Boohoo factory scandal: Call for evidence as retailers seek solutions

Anyone with information about working conditions in factories that supply Boohoo’s brands, what Boohoo knew about those conditions and suggestions for improvements in the future has been encouraged to contact Levitt’s team.

Levitt is particularly keen to speak to people with direct experience of the situation such as current and former factory workers and Boohoo brand employees. 

Evidence can be submitted anonymously via a secure website until August 26. 

The review followed a Sunday Times exposé in July, revealing workers in Leicester factories could be paid as little as £3.50 an hour. It was the latest in a string of allegations, stretching back years, about conditions in the city’s textile industry.

Solutions to the long-running problems in Leicester will separately be considered next month when brands, investors, campaign groups and unions come together at an event organised by the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI).

Fashion retailers including Asos, New Look, Next and Marks & Spencer as well as the ETI have already countersigned a letter sent by the BRC to home secretary Priti Patel about Leicester

The letter urged the Home Office to intervene in Leicester and introduce a “fit to trade” licensing scheme to ensure all clothing factories meet legal responsibilities to employees, and stop them from undercutting their competitors by underpaying workers.  

The letter asked that, at a minimum, the new regulations should protect workers from forced labour, debt bondage and mistreatment, guarantee holiday pay and safe working conditions, and ensure payment of National Minimum Wage, VAT, PAYE and National Insurance.

The BRC is yet to receive a direct response to the letter. It confirmed it had a meeting with the Home Office, however, and more are planned for the coming weeks.

The ETI hopes its event will spur change in the fashion industry as licensing on its own may not be enough. 

ETI strategic lead for apparel and textiles Nigel Venes said: “Licensing is positive but it’s just one brick in the wall.

“It puts all the responsibility on manufacturers but if we really want to drive change, we need to look at things like purchasing practices and regulations, as well as community aspects. Its all part of a package of things that need to be looked at together.

“There are a lot of individual initiatives happening in relation to Leicester with the councils, the BRC, the government taskforce. But the lesson we have learned at the ETI is if we are going to drive longstanding change, then we need to move forward in an open and inclusive way because this is bigger than us as individual entities.”