P&O Ferries: Redundancy

(asked on 13th May 2020) - View Source

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment he has made of the potential economic effect on Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle constituency of P&O Ferries’ announcement on 11 May 2020 of redundancies among seafarers and shore-side staff on its Hull-Zeebrugge and Hull-Rotterdam ferry routes.


Answered by
Kemi Badenoch Portrait
Kemi Badenoch
President of the Board of Trade
This question was answered on 20th May 2020

The recent news regarding job losses at P&O will be very distressing for the company’s employees and their families. The Government has protected, as far as possible, people’s jobs and incomes through unprecedented support for workers. Measures such as the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme are being used across the freight sector to protect the sector against the Covid-19 economic crisis.

In addition to economy wide measures on 24 April the Government committed to keeping freight flowing on routes into and across the UK. Following engagement with operators, DfT has awarded contracts for 16 routes with 6 operators, worth an estimated £34m over 2 months.

The Government has increased support for those on the lowest incomes through a package of temporary welfare measures, including a £20 per week increase to the Universal Credit standard allowance and Working Tax Credit basic element. The government has also made over £3.2 billion available to local authorities to address any pressures they are facing in response the COVID-19 pandemic, across all service areas.

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