Trade and Worst Forms of Child Labour
The Committee consisted of the following Members:
† Blackwood, Nicola (Oxford West and Abingdon) (Con)
† Burden, Richard (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)
Campbell, Mr Gregory (East Londonderry) (DUP)
† Connarty, Michael (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)
† Cunningham, Sir Tony (Workington) (Lab)
† Featherstone, Lynne (Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Development)
† Glindon, Mrs Mary (North Tyneside) (Lab)
† Harris, Rebecca (Castle Point) (Con)
† Hilling, Julie (Bolton West) (Lab)
† Phillips, Stephen (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)
† Uppal, Paul (Wolverhampton South West) (Con)
† Willott, Jenny (Cardiff Central) (LD)
John-Paul Flaherty, Committee Clerk
† attended the Committee
European Committee B
Wednesday 3 July 2013
[John Robertson in the Chair]
Trade and Worst Forms of Child Labour
2.30 pm
The Chair: I believe that Mr Stephen Phillips is to make a brief explanatory statement about the decision to refer the relevant document to this Committee.
Stephen Phillips (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con): It is a pleasure, Mr Robertson, to serve under your chairmanship, particularly on a Committee that will be discussing a document that relates to such an important issue, but it might be helpful if I begin by explaining a little of the background to why the European Scrutiny Committee recommended the document for debate.
In 2010, the European Commission, at the Council’s request, produced a Commission staff working document, “Combating Child Labour”, designed
“to foster a broader discussion on possible additional measures to reinforce the EU contribution to the fight against child labour”
“a debate on this matter to inform further policy work.”
Our predecessor Committee judged it to be a thorough and thought-provoking analysis and, in view of the widespread interest in the subject, drew it to the attention of the House.
The further document before us today, on trade and child labour, likewise responds to a call by the Council in 2010—this time, to study and report on trade and the worst forms of child labour, taking account of international experience and the views of competent international organisations. The principal focus of the document is on children employed in “hazardous work”—work that, by its nature or the circumstances in which it is carried out, is likely to harm the health, safety or morals of children—as that accounts for at least 90% of the documented worst forms of child labour and has the strongest theoretical connection to production and thus to trade, including with the United Kingdom.
There is some good news. Since the 2010 Commission staff working paper, International Labour Organisation statistics have confirmed an 11% decrease in the worst forms of child labour, from 128 million to 115 million children, with the absolute numbers of children engaged in hazardous work thought to have fallen in all regions except sub-Saharan Africa. Poverty, together with insufficient access to education and a lack of enforcement of labour standards, is described as the core driving force behind household decisions to use children in the labour market. Open economies generally have lower levels of child labour, because goods that are internationally traded often have to meet agreed international labour standards. Only an estimated 5% of the worst forms of child labour are associated with international trade.
However, although the Commission concludes that there is a clear positive trend globally of reducing child labour and the worst forms of child labour, it also says
that that should not be cause for complacency, noting that the decrease is too slow to reach the ILO’s target of eliminating the worst forms of child labour by 2016 and that, given the link between poverty and the worst forms of child labour, the recent global economic slow-down might decrease the pace of progress or even reverse the trend. Much remains to be done by Governments, the private sector and other agents of development in the fight against child labour, but EU trade policy, the Commission argues, can be part of the solution, in combination with more direct instruments, to curbing child labour.The European Scrutiny Committee judged that this further Commission staff working document was an important contribution to a debate that is central to both development and trade policy in this country and throughout the European Union, and that accordingly the debate should be continued in the first instance in European Committee.
Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab) rose—
The Chair: Before I call the Minister, perhaps I should lay out how this Committee works, because I saw Mr Connarty standing up to speak. The first part is for questions. The Minister will make an opening statement, which will be followed by questions until 3.30 pm. At that point, we can move to the debate and, if time allows, as many hon. Members who would like to speak will be able to do so. The first part lasts until 3.30 or until there are no questions left to ask, but it is all about questions. Does everyone understand that? In that case, I call the Minister.
2.34 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Development (Lynne Featherstone): It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson. I am grateful to the European Scrutiny Committee for allowing us the opportunity to discuss the European Commission staff working document, “Trade and Worst Forms of Child Labour”. I am also grateful to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham for introducing the debate.
The document builds on a Commission staff working document on combating child labour that was published in 2010. Its emphasis is on exploring the links between international labour and the worst forms of child labour, and makes a valuable contribution to the debate on such matters. The document is informed by a seminar that took place last year that involved academics, relevant organisations, including UNICEF, and the US Department of Labor.
More immediately, the document responds to a request by the Council three years ago for a report on the worst forms of child labour and trade. It contains no policy recommendations, but its contents include thoughtful reflection and analysis of the links. The ILO sets clear international standards that help to define what is meant by “child labour” in its different forms. Despite that, as has been mentioned, differences in reporting practice mean that it is difficult to define precisely the worst forms of child labour, as opposed to child labour more generally.
Although the document largely focuses on the links between international trade and child labour, its authors acknowledge that only some 5% of the worst forms of child labour are directly associated with international trade and traded goods, with the overwhelming majority of the children working in subsistence agriculture and a lesser number in domestic and small retail services.
The document argues that international trade policy can be part of the solution to child labour. We agree, and I hope that we can explore it later in the debate. When there is considerable evidence of child labour in particular countries, responding to it with restrictive trade measures or sanctions might be entirely the wrong response. The Commission document notes that openness to trade growth can generate economic growth, which will reduce child labour.
Three key identified factors that promote the incidence of child labour are extreme poverty, poor opportunities for children to go to schools and lax enforcement of local labour regulations. The Department for International Development focuses clearly on reducing poverty in the countries where we work and sees the role of international development essentially as dealing with the underlying conditions in countries where children are made to earn a wage to help support their families, who might, in their turn, depend on that income. Through their membership of the EU, the Government will continue to press for our anxieties about the worst forms of child labour to inform EU trade policy.
Sir Tony Cunningham (Workington) (Lab): It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson.
As someone who taught for many years, I am pleased that we are to discuss the combating of child labour. I feel strongly about it. The ILO states that 215 million five to 17-year-olds are involved in child labour. At the current pace, 170 million to 190 million child labourers will still remain by 2020 and, although I welcome the news that both child labour and its worst forms have fallen by more than 3%, I am sure we all agree that that is happening at far too slow a pace.
How will the Minister hasten progress? Sub-Saharan Africa falls under my area of shadow ministerial responsibility, and I am alarmed that child labour there continues to be a major worry. One in four children aged five to 17 work in the region, compared with one in eight children in the Asia-Pacific area and one in 10 in Latin America. Will she explain how her Department is dealing with the matter, specifically in sub-Saharan Africa?
I welcome the focus of the document on hazardous work, as half of all working children are employed in shocking and dangerous conditions. I note that the definition of “hazardous work” is left to national laws and regulations and that no single standard is used by the ILO for measuring hazardous work across all nations. Does the Minister think that a standardised definition would be helpful and useful?
Lynne Featherstone: On hastening progress, DFID’s entire focus is on the alleviation of poverty. I am not entirely sure how quickly that can be done, but that is the aim of all the DFID programmes that focus to a great extent on education. I am thinking particularly of things such as cash transfers, which have proved one of the most successful ways of ensuring that poverty is alleviated.
The hon. Gentleman asked about sub-Saharan Africa. When I was in Zambia, I visited a project where there was a woman with disabilities who also had five children. She would have taken her children out of school, but she was on one of the cash transfer programmes, which involve targeting by community activists to find people who are particularly poor, vulnerable and marginalised and who could use their children for employment—to get the water and all those sorts of things. The cash transfer had enabled that woman to buy a cooking pot and two chickens and to keep all her children in school.
That is how DFID is working to ensure that we move as quickly as we can to alleviate poverty, which we regard as the main driver that forces children into being used for labour purposes rather than being left in school, if they have access to it. DFID has an extensive number of programmes. I will not cover them all today, but the cash transfer programme has been particularly successful. In the case I mentioned, the sum was something like £2 a fortnight. That is an investment to stop child labour.
On definitions, it would be marvellous if we could have a single definition of “hazardous work”, but I fear it would be impossible. Circumstances are different in different countries: something that might be better than the alternative in one country could be far worse in another country—if that makes sense—so it is difficult to see how we can define such things. It would be helpful if we had one definition, but I fear it is not possible.
Stephen Phillips: As the Minister knows, the working document discusses the positive role of trade policy instruments, but goes on to make it clear that those should be compatible with World Trade Organisation rules. Has she considered in what respects WTO rules are preventing progress in this area? Has she shared any concerns she has in that regard with her colleagues in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and if not, why not? If this area has not been addressed at all by her Department, will she now undertake that it will be? How is the issue being carried forward in both the G8 and the WTO?
Finally, this is plainly an area in which concerted action among developed economies is important. Will the Minister assure the Committee that she has had or will have discussions with her EU counterparts on how WTO rules are preventing progress in this important area?
Lynne Featherstone: I thank my hon. and learned Friend for his questions. Members of the WTO are committed to recognising core labour standards, but agree that those should not be used for protectionism. I do not know whether he is saying that that inhibits the institution of standards, but my understanding is that the ILO is the correct forum to deal with labour standards. The ILO regularly collaborates with the WTO.
My hon. and learned Friend asked whether I have had direct talks with the WTO. I have not. [Interruption.] Judging from the shaking of the head, that was not the question. We take this issue seriously. Trade negotiations are conducted, as far as we are concerned, through EU trade policy and the EU Commission. The EU builds incentives to tackle child labour into its trade policies, using things such as sustainable development clauses.
Indeed, in any of its instruments there is a duty for the Commission to ensure that evaluations are carried out before a negotiation begins, while an agreement is being negotiated and after it is completed. In its generalised scheme of preferences—the system used to enable developing countries to trade with the EU and give them comparative ease of access—there are a number of conditions attached. If incentives are wanted, there is also a GSP-plus scheme, which has the additional requirement of signing up to and implementing 27 further conventions of behaviour.I was asked whether I could and would do more, and I certainly can and will.
Michael Connarty: I am happy that the Minister focused on the correct regulation, the ILO convention, and not those of the WTO or the G8. Why did the Government, and specifically the Prime Minister, oppose my private Member’s Bill containing definitions for the auditing of UK supply chains, which is the only way to bind any company to check whether it uses child labour in its supply chain?
Lynne Featherstone: I cannot directly answer the hon. Gentleman’s question by saying why the Prime Minister did not support his private Member’s Bill, but I think that supply chains—if that was what the proposal was about—are an important part of the discussion about labour, particularly those of supermarkets and top-brand stores.
DFID continues to work with organisations that seek to improve working conditions in industries that have global supply chains. We continue to provide support to and work with the UK’s Ethical Trading Initiative and to encourage firms to follow OECD guidelines for multilateral enterprises, including through part-funding the UK national contact point for the guidelines. We are also funding fair trade with Fairtrade Labelling Organisations International, and that will run from 2010 to 2014. The organisation has developed its own standards, compliance procedures and audit tools on child labour in accordance with the relevant ILO conventions, and it expects all its producers—big and small—to meet its requirements.
This morning, the Secretary of State met 15 key UK retailers to question them about corporate responsibility, supply chains and all those ethical issues—for they are ethical issues. The Ethical Trading Initiative brings together businesses, trade unions and voluntary organisations with a base code, helping to define standards that member companies should reach. I do not know if that was anything like the suggestion that the hon. Gentleman made in his private Member’s Bill, but the base code makes it absolutely explicit that child labour must not be used.
The Chair: I will allow supplementary questions.
Michael Connarty: I will speak later about the context and why I think the initiative is worthless, but is the Minister aware of the California law on supply chains? Apple sent me a special report because it was embarrassed. I had spoken in the Council of Europe about the matter.
It audited its supply chain and found it had child labour in China supplying parts for the iPad, but under the law in California it has pledged to—in fact, it has to—eradicate it. Should we not copy that, if we are to support the motion, which says that the Government are doing enough?Lynne Featherstone: I am not sighted on that, but I hear what the hon. Gentleman says. I look forward to his speaking in the debate—if he is going to do so—to elaborate on that. I am, of course, listening with open ears. We are serious about this important matter, and anyone who has something to contribute, or something we might consider, is very welcome.
Stephen Phillips: I want to follow up a little with the Minister on the WTO question. Perhaps, particularly given the observation made by the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk, I was not sufficiently clear. On page 64 of the documents before the Committee—the third page of the Minister’s explanatory memorandum—the first sentence of paragraph 8 states that
“while rejecting trade restrictions as a tool to combat WFCL the Commission staff working document discusses the positive role of trade policy instruments, provided that these are compatible with WTO rules.”
Has the Minister considered whether improvements could be suggested to WTO rules to enable trade policy instruments, made by both this country and the European Union, to have some effect in tackling this important issue?
Lynne Featherstone: I thank my hon. and learned Friend. I have not considered a range of instruments that might be promoted in that way, but I am more than happy to look at that.
Sir Tony Cunningham: On a similar topic, it was interesting to see clearly within the Commission document how child labour decreases as a country climbs out of poverty. What assessment have the Government made of whether an increase in trade would impact on some of the poorest in society? Also, as the Minister has said, children are often forced into work because they lack access to good-quality education. Their families may be unable to afford the cost of schooling, or given the poor quality of education available to them, they decide that work offers them a better opportunity for developing their skills. Does the Minister agree that as we move towards a post-millennium development goal agenda, the impact of child labour on the goal to achieve universal education must be more clearly recognised?
Lynne Featherstone: Trade is very much part of this solution. As I said, use of child labour is primarily driven by poverty, insufficient access to education and poor enforcement of labour standards. Successfully tackling child labour actually involves prioritising those issues, which are the causes of child labour. Trade policy can best help by encouraging greater trade and sustainable development. The Department for International Development’s economic development policies are all in line with trying to bring people out of poverty, whether by encouraging smallholders to bring things to markets or similar policies, which can enable people. As I have said, cash transfers can allow
poor families to hold on to their livestock during natural shocks or disasters and not go back to the terrible poverty that might force them to take their children out of school.Indeed, trade must be used positively as a means for growth and as an incentive. The hon. Gentleman did not raise the topic of sanctions; but in my view, unless sanctions were very specifically targeted, they would be the worst possible thing that we could do, as they would actually decrease trade and growth. We need to create a greater desire for families to keep their children in school, rather than a desire to take them out of school to provide income for them.
On primary education, universal education is very much our goal. Our whole ambition is to move children out of work and into education. Globally, the UK is the second-largest donor supporting basic education programmes in poor countries. Our aim is to make education available to all children and specifically marginalised groups, to help enforce laws against discrimination, to provide social protection and to improve information and knowledge about child labour. Very little information is available in the areas where child labour is most prevalent.
Our priority at DFID—the UK Government’s priority—is to include the poorest and most vulnerable. In supporting universal education, we know that the cost of education is one of the biggest deterrents to school attendance by the most marginalised. We are supporting countries such as Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi and Uganda remove school fees, and in doing so, we have seen a dramatic surge in school enrolment. That has helped more than 1 million extra children go to school in each of those countries. Clearly, that is a focus because we want to get every child into school.
We at DFID are helping the most marginalised—I have a special interest in this as violence against women champion—by putting girls at the centre of our programmes. Some of the most marginalised and vulnerable girls often do not go to school because of sanitation problems, and that is why we have water and sanitation programmes. In Ethiopia, together with the Deputy Prime Minister, we launched the girls’ education challenge fund, which is targeted specifically to help the poorest and most marginalised.
For example, we launched a project in Mozambique. The girls cannot go to school—those who are the most marginalised and those with disabilities—because it is too dangerous to travel such a distance. They will be attacked; they are too vulnerable. That project involves matched funding, and it will get girls in the most difficult of circumstances into schools.
Sir Tony Cunningham: To pick up on that issue, I was in Ethiopia shortly after the Minister. Where I visited, there was enough money to build the school but not toilets for girls, and people wondered why girls did not go to school.
Many types of work that girls are involved in are invisible. For example, about 90% of children involved in domestic labour are girls. The different contexts in which child labour is undertaken must be considered—whether by migrant workers or by local child labour; whether in conflict or in peacetime—so what assessment has the Minister made of the ability for trade to have an impact in those different contexts?
Lynne Featherstone: Trade and growth will lift all children out of poverty, but I do not have information on different circumstances for girls in different trades.
On July 15, for example, I shall launch a programme for children in Asia who go from Nepal and India—trafficked is not quite the right word—to be sent into forced labour. They are coerced to go to the United Arab Emirates, Jordan and the middle east. Forgive me, I have gone off at a tangent, but this is really important. Those children go to those countries as migrant workers, so that they can send back remittances, but they have no idea what they are doing—they are children. That innovative programme involves £9.75 million.
Often, the issues that people discuss are sex trafficking or sex slave trafficking, but the majority of trafficking is about forced labour. There is a combination of issues here—not only access to justice and those things that will make a difference to the prosecution—as we are talking about 23 million people. There will not be enough shelters or enough access to justice to deal with that, although, as always, we need significant prosecution messages.
The programme is about a way of life for those girls who want to go and send remittances back, and a range of different interventions is involved. One is information and awareness, because they do not have a clue what they are doing or where they are going. Another aspect involves those aged under 16. The programme will benefit 100,000 girls, and under-16s will be kept in school, so they will not go at all. There will be information and awareness on known trafficking routes, so we will be working with those recruiters who are—I hope that this is a parliamentary term—dodgy and who put those children in circumstances and in homes where they have no access. The issue of information and helplines will come into play.
I am sorry for going off on a tangent, but I was thinking about the trade in people, rather than trade itself.
The Chair: I thank the Minister for that short answer.
Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab): The Minister has stressed the importance in combating child labour of there being a coherent read-across to other development policies, whether education, combating poverty or combating violence against women and girls. Following the recent International Development Committee visit to Ethiopia, I can endorse what she said.
Precisely because it is important that there is read-across and coherence across such Government policies, I want to ask the Minister two specific questions. One place where child labour is still a big issue is India. The bilateral aid review produced certain perspectives on how the UK development relationship with India should unfold, but that was changed by the Secretary of State. We are all trying to get at exactly what that change is and what it means. Is it being said that anything goes in that relationship, so long as there is no bilateral grant giving? If that is the case, why does it make any sense to put that as a rule in advance if we are trying to combat something like child labour? Money with no strings attached going to support a project might be precisely what is needed in some cases.
Lynne Featherstone: The hon. Gentleman refers to our relationship and the withdrawal of grant aid to India. Clearly, that development relationship has been worked on. It is key and very important. How do we deal with middle-income countries and how do we deal with graduation are examples of the discussions that are ongoing. The last time that I went to India, I went to Bihar state, which has 90 million people living on Lord knows what per day. I totally understand the questions about child labour there.
DFID’s work at the moment in India, and how we deal with child labour per se, is done through Save the Children’s advocacy work to change policies and practices to protect children who face the worst forms of exploitation. One example is the Save the Children advocacy for an inclusive right to education, and there is monitoring and implementation on that. There is advocacy for a more stringent child labour prohibition Act and amendments to the Juvenile Justice Act. So one of the things that DFID is doing is supporting advocacy.
We support the Government of India’s universal education programme. Part of the ongoing relationship is about how we transfer public duties, public responsibilities and public service to the Indian Government. Ultimately, that is where everyone wants it to end up. The Indian Government’s universal education programme has a series of special interventions such as bridge schools, or mobile schools, which take former child labourers and prepare them for school, as they have had no schooling up to that point.
DFID India’s private sector investments follow a strict due diligence programme to ensure that we do not support any company that uses child labour. We also have a civil society challenge fund, supporting projects in Uttar Pradesh. That supports the labour rights of marginalised brick kiln workers in rural areas. Child labour is very common in that industry. The project lobbies kiln owners and Ministry of Labour officials to ensure effective enforcement of the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act 1986. I recognise that the hon. Gentleman’s question about our future relationship goes much broader than that. Discussions are ongoing about how we can ensure that we have a development partnership in which we can continue our work in India.
Richard Burden: I am grateful for that answer. I recognise some of the points that the Minister is making, certainly in relation to Madhya Pradesh, which the International Development Committee visited quite recently. The point that I am trying to get at in relation to India is that, given that the projects that she mentions are doing some really good work, is the door closed on them continuing after 2015? My second question is on a different subject. She emphasised the importance of the ILO in combating child labour, both as a regulatory body and as a catalyst for achieving change. How does that fit with the multilateral aid review’s decision to end support for the ILO?
Lynne Featherstone: There is nothing at the moment that would stop our ongoing work in India. The lead Department in the British Government for the ILO is the Department for Work and Pensions, not DFID. We are still a permanent member of the governing body. The DWP continues to provide the UK’s annually assessed contribution. The hon. Gentleman refers to
the removal of core funding, which came to an end after the multilateral aid review in 2010 found that it was poor value for money. We stand by our assessment and will not review that decision. The ILO is free to compete for funding opportunities at country level and for any specific funding from the centre. We think that it is very good on some things. The new project that I have described and that I will launch on 15 July is a partnership with the ILO, because on some things it is truly excellent. The core funding was judged to be poor value for money, but that does not impugn anything. It is an important organisation, with important standards; we work with it in partnership; and it has access to apply for funds centrally or bilaterally.The Chair: I apologise to the hon. Gentleman for not calling him by his proper name earlier—Sir Tony Cunningham.
Sir Tony Cunningham: I am grateful for the Minister’s responses on trade. However, the document discussed the EU’s bilateral trade agenda with least-developed countries and the EU’s generalised scheme of preferences, which is an important element that provides incentives for exporting countries to consider the worst forms of child labour. Does she think that the Government can do anything further to promote those mechanisms—the LDCs and the GSPs?
Finally, the EU has rightly made helping children caught up in armed conflicts a high priority. Between 2008 and 2013, the EU spent a huge amount of money in support of children affected by armed conflict, including on the demobilisation of child soldiers. Does the Minister feel the EU needs to look more closely at that and do more in that regard?
Lynne Featherstone: I shall deal with child soldiers first. The EU has been very aware and active in relation to child soldiers. It is clearly a very important issue, and it is something that we at DFID get involved in. We do that by contributing to the conflict prevention pool, which has specific programmes that work with child soldiers and monitors and reports violations of children’s rights in armed conflict.
In the great lakes region of Africa, DFID supported the multi-country demobilisation and reintegration programme, through which at least 40,000 children have been demobilised across seven countries. We also support the United Nations Children’s Fund. UNICEF continues to support the disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration of child soldiers in a number of counties, such as Burundi, Central African Republic, Philippines and Democratic Republic of the Congo, where 6,630 children were reintegrated into communities through a mixed system of transit centres and foster families.
However, more can be done. We are always looking at how we can scale up almost everything that we do, and I am sure that that applies to the EU as well. I am more than happy to look into that and take it forward.
Then there were the GSPs, the GSP+, the LDCs and the FTAs—
Sir Tony Cunningham: I asked about the greater promotion of the mechanisms.
Lynne Featherstone: We do promote them. We think that they are very good programmes. The EU’s GSP+ is the one that adds more incentives. The UK was at the forefront of arguing for the expansion of the scheme in 2014, so that additional countries could apply, to incentivise the implementation of human rights conventions. We have been at the forefront of lobbying to extend that and to push hard for it. The EU is currently assessing a number of applications for the new GSP+ scheme. So that is a yes.
The Chair: If no more Members wish to ask questions, we will proceed to the debate on the motion.
Motion made, and Question proposed,
That the Committee takes note of European Union Document No. 9198/13, a Commission Staff Working Document on Trade and Worst Forms of Child Labour; welcomes the document as an important contribution to the debate that is central to both development and trade policy; and supports the Government’s efforts in the fight against child labour.—(Lynne Featherstone.)
3.10 pm
Michael Connarty: I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Workington for allowing me to speak first; I hope he does not regret it, because I may speak for some time on this matter.
I hope the Opposition will not support the motion before us, which says that the Committee supports the Government’s efforts in the fight against child labour. The reality is that, despite the best efforts of the Minister and of those within DFID—I am sure that they try their best—many children in countries that have commitments to education do not get even primary level education. Where are those children? They are working—that is the reality—and the conditions in which they work are governed by companies that sell products in this country and many others.
I have referred to the fact that if a company wants to trade in California—many British companies will therefore have to do this—it now has to audit its supply chain and supply audited proof of that audit. I referred specifically to Apple, which has done 364 audits of its supply chain and discovered, because of that law in California, that child labour was being used to make parts for the iPad in China. The law was moved by a politician who is now the acting Speaker of the State Assembly and was supported unanimously, without any disruption to the process by the private sector in California, which saw it as a badge of honour and a valuable asset for companies to be able to take saleable products to people in their country and say, “We have an ethical product to sell.”
Stephen Phillips: The hon. Gentleman refers to a badge of honour. Does he agree that all British companies that audit their supply chains, to make sure there is no abuse of child labour at any point on those supply chains, deserve to be congratulated? Does he also agree that this House should send out a very clear message that, even in the absence of legislation, those audits should be carried out by every single responsible British company?
Michael Connarty: I agree entirely with that. I have no doubt that in the world that we wish to create we would be able to say to people that the products sold in our shops are audited and are made ethically and in safe conditions—unlike what we have seen recently with the building collapse in Dhaka, where the conditions in which people worked were plainly unsafe. There are several other examples that I could refer to if we were talking about conditions for the adult working population. The lucky thing about what happened in Dhaka is that in fact two floors of the building were used as a nursery for children of the people working there, but the parents who were forced to go in and work that day refused to put their children in the nursery; otherwise we would have had not only 1,100 adult deaths, but probably several hundred deaths of children when that building collapsed.
To turn back to child labour, I have been in schools in Pakistan run by very honourable people who have gathered up children from servitude and used their own influence to get a couple of hours a week for those children to get some kind of education. That is in a country that has a law that says that every child has the right to primary education at the least. The EU report says that the situation is even worse in sub-Saharan Africa, where there are no real structures that we can use to judge what is happening.
The EU document is an excellent one as far as it goes, but, as the document itself admits, the problem is traceability. For example, the document says that all the tobacco that is grown and gathered is put together, so by the time it comes to sale we cannot trace it because the individual companies do not audit their accounts. It is the same with coffee. There are many situations such as those, in which no traceability is possible and we therefore have to take it on trust that the individual company signs up to an ethical initiative.
There is an ethical initiative—the Venice agreement, I think, or the Vienna agreement—which has something like 18,000 members. One of those is Sainsbury’s, which we have discovered within the past year was selling eggs and chickens that were being rounded up or gathered by enslaved Lithuanian men—one of the most scandalous cases that has come to court. Signing a document means nothing unless the people who sign it are formally audited. That is what it is really all about.
What are the worst forms of child labour? We need to look at the International Labour Organisation’s definition and I am glad that the Minister knows that. In ILO convention 182, article 3 says that it is
“all forms of slavery or practices similar to slavery, such as the sale and trafficking of children, debt bondage and serfdom and forced or compulsory labour, including forced or compulsory recruitment of children for use in armed conflict”.
That is a matter separate from the EU’s paper, but, on bonded labour, children are often working because they are bonded to the country that their parents work in.
Hon. Members will know the history of New Lanark, in Scotland. In the 19th century, Robert Owen said that no child under 10 years of age would work in his factory; they would be educated. However, the Bill to do that was not passed until some 50 years after he initiated that.
It is clear that many fundamental principles of human rights are involved. In Scotland, the miners were bonded to the mine in which their parents worked on the day they were born; otherwise, the parents were put out of their cottage and sacked from the pit. We have eradicated all of that, but that still goes on all around the world.
Debt bondage is the worst kind. People travel, thinking that they will be given a better life, but they end up having to work to pay back the debt, and their children get caught up in that. That goes on throughout the world: it is estimated that 17 million people are in slavery worldwide. That is more than all of the people taken by ship from Africa to America during the slave trade, and it includes children as well.
I want to put the worst forms on the record, because this is not some myth. The ILO says that they are,
“work which exposes children to physical, psychological or sexual abuse…work under ground, under water, at dangerous heights or in confined spaces.”
That goes on every day and that is why the ILO wrote the convention. By the way, that convention was passed in 1999, so we should think about how we have come all this way but so many people are still subject to that.
“work with dangerous machinery, equipment and tools, or which involves the manual handling or transport of heavy loads”—
children used as beasts of burden—
“work in an unhealthy environment which may, for example, expose children to hazardous substances, agents or processes, or to temperatures, noise levels, or vibrations damaging to their health…work under particularly difficult conditions such as work for long hours or during the night or work where the child is unreasonably confined to the premises of the employer.”
I am not sure about the details of the factories that caught fire in Bangladesh and Pakistan, but workers were burned to death because they were locked in the factory with bars on the windows in both of those cases. In one case 187 died and in the other 112 died. I do not know whether children were among them, but those are the conditions that people still work in to supply us with goods.
In the Bill that I proposed to Parliament, we put in the definition of the worst forms of child labour specifically, but we were told by the Prime Minister that that was a tick list that would have no effect. Yet what did we hear the Minister say about her colleague, the Immigration Minister—I do not know why it is he—who has taken over the remit? He is talking to people in the hospitality industry in the UK, but for what—to get them to tick a list and sign a document without any auditing of that? That is the reality of what the Government are doing. An initiative that just makes people sign up and wear a little bit of paper does not make any difference.
Manpower has audited for 15 years, right down to the third level of supply; that is millions of sub-suppliers of sub-suppliers. It was named the most ethical company in the US last year. I met the person who was the global president of that company and he said that having that badge is worth £10 billion to £20 billion a year to his company, because people understand what they are getting when they work with his company in 100 countries across the world.
Walk Free now has more than 1 million people signed up to support its campaign. That is because the person who put that together is a very big entrepreneur in Australia who realised that there were abuses of labour in his own supply chain; in fact, there was modern-day slavery and there was a question of children working in some of his quarries from an early age.
Those people are beginning to realise that audits need to be undertaken to get to the bottom of what is happening, and to find out whether there is child labour. Apple was not sending out the social feed to me as an apology. It was boasting that it had found child labour and would eradicate it; that it had found the problem and would get rid of it.
The EU document is fine. It refers to issues such as people signing up to organisations, and the generalised system of preferences, which is an effective tool. However, it is just a document for discussion. It will not bring in legislation. I am not saying that it is a punishment. Such action is an incentive. It is a challenge. As my friend—a colleague on the European Scrutiny Committee—said, the issue is about praising companies and telling them to be ethical traders as well as fair traders that are picked out as winners and taken out of the morass.
Companies in our high streets and those in the advanced economies of the world must be told we are not prepared to have companies that will not give people safe environments and ensure that they are not using children. There was embarrassment at an Olympic Games—not those in London—when children were seen sewing footballs in China and other countries for sale in the fancy shops on the high streets of Europe. Big companies behave in such ways. Those who bought clothing in Dhaka were from Walmart in America. The Gap company will still not sign up to an agreement not to put workers in Bangladesh in unsafe buildings. As we have heard from the Minister, it will sign a non-obligatory agreement.
The initiative in the UK is not obligatory. It is about people signing up to an agreement saying that they will be ethical, but without anyone asking them to prove it. Until the Government make matters obligatory, we should not vote for the motion. We are being asked to support the Government’s efforts against child labour. I do not think that we should, because their efforts are not good enough. They are not putting any form of constraint on companies to audit in respect of supply chains. Gap will still be selling clothes on the high street, whether or not it puts people into dangerous buildings in Bangladesh, because it will not sign up to a compulsory agreement.
We must compel companies in this country to be ethnical by incentivising them and make them realise that being ethical will result in profit. Let us consider the Body Shop. People buy its products because they are clearly not tested on animals. Surely it is more important for companies in this country not to use slavery, as it is for them to find out genuinely whether children are sewing in back shops in Africa and Asia, and to be able to say that they do not sell products that use slavery and child labour.
It is important to challenge the Government. At the moment, they do not deserve our support. They could have supported my Bill; they need not have told the Whips to have an hon. Member to talk it out. They are not willing to say to businesses that it is a necessity in this country for companies to prove that they are ethical.
If they did, that would show that the document has received support. However, perhaps the EU will have to come forward with a directive or a regulation before the Government are forced to do the right thing.3.24 pm
Stephen Phillips: It is an enormous pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk who, I must say, has become a close friend since our membership of the European Scrutiny Committee. We share an interest in many similar issues.
I do not want to detain the Committee for too long, although I would happily detain it for the next two weeks if I thought that anything I was about to say would make a difference. I want to draw attention to three issues. This country led the way during the 19th century with the Factory Act 1833 in preventing children from being placed in positions of danger, giving them childhoods and stopping them from working. It ought therefore to be this country—I hope to hear from the Minister that it will be this country, not the United States or somewhere else—that is leading the worldwide battle to prevent what is in essence a form of child abuse. Sending young children to work and depriving them of their childhood and the ability to grow up in a happy, healthy and safe environment is not something that anyone could commend and the Government ought to be doing everything that they can to stop it. I gently suggest to the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk that it may be that his private Member’s Bill could not be supported for various technical reasons or that there are other reasons why the Government cannot act unilaterally at this stage.
That brings me neatly to my second point, because I want the Minister to assure me that, given the document and the other measures she mentioned, the Government are treating the issue seriously internationally. It is not for the United Kingdom to act alone, because there are potential competitive disadvantages that are well understood. Even if we do not lead the way unilaterally, however, we can begin negotiations with the G8 countries and other developed economies, in particular within the European Union, which is responsible for the document, to ensure that we begin to take steps to outlaw these horrendous practices that see children working. If the Minister has not considered the issue of whether WTO rules, which are mentioned in the explanatory memorandum, are preventing progress nationally or internationally, I want her to assure me that she and her officials will consider the rules, that she will discuss them with Foreign Office colleagues and that she will ask those colleagues to discuss them with their colleagues in the European Union. We can then begin to make progress on anything that holds up the eradication of child labour during the course of my political lifetime.
What steps are the Minister and the Government taking, in particular with the EU, to educate consumers in Europe as to precisely what is going on? It cannot be expected that clothes can be bought from Primark, or other such stores in the United Kingdom where clothing is so cheap, without supporting child labour. Channel 4 broadcast an important documentary last year in which young people who were regularly, and perfectly understandably, buying clothes in such stores were shown what was actually going on in the factories where the clothes are made. What steps are being taken to educate
the public, in particular young consumers with their great and understandable desire for cutting-edge fashion at affordable prices? What is being done to educate them about where the clothing comes from? If we can begin that education, it may be that we do not need legislation to audit supplies, because if consumers make it clear to George at ASDA, Tesco, Primark, H&M and all the other retailers that they are not prepared to buy clothes from those who have not audited their supply chains to ensure that they are ethical, the companies, in so far as they have not acted already, will no doubt begin to do so of their own accord.3.28 pm
Sir Tony Cunningham: I have listened carefully to what has been said. My hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk made an interesting point when he said that the document was excellent. It is excellent and it should be noted, but the real crux of the matter is that the pace of the decrease in child labour is far too slow, and the ILO’s target to eliminate the worst forms of child labour by 2016 will not be met. I hope the Minister takes that on board when the Commission report lands on the desk of the Council, because someone from the British Government will be there. Will she assure me that when the report reaches the Council the views and comments made in this Committee will be put across in the strongest terms? Hopefully, the Council will listen.
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Lynne Featherstone: I understand and agree, but passions run very high. These are hugely important issues. I cannot respond on what happened to the private Member’s Bill sponsored by the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk, which is quite a different matter, but I understand the passion that lies behind it, and I have heard his comments. At the TUC-DFID Forum yesterday, we were told that doubling wages in Bangladesh would put only 2p on a garment price, so that is not necessarily the answer.
The hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk talked about health and safety. I went to Nepal where I could hardly believe that the buildings were standing, because there are no safety regulations and no planning rules. I am merely describing the size of the elephant we are trying to eat. The British Government take the matter very seriously; I know that DFID does. [ Interruption. ] The hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk is signalling that it is all talk.
Michael Connarty: The Minister should look at what has been said by Ministers and then match it to what they do. In fact, this Government came in saying they were going to lead the world—that was the Prime Minister’s statement—in eradicating modern-day slavery. He turned up at the Modern Day Slavery exhibition and made another great speech, having done very little in the meantime, not even implementing the directives that we have signed up to. That is the point. It is all talk, talk, talk instead of doing the job. The Government talk the talk, but do not walk the walk.
Lynne Featherstone: I totally reject that. We lead the world. The Department for International Development leads. In terms of the causes of child labour and all the
millions and millions, we are never going to get at the millions with simple laws. Laws are not the end of anything, although they are a beginning and they are very important. The education work that we do, and the work on water and sanitation, is what will remove child labour in all the countries where we work, where poverty is at its greatest. Bringing children out of poverty is answer number one, without doubt.On the disrespectful view of the Secretary of State’s meeting with the 15 retailers, they are exactly the sort of companies that can lead the way. Of course auditing is important. The companies mentioned by Committee members, such as Primark, are all signed up to the ETI, and as far as I am aware, they have a mandatory requirement to audit their supply chains.
I assure the hon. Member for Workington that the views and comments raised today will go forward to the Council. In a sense, that is the point of having the opportunity to debate this very important issue and a report that did not have any recommendations attached to it.
There are issues around traceability. In terms of the GSP scheme itself, there are sanctions under the GSP regulations, and the EU Commission can launch an investigation when there is evidence that a GSP country
“has committed grave and systematic violations of the international human rights and labour rights conventions cited in the GSP Regulation.”
Burma was removed from the scheme because of forced labour issues. It is about to be, or has been, reinstated, because of the progress it has made.
During the recent revision of the EU’s GSP scheme, the UK has been arguing strongly for increased monitoring and scrutiny in relation to the core conventions: the convention on the rights of the child and the convention on eliminating the worst forms of child labour. Reporting requirements have been clarified—a UK push—and the EU will now be able to draw from much wider sources of information for monitoring and implementation of the conventions. We will be able to garner many more sources to report on, and not just rely on the actual report of the company itself. If a country is found to be failing, that will be grounds for withdrawal of preferences.
I do not want to detain the Committee too long, but the issue is important. I thank hon. Members for the thoughtful and constructive debate we have had on this important topic. It links together not just international trade and the worst incidences of child labour, but a range of topics such as the role of the ILO, international labour standards, child trafficking, the need for education and to tackle extreme poverty in the communities where the young children of poor families are most likely to be forced to earn a wage in the labour market.
Stephen Phillips: The Minister is winding up, which is absolutely fine, but I asked a specific question about education and what DFID is doing to educate consumers. I understand it may not be within DFID’s ministerial responsibility, but I do want an answer to that question.
Lynne Featherstone: Indeed, it is not a DFID responsibility, as I explained in my speech, so I will find out and write to the hon. and learned Gentleman if that
is acceptable. I agree with him: it is important that children in this country learn about how some prices are kept so low and what lies behind that.Michael Connarty: The Minister is part of a collective called the Government. She mentioned Primark as one of the companies that the Government meet. She also referred to them as people who apply the EU statutes, but there was a whole floor where people were making clothes for Primark in the collapsed building in Dhaka in Bangladesh. These signatories mean nothing.
Lynne Featherstone: I did not say that. I said that they were signed up to the ETI. I understand the frustration. I keep trying to draw some kind of hierarchy. All these things are important but my priorities as a Minister in DFID are about alleviating poverty, which will be the biggest driver in terms of ending forced and child labour. I understand what the hon. Gentleman says about the need to get people to stick to the rules and have auditing. As I said, some of these things are mandatory. They are not just tick-box. There are sanctions that can be brought by the EU against companies which do not comply. Britain negotiates its trade regulations and rules through the EU. I have said that I will follow that up when I next go to Brussels.
As a Department our prime role is to address the underlying conditions that foster that abuse of children’s lives. We are conscious too that in some poor families the child’s parents may see no alternative. It is hard to apply our own standards to how people live in the sort of countries that we collectively visit and which start from a completely different place. In combating child labour we are committed to taking action across a wide range of fronts. This is an ambition and it is the way we are moving. It is a massive undertaking and we have to keep tackling the problem in as many ways and on as many fronts as we can. I am grateful to hon. Members for raising so many important points. I thank them and I commend the motion to the Committee.
The Committee divided: Ayes 7, Noes 1.
AYES
NOES
Question accordingly agreed to.
That the Committee takes note of European Union Document No. 9198/13, a Commission Staff Working Document on Trade and Worst Forms of Child Labour; welcomes the document as an important contribution to the debate that is central to both development and trade policy; and supports the Government’s efforts in the fight against child labour.