P&O Ferries and Employment Rights

Ian Lavery Excerpts

Monday 21st March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)]

This has been a rather strange debate so far. I am a bit discombobulated by a number of things. I want to place on the record my sincere gratitude to the RMT and Nautilus International for their fantastic work in such a short space of time on this unbelievably poor situation.

The Secretary of State stood there and said that this is not about politics. Of course it is about politics. Everything in this place is about politics, hence the name “politicians”—it’s a giveaway. The fact that 800 hard-working people got their notice in the way they did last week is an absolute outrage, an embarrassment, a disgrace—call it what you want.

The hon. Member for Dover (Mrs Elphicke) should not really get mixed up with people who are angry at losing their jobs, and she should not suggest that somebody who has lost their job is a hard-left militant. If I lost my job, I would be desperately disappointed. If I lost my job in the fashion that these individuals did, I would be more than angry—I would be incandescent with rage. She should not get mixed up with people who got up in the morning, kissed their partner and then, when they got to work, were told that an announcement was going to be made that day. These are ordinary people. These are 800 hard-working individuals with families, mortgages, cars and all the rest of it, who carried this country through the pandemic. To criticise them for being hard-left militants because they are angry about losing their job is distasteful, to say the least. [Interruption.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order.

[Ian Lavery]

The reality is that these people were absolutely right to say what they did at that moment in time. They got to the workplace and were told that there was going to be a Zoom call. And then the chief executive of P&O Ferries was saying how hard up the company is and that that was why they were getting their notice that day, even though they did not realise that they were going to get their notice. The right hon. Member for North Thanet (Sir Roger Gale) said that the chief executive was embarrassed that he had to do that and that this is not really about him but about DP World. Come off it! Let’s be honest. This was a commercial decision and DP World and P&O Ferries are awash with finance. DP World paid out £270 million in dividends last year. It even sponsored a golf competition for £147 million. What on earth? What sort of golf competition is that? At the same time, there is a £145 million black hole in its pensions. It would rather support and sponsor golf competitions than pay money into the pension schemes of hard-working people.

We have to get this right. The Government pride themselves on being a patriotic party. There is nothing more patriotic than looking after the people of this country in the way they should be looked after.