P&O Ferries chief executive admits workers were paid as little as £4.87 an hour

Peter Hebblethwaite gave evidence to MPs on Tuesday

P&O’s boss, Peter Hebblethwaite, has admitted to paying workers as little as £4.87 per hour, nearly two years after the company was labelled “pirates” for sacking hundreds of employees without warning.

Addressing MPs on the Business and Trade Committee, Mr Hebblethwaite continuously denied accusations of labour exploitation at P&O and dismissed demands for an external probe into the firm’s employment practices. The chief executive, who conceded that he couldn’t survive on an hourly wage of £4.87, disclosed his last year’s earnings which totalled £508,000 – this including a £183,000 bonus.

Mr Hebblethwaite defended the company’s pay scheme claiming: “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.”

In addition to his defense, Mr Hebblethwaite stated: “All we want is a level playing field with our competitors.” His appearance before the parliament members happens two years after the dismissal of 786 P&O employees, who were then replaced by workers from an outside hiring agency earning slimmer pay checks.

The firm, currently owned by Dubai’s DP World (since 2019), faced a backlash for firing staff without any union consultation or pre-notice, drawing flak from not only ministers and unions but also the general public. However, the Insolvency Service declared later that no criminal action would be taken against P&O over these issues.

P&O replaced its dismissed workers with offshore agency staffers, informing Parliament in 2022 that its agency workers were earning an average wage of £5.50 per hour. An investigation by the Guardian and ITV News, however, suggested that wages for some P&O agency workers had slipped to about £4.87 per hour, a figure confirmed by Mr Hebblethwaite on Tuesday.

During his testimony before Parliament, committee chair Liam Byrne, asked him: “Are you basically a modern day pirate? “, a claim to which Mr Hebblethwaite did not respond directly. Mr Byrne later pressed: “Do you think you could live on £4.87 an hour? ” to which Mr Hebblethwaite admitted: “No, I couldn’t.”

Despite repeated calls from Labour MP Charlotte Nichols for an independent investigation into P&O’s employment practices, Mr Hebblethwaite resisted. He defended the company, stating: “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’s minimum wage at the time was £10.42 per hour, increasing to £11.44 per hour in April. This standard does not apply to maritime workers employed by an overseas agency working on internationally registered ships in international waters.

However, the loophole is expected to be closed, two years after promises from the Government following P&O Ferries job cuts. Mr Hebblethwaite suggested that new legislation was expected to be enforced this summer. A similar law was introduced in France this year.

The company’s leader pledged to sign the voluntary Government Seafarers’ Charter, ensuring maritime workers are paid at least the UK minimum wage in British waters, declaring the company would sign “within months”. When questioned whether these legal changes may lead to further lay-offs and significant staff alterations, Mr Hebblethwaite couldn’t provide certainty either way.

Paul Nowak, general secretary of the Trades Union Congress, criticised Mr Hebblethwaite for displaying “zero remorse” over redundancies. To make matters worse, he added: “It beggars belief that P&O Ferries has faced no sanctions for its misdeeds and that its parent company DP World has continued to be awarded government contracts.”