Fairtrade Certification

Martin Rhodes Excerpts

Thursday 11th December 2025 Westminster Hall

[Martin Rhodes (Glasgow North) (Lab) [R]]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the role of Fairtrade certification in UK business and trade. 

It is a pleasure to serve with you chairing for the second time in a fortnight, Mrs Hobhouse. I draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests: I was employed by the Scottish Fair Trade Forum prior to my election, and am currently chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Fairtrade.

Can we all honestly say we know who made the clothes we are wearing? When we buy a chocolate bar, do we always consider who grew the cocoa and under what conditions they worked? With every drink of tea, do we consider whether the tea farmer was paid adequately for us to enjoy our brew? Even as morally conscious as many of us would like to consider ourselves, the answer to those questions is very likely no. In this deeply globalised world, it is not possible for individuals to investigate the ethics of every product they buy.

Equally many corporations use their market power to exploit farmers and workers, suppliers of tea, cotton, and cocoa, with little regard for the environment and human wellbeing. That is why certification standards are important: they empower individuals to make informed purchasing choices through visible certification symbols, while also transcending the individual by helping to create a more ethical system of supply and demand, often by offering fair prices for products, financing for farmers, independent auditing of farming practices, transportation of goods, and processing to ensure high standards for people and the environment.

Not all certification standards were created equal. Some schemes can be used for greenwashing or to hide unethical practices through poor auditing standards. We must continue to champion independent certification standards and verification systems, and challenge those who opt for less demanding alternatives or no standards at all. I welcome the Government’s responsible business review, which I believe provides an opportunity for the UK Government to learn from certification standards as a way of delivering ethical business practices. I would welcome the Minister’s reflections on this in his response.

With that, I come to the main focus of this debate: the Fairtrade certification mark, which is one of the most recognised and effective certification standards. It is a household name, with an estimated 91% of UK consumers recognising the Fairtrade mark and some 78% caring about it. The blue, black, and green mark has come to be synonymous with certification standards. What really makes the Fairtrade mark so important is not just its public recognition or popularity, but the impact it has had and continues to have for farmers and communities globally.

Fairtrade guarantees a minimum price for farmers, provides a Fairtrade premium, ensures labour and environmental standards, and provides support and training. In practice, that means there is a price safety net enabling farmers to sell their products to cover the average cost of sustainable production. That income goes directly to farmers to increase their income, improve their livelihoods and increase wages for their workers.

The premium is paid directly to farmers via co-operatives; for every kilogram of produce sold, the funds must be spent democratically to invest in a community development project. It has been estimated that over the 25 years to 2019, Fairtrade farmers and workers have received around €1 billion in Fairtrade premium as additional funds to be invested in their communities and businesses. In 2023 alone, producers earned more than €211 million in Fairtrade premium. The projects and numerous types of training on the ground, including improved agricultural practices, climate resilience, business management, literacy and gender equality, have been supported by the premium.

Although the Fairtrade Foundation here in the UK does more than just implement its certification processes, there will always be limits to how much such an approach can deliver improved conditions for people and the planet, due to structural barriers and the imbalance of power in the competitive market system. This is why Fairtrade’s advocacy is so important. It helps producers, particularly smallholder farmers and workers, who usually are not given access to participate in public debate or to influence legislative and policy frameworks for the benefit of people and the planet.

The certification scheme is one part of the work of the Fairtrade Foundation, and the foundation in turn is only part of the global Fairtrade movement, bringing together consumers, producers, businesses and campaigners in a unique global movement for change.

[Liz Twist (Blaydon and Consett) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for securing this debate. Through their pioneering work, the Fairtrade movement and other organisations, such as Transform Trade, have demonstrated that we can have a real impact on human rights abuses and working conditions abroad by upholding standards in our own supply chains. Does he agree that we should work with big companies to incentivise best practice and transparency, protecting small and ethical businesses in the process?

[Martin Rhodes]

I agree that it is important that we look at reforming global trade in different ways depending on the particular context. One of the great successes of Fairtrade in the UK has been getting products into mainstream retail, where most people do their shopping. When it comes to quantity, that is where those products need to be. However, it is also important that the Fairtrade movement has supported other Fairtrade businesses to do all of their business Fairtrade and provided an alternative model of doing business. Both approaches are why Fairtrade has been so generally successful, accepting the current situation and how we make it better while also looking at how we build a better system overall.

[Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)]

I congratulate the hon. Member on the way he is articulating the case for Fairtrade. It is important that it is robust and traceable and has strong integrity, but if we are to scale up, should we not also integrate international Fairtrade standards into the Groceries Code Adjudicator, which is part of UK legislation? After all, the GCA is looking only at the final supplier to the large supermarkets in this country. If we can establish a strong relationship between international Fairtrade and the Groceries Code Adjudicator, which is currently under review, would that not be another step forward?

[Martin Rhodes]

The hon. Member’s highlights that certification schemes, important though they are, are not the only answer; we need to look at legislation and statutory guidance that will drive change in the system overall. I will speak later about what we can do in legislative terms to ensure that all the supply chains involved in goods and services sold in the UK are properly regulated and that we have a system in place to look at standards in the UK and elsewhere in those supply chains.

A recent example of the advocacy work of the Fairtrade Foundation is its “Brew it Fair” campaign, which called for greater accountability and responsibility in the tea sector. Some 13 million people source employment from the tea industry, and 60% of the world’s tea is produced by smallholder farmers. Regrettably, this market is made up of a high number of farmers and workers with low incomes and wages, working in the context of increasingly difficult conditions for farming due to climate change. This campaign called on the Government to do more to collaborate with the industry to deliver living wages and incomes for those in the tea sector and to be bolder in how we approach supply chain due diligence, and called for the UK to continue to honour its international climate finance commitments. During Fairtrade fortnight, at the end of September, around 117,000 people across the UK engaged with more than 1,000 local grassroots activities in support of the “Brew it Fair” campaign. Many of them were Fairtrade communities, a network of local campaign groups across the UK.

My hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Wyre (Cat Smith) wished to speak today but is unable to do so due to prior commitments. However, she told me she wants on the record her recognition of the hard work of the Garstang Fairtrade community—passionate campaigners on these issues in the world’s first Fairtrade town.

Support for Fairtrade cuts across communities and generations, from faith communities who see it as an important part of their social mission, to student activists inspired by its empowering impact, to rural communities who know through lived experience where power lies in agricultural supply chains. When Fairtrade hosted tea farmers from Kenya and India to speak directly to politicians and policy makers, that demonstrated exactly why advocacy is so important: it closes the vast proximity gap, often spanning cultures and oceans, between those who make decisions in this place and in boardrooms and those working at the very beginning of supply chains to deliver so many of the goods we enjoy.

Yesterday, Fairtrade’s “Brew it Fair” campaign culminated in a cross-party group of MPs, activists, and representatives from business and the Fairtrade Foundation handing a petition in to Downing Street, signed by over 21,000 people, containing the main asks of the campaign. The petition calls on the Government to introduce a law on human rights and environmental due diligence to oblige the public sector and businesses to prevent human rights abuses and environmental harms across their supply chains. I look forward to the Minister reflecting on the asks of the campaign in his response. In particular, I ask that he updates us on the Government’s position on human rights and environmental due diligence. The petition’s ask is the most important of the campaign, and the clearest ask of this debate.

[Andrew George]

I am dreadfully sorry to ask, but is the hon. Gentleman aware that those who are campaigning for Fairtrade believe that it can succeed properly only if this Government lead the way with their official development assistance budget, which has been severely cut? Does he agree that to achieve the aims that we all want to achieve, the Government need to look at their ODA budget? I cannot see how we can help countries enough if do it purely through trade.

[Martin Rhodes]

Trading relations become more important in the context of cuts to aid budgets, not just here but elsewhere in the world. Trade and business become more important as means of supporting and helping countries, and of narrowing gaps of inequality globally. There is a separate debate, which we might have at another time, about the levels of aid from the UK and elsewhere, but in the current context, trade becomes more important, not less.

In recent correspondence I had with the University of the Arts London, it highlighted structural challenges that are particularly clear in the fashion and textile sector. The debate so far has concentrated on food, but the university’s analysis shows that, despite strong consumer demand for ethical clothing, uptake of standards such as Fairtrade remains limited because of the lack of regulatory pressure, opaque multi-tiered supply chains and the competitive disadvantage faced by responsible brands. Its research underlines exactly why certification alone cannot fix a market that rewards the cheapest, rather than the fairest, production. We need human rights and environmental due diligence legislation to create that system change.

Some may worry that such legislation is a recipe for more red tape that will hamper growth, but that need not be the case. Many UK businesses already have to follow EU directives because that is where a large part of their market is. We risk becoming a dumping ground for unethically sourced products while our own British companies, following best practice in order to trade with our closest and largest neighbours, are undercut. Some 50 global businesses have already signed statements calling for human rights due diligence legislation, including UK brands such as Tesco, Twinings and John Lewis. Organisations such as the Corporate Justice Coalition are working hard to advocate on the issue by proposing a business, human rights and environment Act.

Current legislation on supply chain transparency lacks effectiveness. Section 54 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 requires companies only to report on their operations, but not necessarily to take responsible actions to address and prevent the problems. Having met the Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner, I am aware that they are pushing for mandatory human rights due diligence legislation in the UK. I would appreciate the Minister making reference to the commissioner’s work in his response.



Fairtrade shows that ethical trade can deliver; human rights and environmental due diligence would take it from optional to systemic. That said, the lessons of this debate for the Government are not just about the Fairtrade mark, a more ethical tea industry, or even important changes in due diligence laws. As we face a world of pressures and reductions in aid budgets, including our own, it places on us a greater and more urgent responsibility to use progressive approaches to trade and business and to promote progress on human rights, the environment and economic growth concurrently.

I shall conclude on that wider context. With the reductions in UK official development assistance, we should be viewing ethical trade and responsible business as cost-effective ways to put our principles into practice. Principles such as poverty reduction, gender equality and environmental sustainability can all be advanced through strong due diligence laws, and by growing our trade with allies that share the same high standards. But we are also required to take proactive action against regressive trade policies—most notably the use of investor-state dispute settlement provisions, which are mechanisms to allow overseas investors to sue Governments for taking legitimate regulatory decisions in the public interest.

The Government’s recent trade strategy contains very welcome and strong commitments to embedding human rights and environmental practices into our trade policy. I similarly welcome the Government’s responsible business conduct review, which shows their commitment to tackle the issues we are addressing in this debate. Such Government engagement, led by the Minister, is welcome.

The Labour Government was elected on an ambitious programme for workers’ rights and environmental sustainability. This is now an important opportunity for us to put those priorities into practice, not just here in the UK but in our global supply chains. I look forward to the Minister’s response and the rest of the debate.

[Wera Hobhouse (in the Chair)]

I remind Members that they should bob if they wish to speak. I am going to call the Front Benchers at 2.25 pm at the latest. I do not think I need to impose an official limit on speeches, but it would be brilliant if Members keep their remarks within eight minutes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Martin Rhodes]

First, I thank all those who have taken part in the debate. We have covered a lot of common ground but brought a lot of different perspectives to it.

A number of hon. Members, including the Minister and the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Reigate (Rebecca Paul), and my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton West (Warinder Juss), mentioned community campaigns, which are an important part of Fairtrade. Others, such as the hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Dr Chowns), have spoken about campaigns more generally,.

Other hon. Members have also raised business— my hon. Friend the Member for Cumbernauld and Kirkintilloch (Katrina Murray) talked about what can go wrong when good practice is not in place, while others reflected on where business practice goes right. My hon. Friend the Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq) talked about what can happen when things are not done ethically and about the difference that the Fairtrade premium can make when they are.

Others emphasised the input of producers, including my hon. Friends the Members for Ealing Central and Acton and for Cumbernauld and Kirkintilloch. Those different perspectives show one of the great strengths of Fairtrade: it brings together consumers, producers, campaigners and businesses to look at what can be achieved through certification.

I very much welcome what the Minister said about global connectedness. That is what underpins all this: the recognition that we are much more connected through trade, culture, travel and everything else than we were previously. In some ways, that broadens people’s horizons, and makes them see and understand things that they never previously had the chance to think about or knew existed, and it can help uncover injustices and make action more possible. However, in other ways, we see trading activity that is based on entering into places to deliberately and repeatedly exploit them.

We had some discussion earlier about the aid budget. I, too, look forward to returning to 0.7% of GDP, but as I said, when the UK aid budget and aid budgets across the world have been cut, we must look much more at trade and other means to achieve the principles that we all want to achieve.

The Minister spoke about “free and fair” trade and discussed what that means with the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney), but it is important to reflect on what was said. We want free trade, but if we free up trade and tear down barriers, and yet the underlying system does not allow for fairness, we will get an unfair outcome. We therefore need to make sure that fairness is embedded, and Fairtrade has shown itself for a number of years to be a proven way of doing trade that is mutually beneficial to all in the supply chain.

I welcome the Minister setting out the principles behind the responsible business review, and I very much welcome the fact that human rights and environmental due diligence are part of that. The Minister made mention of the Bribery Act 2010, which provides a framework for legislation—

[Wera Hobhouse (in the Chair)]

Order. May I encourage the hon. Member to wind up?

[Martin Rhodes]

I am making my final point, Mrs Hobhouse.

[Wera Hobhouse (in the Chair)]

The normal order is two minutes to wind up.

[Martin Rhodes]

I have only 30 seconds left, and I am on my final point. I welcome the opportunity from including human rights and environmental due diligence, and the Bribery Act offers a framework for looking at how that might be done.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the role of Fairtrade certification in UK business and trade.