P&O Ferries and Employment Rights

Stewart Hosie Excerpts

Monday 21st March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Newlands]

I thank the hon. Member for that intervention. I have always been a glass half full type of guy, but, sadly, I have to completely agree with his interpretation of the situation. I do not see the urgency that is required to deal with this situation. If P&O thinks that it has the right to bring its weight to abuse its staff, the Government should be looking at what weight they can bring against its owners. Why should DP World be allowed within a mile of the London freeport project? It has shown itself to be a company without morals and without a care about regulation or legislation. Why should it be involved in one of the UK Government’s flagship projects? If the aim of freeports is to provide less regulation within each zone, we can have zero faith that even a minimal rulebook will be followed by DP World or any of its companies.

Until the despicable actions of last week are rectified, DP World should not be allowed anywhere near any Government projects or funding. Today we have found out more about how much P&O value its staff—this time, its new staff. Evidence has emerged, as has been mentioned, that those being used to bust workers at P&O may be paid just £1.81 an hour. P&O’s plan is to exploit the maritime employment regulations and give the bare minimum to the staff that it recruits. This means paying the International Labour Organisation minimums of £16.27 a day for an able seaman, or just £3.54 an hour for a cook. That is the reality of what P&O is trying to pull off here. It is plumbing the depths of wage slavery so that it can save a few quid.

[Stewart Hosie (Dundee East) (SNP)]

My hon. Friend will have heard the Minister say that because some of this was commercially confidential, he was limited in what he could do or say the night before. When we hear stories about “balaclava-clad security guards” dragging people off ships, surely commercial confidentiality goes out of the window?

[Gavin Newlands]

Absolutely. I thank my right hon. Friend for that point, which speaks once again of how this Tory Government care more about the businesses than the employees. That is at the heart of this particular issue. The truth is—[Interruption.] We are being barracked from the Government Front Bench, but actions speak louder than words.

The truth of the matter is that this is a race to the bottom, pure and simple, with overseas workers on starvation wages and workers here tossed on the scrapheap for having the temerity to expect a decent salary. It is about exploiting the global south for cheap labour, with people shipped thousands of miles from their homes, with virtually no employment rights, and used as pawns by the likes of P&O in their attempts to break UK-based staff.

Over recent years, we have seen how P&O and other shipping companies have made mass use of ILO contracts to pay their staff the bare minimum. I have mentioned able seafarers, but cabin stewards on North sea routes receive £2 an hour and cooks less than £5. It is a scandal that, having driven wages so low across the maritime sector, P&O is now using that as an excuse for its victimisation of loyal, hard-working staff.

Back some quarter of a century ago, when I started my first ever part-time job at a certain well-known fast food restaurant at Glasgow airport, I was paid £2.70 an hour. That was thought of as a low wage even at that time, and it was, but here we are in 2022 and people are asked to move across the world and break their backs for pennies. Since the staff operate from UK ports but work for companies or on boats registered in other countries, they are exempt from the minimum wage legislation that governs the rest of us. That is a disgrace, and something that the Government and international partners must resolve as soon as possible.

It is shameful that this country allows such poverty wages and employment conditions—close to indentured labour—on boats that ply its waters day in, day out. That race to the bottom has meant the loss of hundreds of jobs at P&O and the continued exploitation of hundreds of other people.