Tesco 'absolutely refutes' Labour's foreign staff claims

We absolutely refute any suggestion that we moved colleagues from Harlow to Dagenham to give them a “pay cut” and reduce the wage bill.

The Dagenham site is a multi-million pound development – it doesn’t make sense to invest that sum of money in order to reduce a wage bill.

It is also not true that “a large proportion” of the workers in Dagenham are non-British.

Whether employed directly by Tesco or through an agency, they are overwhelmingly from the local area.

But the most serious accusation is that we have employed foreign workers in Dagenham on cheaper wages over British workers.

This is simply untrue.