Investigators say they have found no evidence of so-called modern day slavery after visiting hundreds of textile factories in Leicester.
An investigation into allegations of worker abuse – called Operation Tacit – was launched last July after reports of workers in Leicester’s garment manufacturing sector being exploited.
It was led by the government’s Gangmaster and Labour Abuse Authority (GLAA) and the National Crime Agency along with the Health and Safety Executive. City council and customs officials were also involved.
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According to a new city council report, Operation Tacit uncovered intelligence identifying 350 “premises of interest”.
Modern day slavery can include people being forced to work through violence and intimidation, or being made to work for free or to pay off a debt.
Although the operation did not uncover slavery, it did find evidence of workers not getting the national minimum wage, as well as inadequate welfare.
In all 215 factories within the city were subject to a mix of “engagement and enforcement”.
The report says: “The issues identified to date have not been in Modern Day Slavery but have been predominantly around HMRC National Minimum Wage risk, health and safety issues, in the main linked to Covid-19 controls, inadequate welfare and some safety concerns.
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“A number of premises have been identified where further enforcement visits are to take place which will last well into the summer of 2021, these are mixture of those identified through engagement visits and through information and intelligence available to the enforcement bodies.
“More information has been provided by brands, but this is confined to a very small number of brands with those that are well engaged have provided significant quantities of factories that they have concerns about.”
Last month a Parliamentary committee said it had been shocked by evidence over the last three years that underpayment of wages and poor conditions appeared to be rife in 海角视频 garment factories supplying fast fashion brands.
It said the Government should consider a compulsory garment trade adjudicator following the failure of voluntary initiatives to stamp out labour abuses in the sector.
Leicester’s deputy mayor councillor Adam Clarke told LeicestershireLive: “The Government, having spent a lot of time sitting on its hands, has put considerable resources into this (Operation Tacit) and it is important to say what has and has not been found.
“Issues of low pay have been discovered which need to be addressed but so far no modern slavery.
“People have used very emotive language to describe what are legitimate concerns but modern day slavery has not been found by the GLAA.
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“The claims made were damaging to our city and they were inaccurate. That is not to say we do not have challenges to address.”
The city council report also says no link evidence was found that the textile trade was the cause of the Covid-19 spike last summer that led to the city being placed in the 海角视频’s first local lockdown.
Coun Clarke said: “We had Matt Hancock on the television saying he was concerned about Leicester factories but nothing has been found to support that.”
The city council report says: “Regulatory compliance work over the last year has also contradicted erroneous headlines that linked Leicester textile factories to widespread outbreaks of Covid-19 during the pandemic.
“To date, the Health and Safety Executive state that they have only found two reports where confirmed Covid-19 cases in Leicester were linked to textile factory and these were investigated.
“The HSE has confirmed only one of these reports was classified as an outbreak involving a few individuals working outside the manufacturing area and that Covid-19 controls did not require formal enforcement action.
“In addition to this feedback from Public Health remains: “There is no epidemiology that supports the assertion that ‘huge outbreaks of Covid-19 were discovered at clothing factories’ in Leicester last summer.”
The report adds: “The facts, as they stand have not supported the headlines that besieged the city last year.”
North West Leicestershire Conservative MP Andrew Bridgen, who has regularly criticised the Labour city council for failing to deal with problems in the sector, said: “If people are being paid under the minimum wage and are being forced to work in appalling conditions that sounds like slavery to me.”