Yes, the conditions were squalid and filthy, but people have also not even got mattresses to sleep on, and there were eight, 10 or 12 people to a tiny room.

I could not believe what I was seeing—people did not even have mattresses. They were sleeping on bunk beds of hard, solid planks of wood. After a long, hard day of grafting in the heat of the day—I used to work in the construction industry so I know what a hard job it is, although we did not work those hours or in that kind of heat—they go home to appalling filth and squalor and they cannot even get a decent night’s sleep because they have to sleep on a hard plank of wood. Then the representative of Balfour Beatty tells us, “You mustn’t look at this through western eyes.” That kind of colonial mentality still seems to pervade these British companies.

The other point my hon. Friends referred to was the lack of trade union recognition in the tobacco fields. We put that to the Qatari authorities. It is vital that there should be freedom of association and the right to form a trade union in order to secure workers’ rights, and we want to see that. In fact, we could do with much greater trade union membership in this country, with the Government encouraging that rather than continually attacking the unions and their attempts to secure workers’ rights over here. My hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore talked about the cockle pickers—would they not have benefited from being members of a trade union? They certainly would not have been put at risk of losing their lives.

It was Ted Heath who once talked about the “unacceptable face of capitalism.” Here we have just that in the examples highlighted by my hon. Friends and what I saw in Qatar. That is the unacceptable face of capitalism and British companies are implicated in it. When I wrote to those companies, all bar one of them—I think—came back to me and effectively said, “It’s nowt to do with us, guv—we don’t employ these workers directly.” They were washing their hands of the issue in a kind of Pontius Pilate approach. They say, “You can’t blame us,” but they are happy to take the profits from this huge transformation.

It is incumbent on the Government today—I hope that the Minister will do this when she responds to the points made by my hon. Friends—to explain what they are doing about the British companies implicated in exploiting workers across the globe. From the United States of America to Qatar and beyond, that must stop and the Government have a huge and important role to play in making it stop. When we have asked questions about that, we have heard encouraging words from Ministers. They have said that human rights are sacrosanct and that they will certainly bring pressure to bear on the Governments—and, I hope, the companies—who are implicated.

However, there is a twin pressure. While on the one hand we hear welcome talk from Ministers who say, “Human rights is important and we’re going to bring pressure,” on the other hand, when we are talking about places such as Qatar, the rewards are immense because the contracts run into many billions of pounds. I know that representatives from Qatar have been here and have had meetings with the Mayor of London and, as I understand it, with Ministers too—I do not know what they spoke about, but I understand that they are keen to secure work in Qatar—so I wonder whether the Government are speaking with a forked tongue. I hope that they are not, because it is really important that their response is about not just rhetoric, but action. That is what I want to hear.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Jo Swinson)]

indicated assent.

[Chris Williamson]

I am pleased to see the Minister nodding her head. I hope that, when she gets up, she will tell us about some of the positive actions that the Government have taken and those that they propose to take to ensure that we do not have, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore said, the continual race to the bottom. British companies and the British Government should be about a race to the top. We should be setting standards. We have a proud tradition going back many years of standing up for human rights, so it is really important that the Government step up to the plate in all the circumstances highlighted, including those I highlighted in Qatar.

I want to close with a quotation from Thomas Piketty’s best-selling book in America, “Capital in the Twenty-First Century.” He said:

“Capitalism should be the slave of democracy, not the other way around.”

I could not have put it better myself. That is essential, because if capitalism is not the slave of democracy and it serves only the richest and most powerful people around the world, what is the point of it? If it is only about exploiting ordinary working people, I would say let us throw it aside and have a socialist state in every nation. However, I am not actually asking for that. Capitalism can work, but we need to make it work—we need to make it the slave of democracy. In conclusion, when we hear from the Minister, I hope that she will give us some indication of how the Government will ensure that workers are protected and that capitalism is indeed made to be a slave of democracy, not the other way around.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Jo Swinson)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Crausby. It is also a great pleasure to respond to this thoughtful and powerful debate. It is customary on such occasions to say that this has been a good debate, but it really has been striking, particularly the number of examples of individuals who are suffering in the most horrific conditions. Sometimes the discussion of business issues and human rights becomes abstract, and bringing it back to individuals is helpful.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery) on securing this debate and on sharing his personal testimony and experience of the individuals he has visited. He is right that this is an issue on which there is a moral duty. Of course there are business benefits from improving human rights, as the hon. Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies) and others have said, and it is important that we make that business case, but the hon. Member for Wansbeck put his finger on it when he said that this is a moral duty. We are all human beings, and human rights are universal. Whatever we do and whatever our role, whether we are working in business, politics or the media, we have a responsibility to other human beings and to ensure that human rights are upheld.

The Government are taking a range of action, of which I am proud and which I warmly welcome and champion, from narrative reporting to our work with different sectors, including the retail sector, to ensure that they are improving their practices. We have also amended the Modern Slavery Bill to address supply chain reporting, to which I will return. At EU level there is also non-financial reporting, and of course we support these issues at the United Nations through the business and human rights action plan, which we were the first country to create. We can take international leadership on this issue, but that does not mean that there is any room for complacency.

It is also important to recognise that, although the issue is simple in terms of morality and what is right, it unfortunately is not simple to work out how to stop human rights abuses. Various Members have mentioned that some companies sometimes offer the excuse, “We didn’t know what was going on,” but it is true that it can be difficult for companies to get to the bottom of every part of their supply chain. There is a role for sharing best practice and for helping companies to understand the best way to get that information. There is a dividend or benefit from taking the issue seriously and creating what the hon. Member for Ogmore described as a race to the top. We need to do that.

Earlier this month I was in Geneva for the UN forum on business and human rights. It was the third time the forum has taken place, which shows how international business is taking this issue more seriously. The feedback I received from the 1,900 delegates was that the forum was much more constructive and positive both for business groups and for non-governmental organisations than in the previous two years, which is a sign of progress. I met a group of UK businesses that have signed up to the UN global compact, which commits them to reporting annually on the actions they are taking on a range of issues from working conditions to environmental impacts and human rights. Businesses turning up to the UN forum on business and human rights are probably already fairly committed to taking the issue seriously, but it is good that the forum shows that a large number of UK companies are doing so.

[Anas Sarwar]

It is good to hear about that international co-ordination to ensure that multinational companies are rightly reflecting on this issue, but that principle should also apply across Government here in the UK. Is the Minister therefore disappointed that the Department for International Development has withdrawn its funding for the International Labour Organisation?

[Jo Swinson]

I will happily speak to colleagues in DFID and write to the hon. Gentleman with a fuller answer. A range of international organisations play a hugely important role, and obviously the Government always need to consider the best way to further our overall objectives. I will certainly write to him on the specifics of that point.

There were many NGO representatives in Geneva who were rightly passionate about ensuring access to justice for victims of human rights abuses. I spoke a little of my personal commitment to this issue. Indeed, one of my political heroines when I was growing up and deciding to study business was Anita Roddick. She was a pioneer in proving that business has a social responsibility that needs to be taken seriously. I remember reading her book, “Business as Unusual,” which I found incredibly inspiring on the role that business can play. Business should be, and often can be, a force for good in our society. It ought to be a way of taking humanity forward, rather than ultimately being responsible for exploitation. Capitalism goes wrong when that happens, as some Members mentioned, but business is able to be a force for good.

As I said, many UK businesses are taking this issue seriously, but some are perhaps not taking it as seriously as they should. The examples we have heard today back that up. The hon. Member for Wansbeck talked very powerfully about the squalid conditions in North Carolina. We are used to talking about such issues in other parts of the world, but we would not necessarily expect it to happen in a country such as America. That juxtaposition of such wealth with such poverty and disregard for rights is awful, particularly when he talked about the example of a seven-year-old girl or someone who had part of their finger cut off without even being able to get hospital treatment.

The hon. Member for Ogmore rightly focused on the responsibility of big companies such as supermarkets and their power to drive change. He is right that, if something is incredibly cheap, it is not always the result of wonderful business efficiency. Sometimes that might be the case, but sometimes it means that someone, somewhere is being exploited, and he is right to point that out.

The hon. Gentleman also addressed the comparability of reporting so that people can compare apples with apples, rather than with oranges, which is a useful analogy in the context of our conversation about the food industry. This is an important issue, and at the event in Geneva there were some interim results from an interesting, in-depth study by The Economist on business attitudes to human rights. One of the early indications is that, when business leaders were asked what would make the biggest difference to their behaviour, they talked about some kind of benchmarking tool so that companies can be compared. Such a tool needs to be developed with care because these are genuinely complex issues, but UK companies such as Aviva are leading the way. There is an exciting project to create a human rights benchmark so that companies across the country, and internationally, can be compared so that we may have a proper analysis of their human rights records.

The hon. Member for Derby North (Chris Williamson) relayed stories about his experiences in Qatar, and they are a hugely powerful account of disgraceful behaviour, particularly in such an incredibly rich country. What I found most breathtaking about his speech was Balfour Beatty’s reported comment that we must not look at this issue through western eyes. I was blown away by that comment. Human rights are universal. Whether someone is in squalid conditions and having to work ridiculous hours here or in another part of the world, we should be concerned and acting to change the situation—responsible UK companies will act to change the situation.

I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s action on writing to UK companies, and I know that he wants action from the Government, which is why we are introducing the reporting requirement on supply chains so that companies have to say what they are doing on slavery and trafficking. I am delighted that that amendment has been made to the Modern Slavery Bill. I have met campaigners on that issue over the past couple of years, and there is a strong case for introducing the requirement to drive transparency and change behaviour.

The hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) mentioned the voice of business, and there is a strong voice within the business community, which wants to see progress on these issues and is supportive of many of these measures. This is a complex issue, which is why the solution cannot be easily described in a soundbite; it is about proper engagement with business, and it is about taking the UN guiding principles that were developed by Professor Ruggie over a significant course of time and therefore have the buy-in of key players. He and his team are still very involved in trying to make that a reality. The UK has published its action plan, and a handful of countries have now published their own action plans, but we must ensure that we use that leadership to do what we need to do in our own country and to encourage other countries to do the same. I fully believe that in 20 or 30 years, this will be seen as a key and obvious business issue, but we are now at the stage where it has to be established. We have made great progress compared with 10 or 15 years ago, but there is still a lot more to do. I welcome today’s debate.