House of
Lords panel discussion on Trade out of Poverty
On Wednesday
25 June I joined representatives of retail and trade justice
organisations in the Members’ Dining Room of the Houses of Parliament for
afternoon tea. We had been invited by the Fairtrade Foundation and the Ethical Trading Initiative to a panel discussion chaired by Baroness Young of Hornsey.
I’d never
been inside the Houses of Parliament before and as a self-confessed political
geek I found it exhilarating to be inside Pugin’s iconic building. Despite the
presence of tourists and invited guests milling around, there is an eerie hush
as you move through corridors lined with leather benches and stained glass
windows. The Members’ Dining Room has a magnificent view over the river Thames
and its plush surroundings provided a rather jarring counterpoint to our
discussion about the difficulties faced by workers in the developing world.
Baroness
Young opened the debate by talking about the Rana Plaza disaster and the recent
reports of slavery in the Thai prawn fishing industry, to indicate that
workers’ rights are at the forefront of many consumers’ minds.
The Minister for Employment Relations and Consumer Affairs, Jenny Willott described the statistics produced by the department showing 83% of consumers think it is important for retailers to have an
ethical policy and 40% of consumers would change their buying behaviour in
response to a company’s ethics. She said she was shocked that
many of the retailers whose clothes were made by factories in the Rana Plaza
complex were not even aware that this was part of their supply chain, and
forcing companies to examine and be accountable for their supply chain was the
best way to ensure such a disaster did not happen again. Ms Willott argued that
transparency was the best way to harness the power of both consumers and shareholders to choose to take
their business and investment elsewhere.
Giles Bolton, Tesco’s Head of Ethical Trading Policy said that trade was the most sustainable way out of poverty and that millions of Chinese had been raised out of poverty due to multinational companies moving production there. He talked about the recent reports
of slavery in the Thai prawn industry and stated that Tesco had
learned an important lesson about reducing supply chains in order to ensure traceability.
Baroness Young added that it sometimes felt like journalists were the only
people willing to trace supply chains and wondered why it was so hard for
companies to do the same work as journalists.
Chief Adam Tampuri,
Chair of Fairtrade Africa, and a cashew nut farmer from Ghana concentrated on the ways in which Fairtrade benefits
farmers and their communities. He explained how empowered his community feels
when given the opportunity to decide how the Fairtrade premium is spent, and
that they really value feedback from all stages of the supply chain so they can
build better businesses. He stressed the importance of investment not just in
farmers but in moving all aspects of the production process to the developing world
so that more and better jobs are created and so that farmers’ children are no
longer reliant on one industry, giving them more choices.
In short, then: transparency; no forced labour; capacity building - three of the Ten Principles of Fair Trade which underpin everything BAFTS hopes to achieve.
Working in
fair trade for almost ten years now I have heard these arguments many times
before but I came away from this meeting pleased that trade justice issues were
being raised in such a high profile place and with so many mainstream retailers
present. As well as Tesco I noticed representatives from Waitrose, M&S, New
Look and H&M as well as committed Fairtrade brands like Divine chocolate
and many more. Maybe it’s time for ethical trade to move out of the margins and
into the mainstream
Joanna
Pollard
BAFTS Chair
