UK Company Supply Chains

Debate between Mark Durkan and Chris Williamson

Tuesday 16th December 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mark Durkan]

Exactly. That is exactly the point those businesses made, and it was clearly taken on board by Members on both sides of the House. It was also stressed by the trade union movement, which has been an active driver of the ethical trading initiative.

Whenever the Government resisted widening the Bill’s scope, they would tell us that ethical auditing was already taking place. However, ethical auditing, as talked about and supposedly practised over a number of years, is really a badge for big business, rather than a shield for vulnerable, exploited workers. My hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies) and others have quoted examples of scandals that have been identified, including the case of the Thai fishing industry, which was revealed in The Guardian. We were previously told that those things were the subject of ethical auditing—that companies were aware of the issues and would respond to any problems—but it is up to somebody else to show them the problems, and then they respond.

In the example of the Thai fishing industry, there has been some positive response subsequently. After The Guardian exposed the story, with the assistance of Anti-Slavery International, that organisation, along with Thai NGOs, retailers and seafood suppliers, embarked on a project called Issara—the Thai word for “freedom”. The inspections the project team has been able to carry out are already delivering positive results and driving change. That shows that there needs to be effective intervention, as hon. Members have said.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North said, effective intervention should be about making sure not only that companies are liable and held to account for what happens in their supply chain, but that the state has the power to ban goods. What is the point of passing legislation saying that companies will have responsibilities and liabilities in terms of knowing what is going on in their supply chains, saying that we encourage consumers to be responsible, conscientious and aware—for example, that the goods they buy may come from southern India, where young Dalit women and girls are exploited, or from Uzbekistan, where the exploitation involves not just companies, but the Government—and saying that there is a responsibility on consumers, suppliers and retailers, if there is no responsibility on the state? If it is evident that the sourcing or manufacture of a product involves slavery and human rights abuses, there should be the power to ban that product.

Such a power has existed in American law since 1930—since the Tariff Act—and it was in the scope of one of the amendments I tabled to the Bill to say that there should be the power to ban or prohibit something where there was clear evidence of abuse. That amendment would not have imposed a duty on the state to police trading practices in all parts of the world, but it would have been based on the state’s right to respond when someone else brought evidence to it. In the American system, the Department of Homeland Security can be petitioned with evidence, and it would then have the power to issue a ban. If we are serious about dealing with these issues, we should follow through.

[Chris Williamson]

My hon. Friend is right. I am closely following his point about the importance of the state being meticulous in enforcing greater protections. As my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North said, these multinational companies are quick to resort to litigation, and they will spend a lot of money on lawyers. Chevron, for example, had a case brought against it for causing terrible pollution in the Ecuadorian rain forest, but it said it would fight the case

“until hell freezes over and then fight it out on the ice.”

When international companies have that attitude, states need to be strong and to stand up for their citizens; otherwise, these powerful companies will ride roughshod over them.

[Mark Durkan]

I fully accept my hon. Friend’s point. That is why, rather than leaving these issues to all sorts of litigation, there should be the power to ban a product where it can be specifically identified.

I have closely followed all that my hon. Friend has said today and previously about Qatar. Several Members in the Bill Committee mentioned the system of employer-tied visas for domestic workers in the UK, where the visa, which rests with the employer and is almost their property, can be abused in a way that makes the employee their chattel. The style and logic of the visa system used to exploit workers in Qatar are exactly the same, and that should give us all pause for thought.

Information for Backbenchers on Statements

Debate between Mark Durkan and Chris Williamson

Tuesday 20th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Chris Williamson]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention and I freely acknowledge that the Secretary of State came and apologised, but that brings me back to my point. Is an apology or the need to make an apology a sufficient deterrent? Surely what we want on both sides of the House is to ensure that there is no need for Ministers to come and apologise. As the Secretary of State has been so willing to make an apology on five separate occasions, that undermines the value of that censure on a Minister. If we go back 20 or 30 years, perhaps an apology from the Minister might have been a more significant deterrent than it seems to be today. We need to find an alternative mechanism to ensure that these sorts of concerns and problems do not arise in the future.

I come from a local government background and there is a long-standing tradition about such issues in local government. As a former leader of Derby city council, I know that my most significant announcement as leader would be about the budget and the setting of the council tax, and it would be routine for us to embargo the statement that I was going to make to the council chamber. Perhaps that is something that we ought to adopt in this House: Ministers’ statements could be embargoed and that embargo could have some legal force. Perhaps that would be a way of ensuring that the House is treated with the gravitas that, in my view, it deserves.

[Mark Durkan]

Does that not raise the point that if we took up the Leader of the House’s idea of having clearer advance notice of oral statements, the protocol should be that as soon as notice of a statement were given, an embargo would kick in? We would probably then need to change the civil service code as well to prevent leaks and briefings taking place at civil service level rather than from Ministers or Members of the House.

[Chris Williamson]

My hon. Friend makes a particularly cogent point. That would certainly be a valuable way forward.

I know that all new Governments have a political agenda and want to get their legislation on to the statute book, but I have been struck by the breakneck speed at which the new Administration are seemingly determined to railroad legislation through the House. Perhaps that is one reason why there have been so many leaks to the media. The House is not being given sufficient time to scrutinise legislation. This is a cross-party point; I have heard hon. Members on the Government Benches express similar concerns. The Academies Bill is a case in point: there are significant reservations on the Opposition side, but there are also reservations on the Government side and it is regrettable that measures are being railroaded through by the new Administration despite those concerns.

A cross-party consensus on finding a better way forward seems to have emerged. How long has this Parliament been sitting now? I have been elected for about 10 weeks and I do not know how many times you have been called on, Mr Speaker, through various points of order, to admonish Ministers for making statements before coming to the House. That simply cannot go on; it just is not good enough. We have to find a better way of doing business in the Chamber. I hope that we can find cross-party consensus on that, and I hope that Ministers will take this issue more seriously than they have hitherto. I hope also that they will take the possibilities on board, particularly given the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) about giving embargoes legal force and changing the civil service code.