HISTORIC Wellington clothing firm Fox Brothers has been namedropped at the LibDems' annual conference.

Gideon Amos, the party's candidate for Taunton and Wellington, mentioned the company during a speech to delegates in Bournemouth, when he called for action to combat the environmental impact of 'fast fashion'.

He said “Microfibres from thousands of tons of clothes are discarded into our rivers and oceans where they’re ingested by plankton and fish.

“In fact another 39,000 tons of our discarded clothes are added every year to a mega dump in Chile’s Atacama Desert, so large it is visible from space.

“Let’s instead see a renaissance in great, high-quality British clothing firms like Wellington’s Fox Brothers and the Merchant Fox where we buy clothes as long-term investments in quality clothing that lasts a lifetime.”

Mr Amos said the firm once produced 800 miles of flannels for British soldiers in the First World War and is still going strong.

Following the speech, delegates approved policies to introduce a 1p levy on new garments for sale in the UK, with the proceeds ringfenced for local recycling; a ban on the incineration or landfilling of used and new textiles; traceability in supply chains; the cost of clothing to be considered in the calculation of benefit rates; support for local clothes swapping initiatives; revising guidance on school uniform, emphasising affordability; research into the health risks of synthetic fibres; fashion retailers, water firms and washing machine manufacturers to tackle microfibre pollution; and a tax on manufacturing virgin plastics.

Taunton Deane Conservative MP Rebecca Pow responded that only her party is delivering action on waste with an environmental target to halve waste going to landfill of incineration, while "LibDems just talk".

She added: "We are pressing ahead with other measures including the plastic packaging tax, and banning the export of recycling materials to non-Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development countries.

"And through our Extended Producer Responsibility Scheme manufacturers will be responsible for the packaging they place on the market which will cut waste and drive circularity and this will extend to a wide range of products following the initial focus on packaging.

"In terms of textiles we recently published our new programme Maximising Resources, Minimising Waste...to tackle fast fashion, keeping textiles out of landfill and in circulation for longer through reuse and recycling.

"Policies include proposals to ban textile waste from going into landfill; requiring clothing retailers to provide in-store take-back of unwanted textiles; as well as asking businesses to separate textiles waste for reuse and recycling."