P&O Ferries and Employment Rights — House of Commons, 2022-03-21
Topic: Labor
Justin Piers Richard Madders (Labour, Centre-left): We have heard some excellent speeches today from my right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) and my hon. Friends the Members for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner), for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald), for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson), for Brent North (Barry Gardiner), for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery), for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury), for Salford and Eccles (Rebecca Long Bailey), for Easington (Grahame Morris), for Leeds East (Richard Burgon) and for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden and her campaigning on this issue over the past six years. She was absolutely right to talk about the work she has done there and the long list of employers that have tried this before, many successfully, highlighting exactly why a change is needed. Time prevents me from mentioning every speech in detail, but I will refer to the speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull East—a powerful and deeply personal speech about why this situation matters so much to him. As we heard, he has been campaigning on these issues for years, and surely now we must all regret that the Government have failed to heed his warnings My hon. Friend called this action industrial vandalism, and that sums up the situation perfectly. What has happened to P&O workers is nothing short of a scandalous betrayal. Workers with families to support, bills to pay and lives to live had their plans upended in three minutes by an unscrupulous employer acting in the most cynical and calculating way. Every Member of this House should be united in condemning the brutality we have seen: thugs for hire, some wearing balaclavas and carrying handcuffs, turning up to boot people off the ship straight after they were sacked on a three-minute video call. If that is not bad enough, the pariahs responsible for this had already lined up cut-price workers at the dockside to replace them: workers who, let us be clear, are going to be paid at a rate that drives a coach and horses through the minimum wage laws. Those who have been sacked have also been threatened with losing what little compensation they have been offered if they talk to anyone about it, further compounding the sense of injustice they feel and further exposing the bully-boy tactics of their employer We need to be clear that this decision cannot stand. Unscrupulous employers cannot be given free rein to sack their workforce, destroying secure jobs and replacing them with cheap, insecure agency work. Such actions must have consequences. Every tool at the disposal of the state must be used to its maximum effect, because if one company can divest itself of responsibility for its workforce in such a callous, cynical and frankly offensive manner without a serious response from Government, then others will see that as a green light to do exactly the same. This must be a line in the sand Condemnation, while necessary, is insufficient, and condemnation after the event from a Government who knew it was about to happen is simply not good enough. As we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh), a memo was circulated beforehand that makes it clear that the intention of P&O was to replace staff on lower terms and conditions, and with agency workers.