The boss of P&O Ferries has been called to give evidence to MPs examining UK working conditions, in the latest move to scrutinise the company that controversially replaced 786 employees with low-paid agency workers in 2022.
The move to question Peter Hebblethwaite has been made by parliament’s business and trade committee and coincides with the company agreeing to sign a voluntary government charter, which commits it to paying maritime workers at least the UK minimum wage.
Last week an analysis of recent 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 – even lower than the £5.15 an hour the company suggested was its lowest pay rate.
Hebblethwaite is expected to be questioned by MPs in May, as part of a panel of bosses of companies that have been “named and shamed” for paying less than the UK minimum wage.
P&O’s low-cost crew are also understood to be working 12-hour daily shifts, without a day off for months at a time, on the Dover to Calais route. One worker described the whole experience as like being in “jail”.
The UK minimum wage is now £10.42 an hour and will rise to £11.44 an hour from April – but the rates currently do not apply to maritime workers employed by an overseas agency who work on foreign-registered ships in international waters.
The UK government, which promised two years ago to close the loophole allowing ferry companies to legally pay less than the minimum wage, says it expects its new legislation to become active this summer. Last week, France implemented a similar law.
However, rival ferry groups paying at least minimum wage fear P&O may be planning to launch challenges in the courts to the new laws.
P&O did not answer the Guardian’s questions about any planned legal moves, or say when it would start paying minimum wage rates or if it would reverse its practice of having seafarers working for months without a day off.
A spokesperson for P&O Ferries said: “P&O Ferries always pays at least the minimum wage required by national and international law.”
This month marked the second anniversary of P&O’s sacking of hundreds of workers without consultation or notice – which triggered a furious response by the public, the unions and ministers.
Grant Shapps, who was then the UK’s transport secretary, promised to legislate to improve pay for cross-Channel ferry workers and accused the ferry company of operating like “pirates of the high sea”.
The company replaced the sacked workers with overseas agency staff on pay rates which it told parliament in March 2022 averaged £5.50 an hour – with the lowest-paid earning about £5.15 an hour.
Payslips of P&O workers from the past four months, which have been seen by the Guardian and ITV News, suggest crew members may be earning even less than the company said. P&O said it did not “recognise” the Guardian and ITV News figure.
As part of its response to the P&O sackings, the UK government introduced a nine-point plan in conjunction with asking ferry operators to sign the voluntary seafarers’ charter, which commits operators to paying workers at least the equivalent of the UK minimum wage.
A Department for Transport spokesperson said: “It is encouraging to see that nearly all major international ferry companies operating from the UK have committed to or are in the process of adopting our seafarers’ charter”.
