Calling all UK fashion and textile designers, manufacturers, brands and retailers…

It’s time to write to your MP

From the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, UKFT has been and remains committed to working with the government to make sure that the industry gets the help, information and support we all need for businesses to survive in the short term and beyond the pandemic.

We have been in daily contact with the government and civil servants to exchange information and contacts. We have written to Ministers and MPs, as well as the key opposition parties on issues facing the industry. We have also participated in calls and Select Committees. We have submitted recovery strategies for the industry with requests for funding and additional support. We are represented on key committees and groups informing the government about the challenges facing the industry.

However, when it comes to support for our exporters we need your help in getting our message heard by the Chancellor and the Department for International Trade.

• The UK government has failed to support funding for virtual tradeshows that have replaced physical events such as Pitti Uomo and Première Vision.
• We have yet to discover if we will be allowed to use unspent export support funding from 2020/21 in 2021/22
• In the midst of an extremely challenging business environment the government is toughening the rules and conditions on access export support, which makes it more difficult for companies to claim grants
• Above all, there is a lack of any new activity for exporters to help them survive Covid-19 and prepare for the UK’s new Free Trade Agreements post Brexit

In our view, only the intervention of a lot of MPs across the various parties, could give us the chance to made a difference at this critical time. While the issues we are trying to get progress on relate to Covid-19, inevitably they also have a direct business on the UK’s trading relationship with Europe and the rest of the world from 1st January.

We are now asking you to help us by writing to your MP to outline the issues and challenges facing your export business and to ask for the MPs help in getting the government to support the industry in its efforts to safeguard its export business.

UKFT has prepared a template letter you may find useful but we hope you will amend the template to reflect the issues and challenges facing your business. In this way, we hope to make sure that MPs and ministers understand just how difficult business is for all at the moment. We also need companies to look beyond their own businesses and to the longer term. If we allow our exports to slump then this will impact our UK manufacturing base and damage the whole UK fashion and textile supply chain.

The next six months will be critical and the industry needs the government to give what it alone can give: a level playing field for UK businesses, promotional support for our exporters and access to funding to make things happen. The industry will do the rest – as it always has done.

Please help us to get the message across. If you are able to write to your MP, please let us know that you have done it so we can track the impact of our collective response. To get involved in the campaign, please email paul.alger@ukft.org

To find the contact details for your local MP, click here.

Please write to your MP today. Together we can make a difference.

The UK Fashion & Textile Association (UKFT) is the most inclusive network for fashion and textile companies in the UK. We bring together designers, manufacturers, suppliers, agents and retailers to promote their businesses and our industry, both in the UK and throughout the world.

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