Good Morning Britain's Susanna Reid grilled MP Paul Scully about the party's approach to the fire and rehire bill.
The Business Minister appeared on the ITV programme today, where he was questioned by Susanna and her co-presenter about P&O Ferries' decision to fire and then rehire workers on much lower wages.
Whilst Mr Scully denied he had voted against the bill - insisting it was never put up to a vote - Susanna later explained to viewers how the Minister had been involved in the debate, as ministers ran out of time before having a chance to vote for or against it.
She shared on the ITV breakfast show today: "I used that time Mr Scully, if you'll forgive me, to look up what happened with the fire and rehire bill. I just came across this article from one of the newspapers at the time."
She explained that it detailed how ministers had scuppered a fire and hire bill, insisting that legislation was the wrong way to deal with it. It also carried a comment from the TUC, which said the government had chosen to side with 'bad bosses'.
"One Minister spoke for more than 40 minutes in the Chamber ensuring the private member's Bill ran out of time and would not progress beyond its second reading," a quote from the TUC was read out by Susanna, before she added herself: "The minister? Paul Scully. You're the person who spoke so long the legislation then ran out of time to be considered further."
He immediately responded to Susanna's claims, adding : "Two things. First of all, I could have spoken for five minutes that would have still run out of time on that Friday, but I'm afraid that it's the TUC that have written that. Clearly that's going to be a slanted agenda.
"I didn't speak anywhere near as long as Barry Gardiner, the proposer of the Bill. Barry Gardner himself said that it would not have banned fire and rehire, but even though that was the campaign he ran."
He continued: "What the Bill would have done, it would have actually meant that a lot of businesses that needed to restructure in a fair way because of the financial situation they would not have been able to do so as flexibly.
"So likely it would have led to more job losses at the end of the day."
