Westminster Hall debate: Onshoring in the fashion and textiles industry

Today is a good news story!

I attended the Westminster Hall debate proposed by Catherine West MP to talk about the value of our sector across the 4 nations of the UK in terms of textiles, manufacturing, talent and creative IP. Catherine has been a co chair of the APPG for Ethics and Sustainability in Fashion (ESF APPG), for which Fashion Roundtable are the secretariat, and, as we reconvened the APPG prior to the debate, I am pleased to share will be an officer in the APPG, alongside her work as trade envoy to Pakistan and her constituency work - I also live in her constituency, and was her women’s officer. I never forget that Westminster truly is a village! More on the APPG soon. Our former APPG chair who is retired from parliament, John McNally kindly came down from Scotland to attend the meetings.

Sir Chris Bryant, representing the UK Government in his role as Minister of State for Trade Policy of the United Kingdom, came to hear and speak at the debate, which also centred around the idea I have been promoting now for several years: that we use some of the increased defence spending budgets to increase onshoring contracrs, as this would not only promote investment across the UK, it would stabilise orders for manufacturers, who would then invest in staff, R&D and happily work on fashion orders, without being at the abeyance of fast fashion brands and potentially delays or cancellations on orders. An issue we have all seen across the past several years, such as the Matches Fashion fiasco.

I was thrilled to see Fashion Roundtable thanked for our work, it meant a lot.

Watch the debate, and if you agree with any of the points, or want to raise issues with your MP, please email them using this easy link and share your thoughts.

Thanks,

Tamara.