Fast-fashion firm Quiz says it has suspended a supplier after claims that a factory in Leicester offered a worker just £3 an hour to make its clothes.

It follows a report in the Times that an undercover journalist was told by a factory making Quiz clothes she would be paid below the minimum wage.

Quiz said if the claims were accurate, they were “totally unacceptable”.

Leicester’s garment-making industry is already under scrutiny for alleged poor working conditions at some sites.

Last week, Boohoo faced a backlash after a report that workers at a factory supplying goods for its Nasty Gal brand could expect to be paid as little as £3.50 an hour.

The national minimum wage for people over 25 years-old is £8.72 an hour.

There were also claims there were few measures in place to protect workers from the coronavirus. Leicester is currently in a localised lockdown following a spike in Covid-19 cases.

Quiz said that the factory at the centre of the Times story was a sub-contractor of one of its suppliers.

It said: “Quiz has immediately suspended activity with the supplier in question pending further investigation.”

The company said it monitored “its supplier base through audits and site visits”.

It added that it was “in the advanced stages of appointing an independent third-party partner to provide more regular audits of suppliers in the Leicester region”.