P&O boss accused of being modern day pirate for paying £4.87-an-hour
The millionaire boss of P&O Ferries has admitted to paying workers as little as £4.87 per hour during a grilling from MPs who accused him of being a ‘modern day pirate’.
Peter Hebblethwaite, the chief executive of P&O Ferries, was questioned by the Business and Trade Committee nearly two years on from a scandal which saw the ferry company lay off hundreds of staff without notice.
Mr Hebblethwaite, 53, repeatedly told MPs that P&O’s workers were not being exploited despite being paid as little as £4.87 per hour but resisted calls for an independent investigation into the company’s employment practices.
He said: ‘We are paying considerably ahead of the international minimum standard. We believe that it is right that as an international business operating in international waters, we should be governed by international law.
‘All we want is a level playing field with our competitors.’
The chief executive later admitted he could not live on £4.87 per hour.
P&O CEO Peter Hebblethwaite, who sacked 800 workers in one go, is the owner of a large farmhouse worth £1.5million
There was uproar and condemnation from UK government ministers and trade unions following the sacking of hundreds of British P&O Ferries staff in 2022
Mr Hebblethwaite, 53, repeatedly told MPs that P&O’s workers were not being exploited despite being paid as little as £4.87 per hour
Mr Hebblethwaite, who has previously been described as the ‘most hated man in Britain’, earned £508,000 including a bonus of £183,000 last year.
Land Registry records showed Mr Hebblethwaite and his wife Honor, an interior designer, paid £1.575 million for their farmhouse in 2019.
A sales brochure for the Victorian property described it as ‘an imposing detached family house offering extensive accommodation, including a heated swimming pool and stables set in approximately six acres’.
The millionaire boss appeared before MPs two years after P&O Ferries fired 786 of its staff and replaced them with low-paid workers who are employed by an external crewing agency.
The company fired employees without notice or union consultation.
The scandal attracted widespread criticism from ministers, unions and the public.
The Insolvency Service later said it would not pursue criminal proceedings against the company, which has been owned by Dubai-based DP World since 2019.
P&O Ferries told Parliament in 2022 that they replaced sacked workers with overseas agency staff who received an average of £5.50 per hour.
Since then, an analysis of payslips conducted by the Guardian and ITV News suggested that P&O agency workers had in some cases been earning about £4.87 an hour, which Mr Hebblethwaite confirmed in front of the Business and Trade Committee on Tuesday.
Mr Hebblethwaite lives in an expensive farm house in Gloucestershire with his interior designer wife Honor
Protests were held outside the P&O offices (pictured), after hundreds of people were let go from their jobs with immediate effect in 2022
Nautilus International posted a photo in 2022 of what they claimed showed the binned personal belongings of the hundreds of staff sacked
Former workers at P&O Ferries pictured leaving the Port of Dover in 2022 with their personal belongings
Sacked P&O Ferries staff took part in a demonstration and blocked roads after taking part in an RMT demonstration outside Dover in 2022
Sacked P&O workers and their supporters protested along the main road to the port of Dover on March 23, 2022
Liam Byrn, chair of the Business and Trade Committee, asked Mr Hebblethwaite: ‘Are you basically a modern day pirate?’
Mr Hebblethwaite did not respond directly to the accusation.
Mr Byrne later asked: ‘Do you think you could live on £4.87 an hour?’
Mr Hebblethwaite said: ‘No, I couldn’t.’
Labour MP Charlotte Nichols repeatedly urged Mr Hebblethwaite to commit to an independent investigation into the company’s employment practices.
Mr Hebblethwaite resisted and said: ‘You can take from the retention levels that the crewing agent experiences and their ability to recruit the highest standard of international seafarers is hard evidence that people who could work anywhere in the world on any ships have chosen to work for P&O.’
The UK minimum wage rose to £11.44 an hour in April of this year.
But for maritime workers employed by an overseas agency, who work on ships which are foreign-registered in international waters, the rates do not apply.
Boris Johnson promised to close the loophole two years ago after the P&O Ferries job cuts.
Earlier this year the government said that it expects new legislation addressing the issue to become active this summer.
Meanwhile France brought in a similar law this year.
A protest was staged by unions outside the Houses of Parliament in London in 2022
P&O Ferries told Parliament in 2022 that they replaced sacked workers with overseas agency staff who received an average of £5.50 per hour
New P&O staff members during safety training at the Port of Dover in Kent after the ferry giant handed 800 seafarers immediate severance notices in 2022
Mr Hebblethwaite recently agreed to sign a voluntary Government Seafarers’ Charter which commits it to pay maritime workers at least the UK minimum wage in British waters.
He said the company would sign the charter ‘within months’.
When asked whether the legal changes would result in more lay-offs and large-scale staffing changes, Mr Hebblethwaite could not give a guarantee either way.
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