§ Mr. John Gummer (Suffolk, Coastal)I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to require retailers with more than ten outlets to publish and display in each outlet a statement of their procurement policies in relation to child labour, slave labour and environmental protection.Many British retailers currently take a seriously ethical view of the way in which they source their products. C and A, for example, operates the most up-to-date system to ensure that the products it sells come from countries and organisations that do not employ slave or child labour, and Marks and Spencer operates similar policies. Kingfisher's environmental policies provide for its various wood products to come only with the stamp of the Forestry Stewardship Council, thus ensuring that those products are from sustainable forests. A number of retailers employ the highest ethical standards. I believe that we should make it possible for them, as a matter of course, to make that public to every one of their customers, so that those customers can see that the products that they are buying have been chosen and secured from sources of which they can be proud.We recently engaged in discussions about the purchase of pigmeat from welfare-friendly sources. Such issues are very proper concerns of British producers. Unfortunately, however, competitors often ignore such basic ethical considerations, and are therefore able to sell their products more cheaply.
The present situation will be complicated by the arrival on our shores of Wal-Mart, an American group which, over the years, has experienced considerable problems in explaining the sourcing of its products in both ethical and environmental terms. I want Wal-Mart to start in this country with a clean sheet: I want it to have to subscribe to the rules that I propose in the Bill. Those rules are very simple. I suggest that, in any chain with more than 10 outlets, the company's procurement policy in relation to ethical and environmental grounds should be displayed prominently. I also suggest that a detailed explanation of the way in which those general principles are implemented should be available to both customers and shareholders, and to head office.
That, surely, is not an unreasonable request. It will not give rise to extra red tape, because all decent companies could take such action tomorrow; what it will mean is that customers will know the price at which the low price that they pay has been bought. They will know that, if a company has undercut the general market, that is because the company is more efficient, not because it has done deals of which it should be ashamed.
This is especially important in view of the arrival of Wal-Mart. Throughout the United States are small towns whose high streets have been destroyed by the way in which that firm operates. As a Minister who sought to improve and to increase the viability of our high streets, I am concerned that we should not find that the incomer, Wal-Mart, does not meet the environmental standards that have increasingly been espoused by home-grown companies.
It is necessary to raise the matter for another reason. Of all the companies I know, Wal-Mart is the only one, before it had a single shop in Britain, to secure a special 296 meeting between the Prime Minister and its senior executive here. The fact that Hillary Clinton is a former director of the Arkansas-based business did not, I am sure, do it any harm. Whatever was said at the meeting, many must be concerned that the odd nod or wink suggested that planning permission that would not be available to other companies might be available to Wal-Mart.
Such a deal would fundamentally damage not only retail businesses with which Wal-Mart will compete, but the high streets that are so important to the rebuilding of the centres of our great cities and market towns alike. The House should be considerably concerned about the standards and values of great retailers. In taking on board ethical and environmental considerations, our retailers have set an example that is better than that of the average retailer in the world. I want to give them the opportunity to compete on a level playing field.
I do not want to exclude people who take different views. I want people to know what the price of "cut price" is. If they know that, and still buy products that are produced in the appalling conditions that have been revealed recently in islands in Asia, where people are corralled to work for a pittance and can only earn enough to get back to their home in that workplace, that will be up to consumers. Such conditions bring globalisation and the World Trade Organisation into disrepute.
It is of great importance that those of us who are committed to free trade should remind the House that it was here that Conservatives such as Wilberforce and Shaftesbury said that free trade should be within proper civilised parameters. Those include ensuring that slave labour and child labour are not the means of reducing prices, and that damaging the countryside shall not be the price of ensuring that we can undercut competitors.
All those issues should be raised now, before companies get into their stride. We have seen what their stride has meant to other people in other nations; that is why the Bill should become law. It is for that simple reason that I want Wal-Mart to begin afresh—without all the background and history that have so besmirched the company—at least learning here that free enterprise and trade bring responsibility. Companies have to behave properly not just in this country, but in all countries where the vulnerability of people is much greater than here.
It is for those people that we banned the slave trade. It is for those people that we should seek to ban the use of products of slave labour.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. John Gummer, Mrs. Gillian Shephard, Mr. Anthony Steen, Mr. Richard Spring, Mr. Peter Lilley, Sir David Madel, Mr. David Ruffley.