'Are you basically a modern day pirate?' P&O boss grilled by MPs

Are you basically a modern day pirate? We recognize that we made a very difficult decision two years ago, one that was legal but we also have to acknowledge, and one that I wish we’d never ever had to make in the 1st place. But we also have to acknowledge that without that difficult decision, P&O would not be here today and we would not have been able to preserve the 2000 jobs that we have been able to preserve. Take the 135,000 tons of CO2 emissions that we have taken out of our carbon footprint, open up new routes, but continue to serve the most important trade route between the UK and the continent. The French Maritime Minister, though, as you know of a Breville, has described the company’s behaviour as dangerous and immoral. Are you dangerous and immoral, or both? Oh, I’m very pleased to be able to inform the committee that in when the fact our safety record has improved by 66% continue to operate an increasingly safe fleet of ships. Well, you seem to be robbing your staff blind, however, and so I’d like to get into some of the details about the pay, if you don’t mind. In March 2022 you told Parliament that you would pay staff 5 lbs fifteen going forward. But I’ve seen data and the committee has seen data that suggests that you’re now paying for the 1st 8 hours, a basic rate, just £2.86. That’s 1/4 of the national minimum wage. Is that figure right important that I think it’s important that we compare apples with apples so exchange rates move about. But if I can take a moment to explain how international minimum wages are set and demonstrate that we pay in excess of those standards where we are governed by international law. So the International Labour Organization has an agreement with the International Transport Workers Federation that there is a minimum basic wage of depends on exchange rate about 2 lbs. Eighteen. We then pay nearly double that and in addition to that the Marine Labour convention, the MLC, requires us to pay, in addition to that basic wage, a guaranteed overtime, a guaranteed bonus and holiday, and that takes payment per hour to something like £5 an hour. I’m not just looking at what is the average hourly rate of your agency crew. Now, full consolidated pay is approximately 5 pounds, £5.20 an hour. What’s the, what’s the lowest hourly rate of your agency crew? I think the lowest fully consolidated hourly pay is about £4.87. Certainly check some of the evidence that we’ve received, but I mean, do you think you could live on £4.87 an hour? No, I couldn’t. But why do you think that your staff should have to live on that? As I say, apologies for repeating myself, but these are international seafarers that we are or our recruitment or our crewing agent is recruiting from an international field and we pay substantially ahead of the international seafaring minimum wage.