Meeting of the Parliament 25 March 2025
I, too, applaud Scotland’s continued status as a fair trade nation. As we know, the principle of fair trade means that farmers and other producers in less economically developed countries should receive a fair price for the goods that they produce. As practically everyone knows, when sold in support of those aims, such products usually carry a Fairtrade label.
Sixty per cent of the fair trade market consists of food products such as coffee, tea, cocoa, honey and bananas. However, it also covers non-food commodities such as crafts, textiles and flowers. Those three items are not so often identified as products that might start their long journeys from the fields and sweatshops in countries where labour—and sometimes life—comes cheap. So much depends on businesses and us. We are at the end of a production chain that runs from growing to processing, and from there to packaging and then into our shopping baskets.
We recognise the labels on bananas and coffee, but what is often missed is the cost to poor countries of supplying garments to UK outlets. The prices of Fairtrade bananas and coffee are often on a par with those of other commercial products. However, if a T-shirt is only £2, or a jacket or dress is only £10, we should ask ourselves why it has such a low price. In these days of inflation and austerity, I realise that not everyone has the luxury of answering that question through their choices, but the culture of throwaway fashion has a lot to answer for. After all the back-breaking labour of poor workers who have been exploited, within weeks, such garments are often in landfill. Neither situation is good for people or for the planet. A few years back, several clothing retailers, including the venerable Marks and Spencer, were taken to task for what amounted to child labour producing clothing for their shops. Frankly, in some cases, the companies were simply unaware of that fact. Since that exposé of not only its own practices but those of other retailers, M and S has put in place a publicly accessible ethical trading policy.
Now, several supermarket chains from the UK, including Tesco and Sainsbury’s, have been in talks with the Fairtrade Foundation, as they want to join forces to buy Fairtrade bananas, coffee and cocoa from farmers in developing countries. A UK fair trade coalition would be the first buying coalition of its kind. It would increase the availability of fair trade products to consumers. Crucial to the establishment of such a project would be approval by the Competition and Markets Authority. The UK’s competition watchdog has recently indicated, in an informal advice note, that it does not expect to take enforcement action as a result of such a scheme, and that joint buying would have
“neutral”
or even
“positive effects on competition”,
by giving shoppers a wider choice of fair trade products.
According to Fairtrade, such a buying coalition would give supermarkets more power to resolve major issues such as child labour, living wages and deforestation. If the project proceeds and proves successful in the UK, the non-governmental organisation hopes to expand it to other markets in Europe, including Belgium and the Netherlands.
I have yet to discover where the UK stands on such an initiative, and I would welcome up-to-date information on that, as regulatory powers on consumer products are reserved to the UK Government. Although Governments and public agencies, including the Scottish Parliament, which hold large procurement budgets, can exercise choices and promote fair trade, the public have a huge impact on what happens in the fields, forests and factories across the poorer parts of the world. Such an initiative might, in some way, change the balance from the position when Great Britain exploited large parts of the world and took so much of their natural resources—parts that are now in desperate need of economic assistance. Fair trade is one way of doing that.
16:13