Downing Street urges P&O Ferries boss to
resign after 800 sackings
Government promises legislation to force company to
reverse move and pay crew minimum wage
Matthew
Weaver and Peter Walker
Fri 25 Mar
2022 14.52 GMT
Downing
Street has called for the chief executive of P&O Ferries to resign over the
sacking of 800 workers, and pledged to push through legislation next week to
force the company to reverse the move and pay its crew the minimum wage.
The
transport secretary, Grant Shapps, had earlier promised action after Peter
Hebblethwaite’s performance in front of the transport and business committees,
which he said was “brazen, breathtaking, and showed incredible arrogance”.
Hebblethwaite
admitted to MPs on Thursday that his company broke the law by sacking the 800
workers without consultation.
Boris
Johnson’s deputy spokesperson said the prime minister agreed with Shapps’s view
that Hebblethwaite should step down, and confirmed the plan for legislation.
“We’ll be setting out a package of measures to take action against the
unacceptable behaviour of P&O, and ensure this can’t happen again,” he
said. “I can’t pre-empt that, but it would cover measures under things like
international maritime law, domestic maritime law, employment law.
“The
transport secretary spoke before about making sure that there are rules in
place so that people sailing in UK waters can’t be paid below the minimum wage.
[He] will set out full details of that next week.”
Speaking to
Sky News, Shapps said: “I cannot believe that he can stay in that role having
admitted to deliberately going out and using a loophole – well, break the law –
but also use a loophole.”
Shapps also
promised new legislation next week that would “close every possible loophole
that exists and force them to U-turn”.
Shapps had
called P&O Ferries’ plan to replace the sacked workers with agency staff on
less than the minimum wage “simply unacceptable and we will force that to
change”.
He accused
the company of “mischievously” registering its ships under the Cyprus flag to
avoid UK laws. He added: “They were breaking the law and deliberately set out
to break the law, but effectively pay people off for their silence.
“We can’t
have a situation where the minimum wage exists onshore, but as soon as you’re
offshore … people aren’t covered by British laws on things like minimum wage,
and overseas cheap labour is exploited on those routes.”
Shapps
suggested that the new law, to be drawn up in consultation with the Labour
party, would ban shipping companies from operating from British ports if they
failed to pay the minimum wage. He said: “I’ve already spoken to my opposite
number in the House of Commons in order to try and build a consensus around
this.”
Hebblethwaite
said on Thursday that Shapps knew about the intention to slash jobs in November
last year, despite denials from the Department for Transport (DfT).
Asked if
Hebblethwaite was “lying”, Shapps said: “I’ve sent the note, actually, from the
meeting in November, which was with a parent company – DP World – when I was at
World Expo, where they simply said the competition is very tough, the
conditions are very tight … and they’ll be looking at the shape of their
business. I’ve actually sent the formal civil service note of that meeting.
“I think we
can all see that what they’re trying to do is distract attention. The fact of
the matter is that they needed to give 45 days’ notice to ministers, in fact to
the secretary of state for business, if you’re making these kinds of
redundancies. They did not do that, they did not provide the notice.”
Minutes of
the 22 November meeting were later released by the Commons transport committee,
sent to them by the DfT. They show Shapps saying he knew about the issues faced
by P&O Ferries, but only seemingly in general terms. “I’m aware of the
issues relating to P&O,” Shapps told Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, DP World’s
chair, the minutes recorded. “I recognise you will need to make commercial
decisions, but please do keep us informed.”
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