Shadow Health secretary urges Boohoo investors to oust bosses

The shadow health minister has urged Boohoo’s largest investors to remove its current bosses following reports of unsafe working conditions at some of its warehouses.

According to the Daily Mail, Liz Kendall has written a letter to Jupiter, Invesco and Baillie Gifford calling for them to remove chairman Mahmud Kamani and its chief executive John Lyttle for their “failures” in stopping “appalling” working conditions to take place.

Kendall, who is also the MP for Leicester West, is reported by the paper to have said: “I am calling on you and Boohoo’s other shareholders to demand a new chair and chief executive to lead the changes the company and the people of Leicester desperately need.”

The report comes two weeks after Boohoo published the results and response to the independent review of its UK supply chain.

Alison Levitt QC was appointed to conduct the review, with a purpose to “consider boohoo’s obligations and duties of care in relation to the workforce in its Leicester supply chain”.

The report “identified many failings” in the Leicester supply chain and recommended improvements to boohoo’s related corporate governance, compliance and monitoring processes.

It added there was “ample evidence” that the steps which Boohoo is taking to remedy supply chain issues had been implemented nearly a year ago, adding that “they were a product of processes it had itself put in place and not just a reaction to the negative publicity in July and August 2020”.

The report stated: “Nevertheless, with the benefit of hindsight we regret that these processes did not advance quickly enough.

“Ms Levitt is satisfied that boohoo did not deliberately allow poor conditions and low pay to exist within its supply chain, it did not intentionally profit from them and its business model is not founded on exploiting workers in Leicester.”