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Royal Warrants of Appointment

It is remarkably difficult to find any instances of people from whom royal warrants have been removed—some have fallen into abeyance, so it is very difficult to tell. However, organisations clearly value their royal warrants because they make great use of them: they use the crest and the words ““By Appointment”” followed by the relevant member of the royal family. The warrant is a significant asset to them in particular markets—in China, Japan, the United States of America and parts of the middle east, it is an important element of marketing, although it is not the sum total of it. Any company wanting to claim that it is a ““great British”” company should do so not only because it makes great profits—although obviously I am happy to celebrate the financial success of companies, including Burberry—but because it abides by British standards of fair play, one of which is a fair employment policy, which should be another criterion for being added to the list of royal warrants. For instance, a company should be able to guarantee that any goods in its name are not produced on the basis of slave wages or child labour. People would expect that. In fact, many who have outsourced to India and China have found it remarkably difficult to guarantee even that its goods will not be manufactured by children, because they do not set up their own factories there. Most in Britain would adhere to that important principle. I come specifically to Burberry, which, as hon. Members may know, has two royal warrants—one from Her Majesty the Queen and another from the Prince of Wales. Burberry is an extremely successful company, which in the past few years has made significant improvements each quarter. I praise that economic success and want it to continue. However, it is outsourcing its polo shirt production, at present in Treorchy, to other parts of the world, and unless it can guarantee that it will not be doing so on the basis of slave wages or child labour, it should lose its royal warrant. Specifically, if Burberry chooses to withdraw from Wales, it could be argued strongly that it should lose the royal warrant from the Prince of Wales. I do not oppose globalisation; it brings many benefits for British business and for some of the poorest parts of the world. I want to see a world in which free trade is successful, which is why I do not want to see tariffs created here or in other parts of the world. It is not for the Government to determine how Burberry should run its business, but it is for Parliament to consider how business is done by British companies that carry the national seal of approval—namely, the royal warrant.