Rebecca Paul
MP for Reigate · Conservative · United Kingdom
“Britain’s steel industry is not competitive, because of high energy costs and excessive red tape, but instead of addressing the root causes, this Labour Government revert back to their default solution of nationalisation. Why are this Government so keen to take us back to the 1970s?”
“The previous Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds), said that the Government would seek to find a buyer for British Steel, and several parties have expressed interest. Are discussions ongoing with those parties, and if not, why not?”
“I recently invited residents to vote for their favourite local businesses in my constituency. Will the Leader of the House join me in congratulating MLP Wealth Management in Banstead, which won best overall small business; the Chapel in Reigate, which won best independent café; Murray Designs in Reigate, which won best independent shop; a…”
“The Secretary of State will know that e-bikes do not require insurance, but we are seeing some pedestrians suffer catastrophic injuries due to the additional weight of these bikes compared with a normal bike. Is she giving any consideration to reviewing the rules on this issue?”
“I thank the hon. Member for Tooting (Dr Allin-Khan) for securing the debate. This is a really important topic, and I do not think there has been enough focus on it in the last few years. Her speech was very powerful, and the hon.”
“The problem was not down to their lack of commitment or compassion; it was down to a system that is operating without enough physical space to meet the excessive demand placed upon it. The previous Secretary of State, the right hon.”
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“I draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. The key concern I hear from parents and carers in Reigate, Redhill, Banstead and our villages is that they fought for years, or are still fighting, to get support. Can the Education Secretary reassure my constituents that they will not lose the hard-fought-for support that they are entitled to?”
“Children learn how to interact with others from their main caregivers. What are the Minister’s plans to support strong families, given that it is likely to be the most impactful way a Government can ensure healthier relationships?”
“Will the Minister confirm when we can expect to see both the gender-questioning guidance and the revised code of practice from the Equality and Human Rights Commission? My final point is on the need to be honest about where the deeper formation of relationships happens. Schools matter and good teachers can be life-changing, but let us not lose sight of the fact that children spend most of their time outside the classroom. The attitudes that shape relationships are forged primarily at home, as well as online and in peer groups. If we want healthy relationships, we cannot pretend that a curriculum document can substitute for a loving and nurturing family structure. Families can come in all different shapes and sizes, but the important thing is that they are loving, nurturing and respectful.”
“On that point, I hope we might hear something today about the Government’s unresolved approach to gender-questioning guidance for schools and the release of the long-awaited code of practice on single-sex spaces following the recent Supreme Court ruling. The Government cannot claim to support healthy relationships so long as they leave schools to navigate the issue without proper guidance. It is incumbent on this Government to reinforce rules that entitle our girls and women to privacy from males when they are getting changed—that is basic safeguarding. We received the draft non-statutory guidance on gender-questioning children back in December 2023, but two years later, schools and parents are still waiting for it to be published.”
“Good RSHE can be a protective factor when it is age-appropriate, factual and taught impartially, but it is also important to recognise that schools should not try to replace the education that should be the family’s role. There is a careful balance to be struck. As well as confident, self-assured boys, we need confident, self-assured girls who are clear about their boundaries and what behaviours they are willing to accept and not accept. That means not telling them that selling their bodies is empowering, not expecting them always to be kind, and not telling them that the feelings of men are more important than their safety.”
“Our answer to a genuine question about the abuse of girls has been to tell a generation of boys, “You are the problem,” and then we are surprised when that approach, instead of nurturing healthy relationships, creates resentment and pushes more young men towards the very online subcultures that feed off grievance and rejection. Instead, we need to positively embrace what being a good man, a good partner and a good father look like. Fundamentally, boys need positive role models from which to learn and model their own relationships. That is why fathers and other male role models are so important. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s thoughts on that. When it comes to education on healthy relationships, we have seen an ever-growing load of subject matter covering issues from relationships to mental health.”
“The Conservatives have backed it all the way, and I ask the Minister to do so too. The Government’s proposal to ban strangulation content is welcome and a positive step forward. I am concerned that our strong desire to eradicate VAWG has led to boys and men being unnecessarily demonised. There is a difference between calling out abusive behaviour and labelling a whole set of masculine attributes as toxic. Masculinity is a wonderful thing—the yang to femininity’s yin—and it is certainly not toxic in the great majority of cases, particularly when it is not fuelled by online porn.”
“The risks and harms arising from the online world are feeding this problem. Pornography is available online at the touch of a button on smartphones. Let me be clear: this is harmful stuff that depicts strangulation, rape, violence and degrading acts such as spitting on young women. Any young man seeing such misogynistic content day in, day out will inevitably view women and girls differently. They will be more likely to see them as an object to use and degrade. By comparison, the relatively trivial amount of time spent learning the opposite in a classroom cannot hope to offset that. The single best thing we can do to stem the tide is to introduce a ban on smartphones in schools for under-16s and increase the age limit for social media to 16. That will not address the whole issue, of course, but it will massively help.”
“Although relationship education in schools can go only so far in addressing male violence against women and girls, it nevertheless plays an important role in educating young people on what positive and healthy relationships looks like, and the importance of putting in place clear boundaries. Those skills are vital in navigating relationships, recognising potential abuse, including coercive control, and knowing how and when to seek help when needed. Relationship education was made compulsory in all primary and secondary schools in 2020. It has several core objectives: to foster pupil wellbeing, to develop resilience and character, and to ensure that pupils are happy, successful and productive members of society. In spite of that, shockingly, nearly three women every single week are killed by men, and many, many more are raped and abused.”
“That included quadrupling the funding for victim and witness support services by 2024-25, and it complemented the £300 million investment in the 2021 tackling VAWG strategy as part of the goal to drive down the prevalence of domestic abuse. The previous Government also created two new offences: stalking and stalking involving fear of violence, serious alarm or distress. That made it easier for victims to hold stalkers to account. On top of that, we also outlawed upskirting to further protect women and girls, criminalised revenge porn and deepfakes, and introduced the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 and, accordingly, domestic abuse protection notices and orders. We are clear that robust action against offenders is vital in the fight against VAWG.”
“In most cases, the way we would wish to be treated ourselves is probably a good place to start our relationships with others, but we continue to see high levels of violence against women and girls, as well as other kinds of abuse such as coercive control, with no real signs of reduction. That suggests something is going badly wrong, and the Government have rightly set challenging ambitions to address this huge societal problem. We very much welcome the Government’s recently published VAWG strategy and their ambition to halve such violence, and we hope it will build on the work undertaken by the previous Government. The Conservatives elevated violence against women and girls to a crime type that policing leaders must treat as a national threat, and we committed over £230 million to the tackling domestic abuse plan from 2022 to 2025.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Jardine. I congratulate the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Maya Ellis) on a refreshing, measured, fantastic speech. Like the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson), I expected a slightly different topic, but it was pleasing to hear so much about the importance of strong families. Maybe we can do this debate again and I will write a slightly different speech. Between us all, we will cover various aspects that are relevant and important. I would also like hon. Members to know that I, too, am watching season 4 of “Bridgerton”—a classic Cinderella tale—which is very enjoyable. Healthy relationships are underpinned by respect.”
“If we export, we grow. A point in the application for the debate referenced UKFT estimates that suggest that onshoring could unlock substantial additional growth, jobs and tax receipts. There is a real prize here, particularly in places where manufacturing capability already exists or could be rebuilt. For communities that have lived through the loss of industrial jobs, modern textile manufacturing, technical fabrics and high-value apparel production can be part of a new story: one compatible with innovation, automation and clean growth. However, that can happen only if the right environment is created for those businesses. On behalf of His Majesty’s Opposition, I commit that we will continue to press for a serious, pro-growth approach to business and trade that would allow industries such as fashion and textiles to flourish.”
“In 2023, the then Business and Trade Secretary, who has now gone on to greater things, set out that her Department was engaging and promoting fashion and textile companies domestically and internationally, noting that fashion, footwear and textiles exports totalled £7.5 billion in 2022, and that Government funding was supporting London Fashion Week through the British Fashion Council, and supporting UKFT activity at key international trade shows. I hope the current Government will be as robust in their support. Such support matters, because onshoring does not sit in a silo. A stronger domestic manufacturing base goes hand in hand with strong exports and with a globally respected brand Britain. If we have a solid local supply chain, we attract design talent. If we attract design talent, we build brands. If we build brands, we export.”
“Thirdly—I was shocked to learn that this was an issue—past labour compliance issues in British factories have damaged trust to the point that some companies will remain wary of, or keep in place concrete policies against, UK sourcing until they are confident that these issues are resolved. Such circumstances make further basing or investment into the UK a difficult proposition for reputation-conscious firms. That clearly needs to be addressed, but with a careful eye on not heaping even more regulatory burdens on compliant, law-abiding businesses.”
“The Government’s lack of action on bringing the cost of energy down, the imposition of the jobs tax, higher business rates and the disastrous Employment Rights Act 2025 show that they do not get it. Secondly, there is the issue of skills. When a country loses capacity, it also risks losing the training pipeline. We can talk about onshoring, but if there are not enough skilled people to do the work, the opportunity will be taken elsewhere. That is why, in previous debates, Members in both Houses have raised the need for stronger skills routes relevant to garment and textile manufacturing, and why the engagement with industry on training and technical education undertaken by the previous Government mattered.”
“Traceability is becoming a brand asset in and of itself. That is why the UK Fashion and Textile Association points to the opportunity for technology such as QR codes, radio frequency identification or even AI-enabled systems to strengthen transparency and build consumer trust in “Made in the UK” as a mark of ethical production. If that is the opportunity, we also need to recognise the barriers to us benefiting from it. First, there is cost, which I have mentioned a number of times, given its importance. UKFT’s “Reshoring for Real” report captures a real appetite among brands to source more domestically, but only if the cost model makes sense and if standards can be trusted. It really is not rocket science: if we want companies to onshore production, we need to make it cheaper for them to do so.”
“Major retailers have described how customs-related supply chain frictions, increased admin costs and global events affecting major routes, including disruption around the Suez canal, have impacted transit times and driven up costs across the industry. There is clearly an appetite to address these issues by producing closer to home—maybe even at home—so that does present an opportunity. Considerations around sustainability can also play to our advantage. The rapid rise of so-called fast fashion has pushed production far from the consumer, and has often pushed environmental and social costs wholly out of sight. Now, though, we are in an era where customers, investors and regulators are far less willing to accept, “We didn’t know,” as an excuse. They want to know that their clothing has been produced ethically.”
“Many different services and skills are needed to transform fabrics into finished garments. Designers, technicians, machinists, graders, pattern cutters, fabric technologists, dye houses, finishing plants, logistics and aftercare all play an essential role. I saw that at first hand just before I entered politics, when I worked for the retailer Jigsaw, which is also very much known for its knitwear—that seems to be a theme today. We are not going to get to a point anytime soon where every button and zip can be made in this country. Frankly, without a cheap energy plan, we will not even see garments made here either. Warm words are not enough to bring about the change the hon. Member for Hornsey and Friern Barnet is calling for, but businesses are now discovering that cheaper production on the other side of the world has its downsides.”
“However, the good news is that we can still compete when it comes to quality and speed, with many businesses where cost is not the driving motivation choosing to source from the UK—knitwear being a good example. Despite the challenges, the fashion and textile industry in the UK is significant and important. UK Fashion and Textile Association research commissioned from Oxford Economics found that the wider sector supported a £62 billion contribution to UK GDP, 1.3 million jobs and more than £23 billion in tax revenues. That same work underlined how geographically spread those jobs are—from London to the north-west, Yorkshire and the Humber, the south-west, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland—and how important the sector is for younger workers and women.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship again, Ms Jardine—twice in one afternoon; a treat for both of us! I congratulate the hon. Member for Hornsey and Friern Barnet (Catherine West) on securing today’s debate, and I have listened with huge interest to the points that have been made. We are all no doubt proud of what Britain makes, and I certainly agree that we should do all we can to create the environment for businesses to flourish and produce more here. The harsh truth, however, is that production is often offshored due to the UK not being competitive on cost. With sky-high energy costs, labour costs and taxes and all the regulatory burden, we cannot be surprised to see many of our manufacturing businesses packing up and moving elsewhere.”
“To be clear, neither he nor rural Britain are asking for special treatment. They are asking for fairness and competence. A letter posted in this country should arrive when the sender is told it will arrive. A rural post office branch should not be quietly allowed to wither. I look forward to the Minister’s response and hope we will hear some meaningful commitments on the issues today.”
“If second class is delivered less often, that should not translate into worse outcomes for rural areas. Backstop measures are welcome, but they must be enforced and felt in places that have been left behind. People do not care about clever statistics if their letters still arrive late, in clumps, or not at all. Thirdly, the Government should recognise the interdependence of the system. The post office is not a shop counter; it is part of the national postal infrastructure, so any reform must be judged by a simple test: does it improve the lived experience of rural users? I will end by returning to my hon. Friend the Member for South Shropshire, who has done what good MPs should do: listened locally, engaged with the operators and brought the issue to Parliament for debate.”
“If that is the experience of a well-connected part of Surrey, it should shock no one that deeply rural areas are hit even harder. My hon. Friend the Member for South Shropshire highlighted severe delays in his constituency. The frustration felt by his constituents is wholly understandable. So what should happen next? First, the Minister should make it clear that regulatory fines are not the end of the story. Ofcom’s enforcement action was accompanied by requirements for Royal Mail to take corrective steps. The Government should press for transparent reporting at delivery office level with a particular focus on rural performance so that communities can see whether their service is improving and where the problems sit. Secondly, Ministers must ensure that any future changes to the universal service protect rural users.”
“In my own Reigate constituency we face ongoing concerns about the standard of postal services in the village of Banstead. Constituents have raised this with me repeatedly since the general election, and with good reason. A key issue appears to be staffing. Royal Mail has admitted to higher than normal levels of sickness and vacancies, and when I visited the delivery office that serves Banstead it was clear that morale there was extremely low. Meanwhile there is an operational inefficiency built in. Banstead is served by a delivery office based in Epsom, meaning staff travel before rounds even begin. I think we can all guess what that leads to. One constituent received 10 items of post on 30 January after receiving none in the preceding 10 days. Others report the same pattern of long gaps followed by sudden floods.”
“In October 2025, Ofcom fined Royal Mail £21 million for missing its 2024-25 delivery targets, finding that only 77% of first-class mail and 92.5% of second-class mail was delivered on time, far below the long-standing universal service targets. Ofcom has since moved to reform parts of the universal service obligation, including allowing second-class letters to be delivered on alternate weekdays Monday to Friday and adjusting headline targets while introducing new backstop measures designed to prevent extreme delays. There is a legitimate discussion to be had about sustainability and falling letter volumes, but reform must not become cover for a two-tier Britain where rural residents simply wait longer as a matter of course. The focus must now be on delivery offices, staffing and day-to-day operational reality.”
“Post office data shows record levels of cash deposits at branches and significant use by both personal and business customers, alongside the roll-out of banking hubs operated in partnership with Cash Access UK. When the Minister responds, I hope we will hear some reassurance about the support for the post office network. Can we have a commitment today to retaining a minimum network size of at least 11,500 branches? Will we keep the rural and postcode district access criteria and will sub-postmasters be properly supported so that rural branches do not become financially untenable? I now turn to deliveries, which is where constituents, including my own, are impacted when the service breaks down. The universal postal service is a promise that has been repeatedly broken.”
“It is more than a business; it is part of the UK’s social and economic fabric, especially in rural areas, and especially as bank branches continue to vanish from our high streets. For many communities, the post office is now the most realistic place to do basic banking, withdraw cash or deposit takings. There is also a straightforward point about support. The nationwide network, especially in rural areas, will not always be commercially viable based on pure retail footfall alone. That is why public funding has played a role. The Conservative Government provided more than £2.5 billion in funding in the past decade to sustain the nationwide network, including support for branches in uncommercial areas. That turned out to be money well spent, in the light of the ongoing use of the post office network.”
“Even remote communities have a minimum level of access. Those are sensible measures of access, and it is therefore deeply concerning that the Department for Business and Trade Green Paper on the future of the Post Office explicitly asks whether to keep the existing requirement, remove the minimum 11,500 branch requirement or replace it with a different framework altogether. Rural Britain has heard that language before: “a different way of meeting obligations” is often a Whitehall euphemism for a quiet downgrade under which the network looks stable on paper but becomes thinner in practice, with reduced hours, reduced services and longer journeys for those without cars. Although the Government appear to be drifting, the Conservative party is clear about what the Post Office is for.”
“I want to cover two linked issues: the resilience of the post office network; and the reliability of deliveries and the way that failures fall hardest on rural areas. As of October 2025, there were about 11,638 post office branches in the UK, and the company is committed to maintaining about 11,500 branches. The Post Office is publicly owned, but the vast majority of branches are run by independent postmasters inside local shops. In my experience, that is why they are so deeply woven into rural life, and why, when a branch closes, the town or village feels it immediately and deeply. The network is supposed to be underpinned by access criteria, including a requirement that 95% of the rural population should be within three miles of a post office, and that 95% of the population of every postcode district should be within six miles of one.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer, and to respond on behalf of the Opposition. I sincerely congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South Shropshire (Stuart Anderson) on securing this debate and on the incredible persistence with which he has fought for his constituents. As my hon. Friend made clear, a functioning postal service is not a nice-to-have in rural Britain; rather, it is part of the vital infrastructure of daily life. The post is how people receive medical letters, time-sensitive official correspondence and the things they cannot simply pick up on the high street. For small businesses, farms and sole traders, it is how goods, invoices and documents move. We should not underestimate the harms when this important service fails.”
“It has been 146 days since the Equality and Human Rights Commission laid the revised code of practice before Government. Have the Government asked the EHRC to make any changes to the code of practice? If they have, can the Minister tell us what they are?”
“I thank the Minister for his statement, and for all his support with the issues we have had at Park25 in Redhill; I very much appreciate that he has taken residents’ concerns seriously. Which of the changes will be most beneficial for my Park25 residents, and has the Minister given any more thought to my suggestion of mandatory adoption of communal land by local authorities?”
“I am concerned that a merger of Surrey police with neighbouring forces will divert resources away from communities in Surrey. On a busy Saturday night, Reigate will inevitably lose out to Reading. What reassurance can the Secretary of State provide to my constituents?”
“One of the things that contributes to staff burnout is caring for patients in corridors. I recently visited St Helier hospital and saw that for myself, and it was very concerning and distressing. We are also seeing that at East Surrey hospital in Redhill, in my constituency. Will the Secretary of State confirm when we can expect to see the issue resolved for good?”
“It is relevant to note that Heathrow has also increased its drop-off charge this month, although far more modestly, from £6 to £7. Unfortunately, that is what happens when the Government pile ever more taxes on our businesses: those costs inevitably find their way back to the consumer in some shape or form. If Ministers would like to see the trend of extra charges and surging prices reduce, I say gently that they might consider not continually taxing businesses. Rethinking the damaging business rates hike would be a good start and would give British businesses, including our airports, room to breathe.”
“However, the extra costs place a burden on my constituents using the airport, and I urge Gatwick always to keep them in mind when analysing the numbers and ensure fairness, the importance of which the hon. Member for Oldham West, Chadderton and Royton (Jim McMahon) eloquently highlighted. It is easy to assume that people can use the train or bus as an alternative, but that is often not the case for the elderly, the disabled or those who simply cannot transport all their luggage by hand. Gatwick has said that the drop-off charge increase has not been taken lightly and follows a number of cost increases, including a more than doubling of its business rates by this Government, from £40 million to more than £80 million per annum.”
“That hits everyone: the parent, the friend taking someone to an early flight and taxi drivers trying to earn their living. It is true that Gatwick offers free drop-off in the long-stay car park with a complementary shuttle, and that blue badge holders are exempt, but we all know that that option adds time and complication, and is not always practical at unsocial hours. We should be clear about responsibility. Most airports in the UK are private businesses, and drop-off charging is a matter for the owners to decide and manage. That is certainly true at Gatwick, where the increased drop-off charge has been explained on the grounds of growing financial pressure on the operation.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Vaz. I thank the hon. Member for Bolton South and Walkden (Yasmin Qureshi) for securing this important debate. In many countries, a quick kiss and fly really is quick and really is free. At Amsterdam Schiphol, the kiss and ride drop-off is free. At Paris-Charles de Gaulle the first 10 minutes are free, and at Madrid-Barajas the express departures car park gives drivers 10 minutes free. Meanwhile, here in the UK we are normalising the idea that dropping off and saying a hurried goodbye at the airport comes with a bill. Bear with me here: kiss and fly? More like kiss and buy. At Gatwick airport, which serves so many of my constituents in Reigate, Redhill, Banstead and our villages, the drop-off fee was hiked to £10 for 10 minutes—a 43% jump from £7.”
“How many miscarriages of justice are this Government willing to accept? Ministers would be foolish to trade away a centuries-old safeguard for a headline about swift justice, only to discover afterwards that our courts are no speedier, just less just. I believe that the British people must remain participants in their system of justice rather than mere observers. I urge Ministers to think again. Do not curtail jury trials. Do not concentrate yet more power in fewer hands. Fix the courts. Protect our legal heritage.”
“Ministers want to expand sentencing powers in the magistrates courts by allowing them to hand down sentences of up to two years, while at the same time restricting the ability to appeal decisions taken in those courts. It is extraordinary that this Government think that someone who can sit as a magistrate from the age of 18, with no legal qualifications or experience, should be able to decide whether someone loses their liberty. If you were in the dock, would you be happy with that? Juries may not be perfect, but I know what I would prefer. If the Government are determined to push ahead with this, they are knowingly increasing the risk of wrongful convictions and excessive sentences. We know that more than 40% of appeals against decisions taken by magistrates courts are upheld.”
“Any justice system that concentrates powers in the hands of a small number of repeat decision makers inevitably risks groupthink and unconscious, or even conscious, bias. A jury is a built-in safeguard: 12 ordinary people drawn at random, bringing different instincts and experiences, and forced to test the prosecution’s case in a way that a single decision maker cannot. Simply put, it is safer to spread human fallibility across 12 people than to concentrate it in one. A system in which liberty hinges solely on inputs from various arms of the state—the police, the CPS and then a judge—cannot be as inherently fair as one in which justice is done with the people’s direct involvement. The curtailing of jury trials is not the only concern.”
“I suggest that the Government are getting desperate when that is the best they can offer—perhaps next we will hear that the tooth fairy backs digital identification or that Father Christmas supports giving away the Chagos islands. Back in the real world, in 2024 the Lady Chief Justice gave evidence to the Justice Committee that our courts faced around 100 unplanned closures every week, with 200 near closures per month. That is in line with credible data suggesting that just yesterday, 15% of our Crown courtrooms sat empty, and it is the same today. If the Minister wants to tackle the backlog, might that not be the best place to start? Let me turn to the key benefit of jury trials: the involvement of our peers in delivering justice. These are people in our own communities with no obvious axe to grind or political motivations.”
“Plans to restrict access to jury trial take a sledgehammer to one of the most important protections for the people of this country. I would expect any Government suggesting a change of that magnitude to have a strong rationale for doing so. Instead, we hear the nonsensical argument that curtailing jury trials will address the courts backlog, yet the Minister of State for Courts and Legal Services told the House that only 3% of court cases are jury cases. So before we even get into the debate, we need clarity on what this change will mean for the backlog. That means modelling and timescales, not justifications based on religious belief.”
“I conclude by noting that this has been an excellent debate, and I repeat my thanks to the hon. Member for Glasgow North for securing it.”
“As such, the Fairtrade Foundation called on the Government to introduce a law on human rights and environmental due diligence. Again, good work was done in that space under the previous Conservative Government. The UK was the first country to create a national action plan to implement the UN guiding principles on business and human rights, which are widely regarded as the authoritative international framework to steer practical action by Governments and businesses worldwide on this important and pressing agenda. More recently, the UK has taken a number of steps through the Modern Slavery Act to ensure that no British organisation—public or private, and unwittingly or otherwise—is complicit through their supply chains in human rights violations. I am sure that the Minister will have more to say on that in a moment.”
“In this context, Fairtrade certification can be seen as one of several tools that enable the UK to act as a responsible trading nation, championing higher standards while maintaining competitive access to key goods. One of the great strengths of Fairtrade is the strong grassroots support that it enjoys. I saw that at first hand earlier this year when I was contacted by my local Reigate Fairtrade steering group to draw my attention to the “Brew it Fair” campaign. The campaign highlighted that, while the Government have committed to protecting human rights and environmental standards by endorsing the UN guiding principles on business and human rights, and by passing the Modern Slavery Act, wages, incomes and working conditions remain inadequate for the majority of the people involved in tea farming.”
“As the Government have observed in the recent trade strategy, trade and development are not mutually exclusive goals. We can support UK business while also encouraging more ethical, sustainable and secure supply chains. The developing countries trading scheme, launched in 2023 under the last Conservative Government, is one such example. It reduces tariffs on goods from low and middle-income countries and allows for easier trade in value-added products, helping to support economic diversification. The previous Government were also clear that they recognised the role that voluntary schemes like Fairtrade play in complementing formal legal frameworks, such as the Modern Slavery Act 2015, which continues to apply to large UK businesses.”
“It offers reassurance on the ethical provenance of goods and helps to reduce reputational risk in complex and sometimes opaque global supply chains. More broadly, Fairtrade fits into a wider framework of responsible sourcing in which UK firms are increasingly engaged. For example, the cocoa industry has seen significant improvements in transparency and long-term planning due to Fairtrade and similar voluntary schemes. British food and beverage companies, in particular, have drawn on Fairtrade principles to strengthen resilience and quality across key import lines. There is also a trade policy angle. Fairtrade is not only about individual transactions; it reflects a broader outlook on how the UK interacts with developing markets.”
“The scheme is built on a partnership model between producers in the global south and businesses and consumers in the global north. Over time, Fairtrade has come to play a role in supporting responsible UK sourcing practices. The UK has long been a leading market for Fairtrade goods, and British supermarkets were among the first in the world to adopt the Fairtrade label at scale. The distinctive mark is now found on thousands of product lines sold in every part of the country, from major supermarket chains to small independent stores. Beyond consumer familiarity, the benefits of Fairtrade certification also flow into business practices here at home. For British companies, certification helps to meet environmental, social and governance expectations from investors and consumers alike.”