Debates between Shabana Mahmood and Jim Dobbin during the 2010-2015 Parliament

Garment Industry (Working Conditions)

Debate between Shabana Mahmood and Jim Dobbin
Wednesday 30th April 2014

(10 years, 6 months ago)

Westminster Hall
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Jim Dobbin Portrait Jim Dobbin (in the Chair)
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

Order. Interventions are meant to be short.

Shabana Mahmood Portrait Shabana Mahmood
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I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, which highlighted a number of important issues. I will come to building standards a little later.

As I was saying, I did not feel that even what I accepted was a good factory represented a safe environment in which I would happily rock up for work, do my shift and go home without thinking that I had taken my life in my hands. That is a stark reminder, if one were needed, that even with minimum standards in place—there has been a lot of good work on getting standards in place for the sector in Bangladesh post-Rana Plaza—there is a long way to go, first to meet those standards in the first place and then to get the kind of working conditions in that part of the world that workers in many other parts of the world, particularly in this country, enjoy.