Meeting of the Parliament 25 March 2025
I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in the debate. I also thank Colin Smyth, who leads the cross-party group on fair trade, which I seek to attend as often as I can.
The focus of the debate is on fair trade around the world, especially where the richer west buys goods and services from poorer developing countries. However, as other members have mentioned, such principles should apply across the board. Fair trade should include farmers in Scotland being paid a reasonable price for the milk that they produce and our workers being paid properly for the jobs that they do. The concept of fair trade is absolutely excellent, and we should surely all support it.
We, in the richer west, should not maintain our affluent lifestyles at the expense of workers who suffer miserable conditions and who are paid minimal wages in the developing world or the global south. Many of us can easily afford to pay a little bit extra for coffee or wine, with the assurance that the farmers who grow the produce are getting a good deal so that they can work reasonable hours, live in decent housing and afford to send their children to school.
It is encouraging that fair trade products have improved over the years. For example, we get good-quality coffee in the Parliament—I remember the days when fair trade coffee was of pretty poor quality. Therefore, I congratulate those who were involved in once again achieving fair trade nation status for Scotland.
Secondly, we need to go further. It still seems to be a narrow range of products that have fair trade varieties available. According to The Grocer, there are almost 5,000 fair trade products for sale in the UK. However, I still feel that that is a restricted list. Specifically, we have not made as much progress with clothing as we might have done. There is praise in the report for the University of St Andrews shop, which supplies fair trade sweatshirts and hoodies to students, but that is clearly less common in high street fashion retailers.
In a meeting of the CPG, pupils from Corpus Christi primary school in Glasgow told us that they had worked with Koolskools and had sourced and sold fair trade uniforms, so we know that it can be done. However, from my memory of that meeting, they said that they had to go through a number of hoops to be allowed to do that. My understanding is that the procurement rules and regulations for public bodies such as councils do not always sit well with a desire to expand fair trade.
Thirdly, the fair trade system needs to be tightened up. It is definitely worth while at the moment but some questions were raised as my staff were doing research for my speech. Some figures look good on the surface, such as
“88% of local authorities have schools involved in significant Fair Trade activity.”
However, we are then told that only 6.5 per cent of Scottish schools are part of the Fairtrade schools scheme. That does not sound quite so good.
There are the 10 principles of fair trade from the World Fair Trade Organization and, although they are all good principles, some of them seem to be a bit too woolly. The principle of
“No Child Labour, No Forced Labour”
is pretty clear cut—that is good—and I accept that “Good Working Conditions” will inevitably vary from country to country, taking into account the local norms and cultures. However, other principles such as “Promote Fair Trade” and “Capacity Building” leave a lot to the imagination and a fair bit of wriggle room.
I note the recommendations in the report, some of which are for us as MSPs to take on board. For example, there is the recommendation for
“explicit inclusion of Fair Trade in legislation”
and to
“Be more prescriptive and supportive for MSP action to implement the pledge.”
The point is also made in the report that there should be better
“ways of measuring what is being implemented in constituency and local level.”
I am in broad agreement with the Labour amendment, especially the point about
“establishing a standard definition and measurement framework for Fair Trade in public sector procurement”.
I have no problem with supporting that.
However, not surprisingly, I have some reservations about the angle of the Conservative amendment, despite it being lodged by the relatively pleasant Conservative member, Murdo Fraser. [Laughter.] Free trade and fair trade are not the same thing, as Patrick Harvie pointed out earlier.