Speaking on Sky News, Shapps was asked if P&O Ferries chief executive Peter Hebblethwaite should go “right now” after sacking 800 workers without notice. Shapps replied: “Yes.”
He added: “My message to P&O is simple; their wheeze is not going to work, we are going to legally require them to go back on it, they might as well start on that now and if they haven’t got the right leadership to do it…then they will probably need to think about sorting that out first.”
He was speaking after Hebblethwaite was grilled by MPs.
Shapps said: “I thought what the boss of P&O said yesterday about knowingly breaking the law was brazen, breath-taking, showed incredible arrogance and I cannot believe he can stay in that role having admitted to deliberately going out and using a loophole to break the law.”
Shapps said he would make shipping operators pay minimum wage by changing the law.
“They [P&O] flagged their ships through Cyprus and avoided having to tell anybody – or they felt they did – and even though they know they’ve broken the law, what they’ve done is to pay people off in such a way to try and buy their silence.
“It’s unacceptable, so what I’m going to do about it is come to parliament this coming week with a package of measures which will both close every possible loophole that exists and force them [P&O Ferries] to U-turn on this. We are not having people working from British ports plying regular routes between here and France or here and Holland or anywhere else and failing to pay the minimum wage; it’s simply unacceptable and we will force that to change.”
Shapps was asked how it was possible for P&O to avoid paying minimum wage when it operated from British ports.
He said it was an “incredibly complex area”, combining international maritime laws with national laws. “Until now it’s been thought that wasn’t something they could go and do.” He said registering the ships in Cyprus had enabled P&O to act in this manner.
“What they did was know was that they were breaking the law and they deliberately set out to break the law, but effectively pay people off for their silence.”
Shapps said Irish Ferries had already done something similar to P&O and there was a danger others would follow suit. There would a package of eight steps unveiled in parliament, he said.
“The package I’m bringing forward will make it absolutely clear that would be unacceptable and they won’t be able to operate from British ports if they do and we’ll require a U-turn on what’s happened at P&O as well.”
