The programme opens with dramatic music. "I'm undercover at the headquarters of fashion giant Boohoo," says BBC reporter Emma Lowther, as the camera roams around rack upon rack of garments. "The company's built its reputation on selling cheap, on-trend clothes. Boohoo's been criticised for its pursuit of low prices. It promised to change." Her conclusion? It had not.

In July 2020 The Sunday Times reported that workers in a LeicesterA city in England's East Midlands region. factory making clothes for Boohoo were being paid as little as £3.50 an hour. The legal minimum wage for anyone over 25 was then £8.72.

It was also reported that factories supplying Boohoo were making employees come into work during lockdown, even if they felt ill. Asos and Next dropped Boohoo products as a result.

An independent inquiry decided that although Boohoo was not directly responsible for the workers' mistreatment, its monitoring of the factories was "inadequate". In response, the company introduced an "agenda for change". It promised to pay suppliers fairly and give them a reasonable amount of time to produce clothes.

But while working in its dress department, Emma Lowther found colleagues under constant pressure to drive prices down. "Go in low and if you're not getting anywhere, then just say that you can get it cheaper elsewhere," one told her. "I just lie."

She found that Boohoo was making suppliers accept less money than originally agreed - even, in some cases, after the clothes had been delivered.

When the BBC asked an expert to work out the cost of making a £15 Boohoo dress, he put it at £7.23. But the supplier only got £4.25.

Lowther also found that Boohoo had cut the time it allowed the suppliers to produce the clothes - from ten weeks to six or seven. Secret filming at one factory showed workers being told they had to stay and work late into the night.

Boohoo's lawyers have denied the allegations. But the documentary will be seen as ammunition by people who believe fast fashion is fundamentally wrong.

One survey¹ found that the average fast-fashion garment was worn only seven times - and that Britons bought over 50 million outfits a year that they wore only once. Another² found that people on average buy 60% more clothes than 15 years ago, and bin them twice as quickly.

The industry produces around 10% of global carbon emissionsWhen a gas is let off from something, like a car, it is an emission. Carbon dioxide, or CO2, is a greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming..³ It also depletes precious natural resources and causes dangerous pollution.

But in an article for Forbes, Brooke Roberts-Islam argues that expensive brands are trying to deflect criticism by pretending that cheaper ones are responsible for all these problems. He cites factories in Bangladesh which produce clothes for both, and whose "streamlined production and resource efficiency... decreases the product footprint and allows very competitive pricing".

And writing in Spiked, James Woodhuysen says that criticism of fast fashion is fuelled by snobbery. The fact that billions of people across the world can buy up-to-date clothes cheaply should be welcomed.

Yes: It is incredibly wasteful and does enormous damage to the environment. The people who work in it are often cruelly exploited, earning low wages and enduring dangerous conditions.  

No: It is great that people who could not previously afford fashionable clothes can buy them so cheaply. And the fact that more clothes are being bought creates employment and fuels economic growth.   

Or... It is only immoral if you do not wear the clothes you buy or throw them away. Fashion is cyclical, so you should hang on to the ones that you have, knowing that their time will come again.