P&O Ferries and Employment Rights

Emma Hardy Excerpts

Monday 21st March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Louise Haigh]

The text of the memo will be placed in the House of Commons Library. It is reported that this was received on Wednesday night and the memo was sent overnight into Thursday morning.

The Secretary of State needs to answer these questions: when exactly did he see this crucial memo and what was his response? Did anyone in No. 10 acknowledge it? Did they advise on any alternative course of action? Did he or his Ministers seek immediate advice from either the Solicitor General or the Attorney General as to the legality of P&O’s action? Why did he make contact with the boss of P&O only hours after the plan was publicly announced, despite the advance notice that he was given? Given that DP World has been publicly voicing concerns about the sustainability of P&O ferries for at least a year, will he publish all correspondence with it over that period? At what point did he or his Ministers first become aware that this may be a course of action that P&O was willing to take?

Either the Government were bewilderingly incompetent or they were complicit. Either way, there was a window of opportunity to protect the livelihoods of 800 British workers from an illegal act by a rogue employer, and the Government did nothing. For all the outrage that has since flowed from Ministers, the proof is before our eyes. What have Cabinet Ministers actually managed to do? They have written a strongly worded letter to the wrong person and have signposted workers to the jobcentre. The central calculation by DP World that this Government would not lift a finger to stop it has so far been proven right.

[Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)]

It is not only about the appalling way in which workers are being treated now, but about the future of the whole industry. There were 18 apprentices—the only apprentices being trained on British ratings—sacked among the 800 workers. That decision will have an impact not only today, but for the future of our maritime industry: if it is allowed to stand, we will not have people trained for future generations.

[Louise Haigh]

I thank my hon. Friend; I know that her colleagues in Hull who are in the Chamber today have campaigned long and hard for the maritime industry in this country. She is absolutely right that this is an assault not just on those workers, but on the entire industry in this country.

--- Later in debate ---

[Grant Shapps]

My understanding is that a very small number of officials were contacted by P&O management during the late afternoon. They then wrote up a read-out of that, which is, I think, the note that has been widely circulated. As I have mentioned, my concern was not really sparked until I was at the Dispatch Box, when I started to hear about the way that it was being carried out, because in 2020 and 2021 voluntary redundancies had taken place in the way that we would expect. It was deeply concerning to see the footage of staff being forcibly removed from ferries, underlining the cynical approach and confrontational nature of the operation, which was not at all what we had seen in those previous two rounds. It is astounding that a company with a long and proud maritime past, whose vessels bear names such as the Pride of Kent and the Spirit of Britain, will in future have almost no British crew on board, but it is no more astounding than the manner in which the crew were left marooned last week.

[Emma Hardy]

Am I correct in understanding that the Secretary of State was made aware of the P&O workers being sacked and made the assumption that it would be done in the correct manner, without checking whether it would be done in accordance with trade union and employment legislation? We have heard the famous saying that if we assume something, it tends to make an “ass” out of “u” and “me”. It seems that in this case we have made an ass out of all those P&O workers who are now stuck without their jobs because the Secretary of State assumed that everything would be fine without doing his job and checking it.

[Grant Shapps]

I really want to avoid the temptation to try to turn this into a political knockabout—[Interruption.] It is not. It is about 800 people’s jobs. When the previous two rounds of redundancy took place—I think I am right in saying that neither the hon. Lady nor any other Member of this House, perhaps bar one, approached me about them—the company quite properly consulted the workers and the unions and carried them out in a voluntary fashion. The expectation, therefore, was, quite properly, that that was what would happen again on this occasion. We are also talking about a commercially sensitive decision, which limits what a Minister can immediately say and do. But there is no excuse—and this is the point—for the way in which it was carried out. For some employees, for a four-decade seafaring career to be brought to an abrupt video end is just plain insulting.

Since the news emerged, I have spoken to one of the sacked employees, who has given years of service to P&O. He told me about the chaotic way in which the situation unfurled for him on Thursday morning. He said that after a decade of service, workers were brutally informed via a pre-recorded Zoom message, and that, despite the fact that some staff have now been offered redundancy packages, nothing can change the way in which these workers were let down. They found out, as the rest of the world was finding out, via a Zoom message, which was linked to some of those individuals’ homes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)]

Madam Deputy Speaker, you have known me a very long time, and you know, as others do, that I often get very angry about the policies of this Government. I get angry about injustice, I get angry about inequality and I get angry about the rich and the powerful deliberately stifling the reasonable aspirations of people—and the majority of people—in my constituency of east Hull. However, in the nearly 12 years since I was elected, which is 4,336 days, I have never ever been so angry about a single act of brutal contempt for decent working people as I was on Thursday last week, when loyal workers were sacked by a pre-recorded Zoom call, with replacement crews and balaclava-wearing, handcuff-trained and Taser-trained private security waiting on the quayside.

This thuggery against workers must be an ultimate new low, but this day has been coming for a long time. I have spent years—years—telling anyone prepared to listen to me about the unscrupulous employers using loopholes and ambiguities in maritime law to get away with gross exploitation. If this was happening to any workers in any business on the mainland, it would not just be illegal; it would be the most grotesque act of illegality in industrial relations most any lawyer or indeed most any employment tribunal judge had ever seen.

Imagine any of the big employers notifying its staff that they had been sacked with immediate effect, only to be replaced with exploited eastern European, Filipino, Portuguese or Indian agency workers paid less than two quid—less than two quid—an hour, but that is what happened. That is what happened here, and it is a scandal that the national minimum wage legislation does not apply to seafarers on international routes, despite me, members of the Labour party and Opposition Members begging successive maritime Ministers to sort it out. It is a disgrace that this Government have allowed this practice to carry on unchallenged.

For how they have stood up to the onslaught on the terms and conditions of their members, we should all pay tribute to the RMT union and Nautilus International. Since Thursday, they have been tirelessly defending the workers, and I want specifically to thank Gary Jackson, the RMT’s regional organiser, for the unflinching support for the crew on the Pride of Hull, and the ship’s captain, Eugene Favier, for his efforts. Captain Favier is a very modest man, and he said he was only doing what was right when he instructed—ordered—his crew to lift the gangway. These trade unions do this work year round, day in and day out, and the general secretaries, Mick Lynch of the RMT and Mark Dickinson of Nautilus, are here in the Chamber for this debate. I thank Mr Speaker’s Office for kindly for facilitating other trade union members being in the Gallery here today watching the debate.

The Government have continually refused to listen to me and the unions, and refused to close the loopholes. Now, 800 families are suffering the consequences. By kowtowing to unscrupulous bosses and refusing to back the Bill that would have outlawed fire and rehire, this Government have allowed these predatory capitalists—pariah companies like P&O and its parent company DP World—to exploit cheap foreign labour at the expense of British maritime professionals. Kids in east Hull grow up in the shadow of ships in ports but are shut out of rewarding and prosperous careers at sea. In 2020, a further blow was dealt to their aspirations when P&O axed the Hull-Zeebrugge route at the cost of many more seafarer jobs.

You can see that this is deeply personal to me, Madam Deputy Speaker, as my late dad Ken was a proud trade unionist. He was a full-time official for the National Union of Seamen, predecessor to the RMT, from 1971 until his retirement as national secretary in 2000. He fought for years, along with other trade unionists, to achieve the decent terms and conditions enjoyed by British crews in Hull and across the country until Thursday last week.

The British seafarers sailing out of Hull worked long and demanding hours at sea but got proper rest breaks and were paid rates that they could live on. They had work stints of two weeks on and two weeks off.

[Emma Hardy]

My hon. Friend is making an incredible speech, and I want to state that Hull is of course united on this issue. The leader and deputy leader of the council were at the demonstration, as of course were the people of Hull West and Hessle.

[Karl Turner]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. and she is right: Labour councillors from Hull attended that rally and were incredibly supportive.

The work stints of two weeks on and two weeks off allowed seafarers proper rest times for safety at sea. Steward jobs are not just pulling pints behind the bar; they require skill and experience, and safety and survival training.

Once upon a time British seafarers were treated with respect. In my office in Parliament there is a painting of the MV Norland, predecessor ship to the Pride of Hull. It was presented to my dad and my predecessor Lord Prescott by Captain Don Ellerby CBE. When she sailed to the Falklands we were all proud of her: proud of her crew, fighting for Queen and country, supplying our Navy and the military personnel. The painting illustrates the vessel as she was under fire at sea. In those days the owners of P&O, and then North Sea Ferries, were also proud of British ratings and British officers.

[Emma Hardy]

rose—

[Karl Turner]

I think my hon. Friend wants to intervene again.

[Emma Hardy]

Yes, just to say again that my hon. Friend is making a wonderful speech.

[Karl Turner]

Of course, I am bound to agree.

I am not going to spare my anger and wrath at this Government today for enabling this industrial vandalism. We now know that Ministers were told in advance, and we know that officials thought it acceptable to sack 800 men and women with immediate effect, ignoring any liability in law that might apply. It is absolutely despicable, and it is the fault of the Prime Minister and his Government. The ideology of the small state, a leave it to the market, full speed ahead, devil take the hindmost Thatcherite philosophy that allows, defends and incentivises this shocking corporate arrogance and this most malicious act of violence on workers’ rights is their absolute shame.

I spoke with the Secretary of State on Thursday and I think he was angry, but the Government can do something about it now. They should support this motion, or they should expect the electorate to sack them at the next election. Unlike our British seafarers sacked last week, they are on good and proper notice: do something now—close the loophole. It is possible; it takes a few minutes in a statutory instrument—get on with it.