Transport minister calls P&O Ferries 'rogue operator' as law is tightened

The transport secretary has told ITV News she believes P&O Ferries is a "rogue operator" - revealing she has been boycotting them for years. ITV News Business Editor Joel Hills reports from Dover

At Port of Dover, P&O Pioneer prepares to set sail for France.

Two and a half years ago, P&O caused controversy by sacking almost 800 British seafarers without warning and replacing them with cheaper, foreign agency crew.

In opposition, Labour was outraged. In government, they are taking action.

“In less than 100 days of this government, we have brought forward legislation that will mean P&O Ferries and the scandal that it brought to Britain will never happen again,” Transport Secretary Louise Haigh told ITV News.

From December 1, ferry operators that regularly call at UK ports at least 120 times a year will have to pay their seafarers at least the equivalent of the UK National Minimum Wage.

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They will legally have to inform the government of any plans to dismiss more than 20 employees.

And the new Employment Rights Bill includes a measure to end so-called “fire and rehire” practices “except where employers genuinely have no alternative”.

That may sound a little like a loophole to you. It does to Darren Proctor, National Secretary of the RMT Union.

“This is a step in the right direction,” Proctor says. “But there is a lot of wiggle room. And it’s something we need to strengthen going forward because what shipping industry has always done is look for wriggle room, they’ve manoeuvred around legation, they’ve looked for loopholes.”

The law in Britain is set to change to improve pay and working conditions for seafarers but the French government has acted sooner and gone further.

Since June, French law compels P&O Ferries to pay the salaire minimum de croissance (minimum wage) and limited the hours the company can ask crew to work.

ITV News has learned that P&O has responded by laying off many of the foreign agency workers it hired to replace the British crew it fired two years ago.

P&O Ferries was employing several hundred people from as far afield as India, the Philippines and Indonesia.

Some were paid as little as £5 an hour and asked to work for up 17 weeks without a day off.

ITV News understands that P&O has let many of them go, including one crew member who was recently given an award for his “commitment and dedication to the company”.

“I feel really sorry for these foreign workers,” says John Lansdown, one of the seafarers P&O dismissed in March 2022.

“We were sacked because we were ‘too expensive’ and now it appears that these foreign workers are being replaced by P&O Ferries because they are too costly to fly in. That is absolutely appalling”.

The new transport secretary is unimpressed with P&O’s behaviour.

“They're a rogue operator. We're cracking down on the way that they treated employees, and we want to see them mirror the standards of other operators that come in and out of Great Britain's waters,” she told ITV News.

Asked if she would travel with P&O Ferries, she replied: “No, I've been boycotting P&O Ferries for two and a half years, and I encourage consumers to do the same.”

P&O took a risk when it fired and re-hired its crew but the anger caused appears to have faded, bookings have recovered and the company has invested in new ships.

A spokesperson for P&O Ferries said: “The UK and French Governments have brought forward legislation with far reaching impacts on the labour market for seafarers on cross channel ferry services. P&O Ferries always complies with all relevant national and international laws, and as such we have made changes to our crewing policies to meet new legal requirements.”

The company says the French government’s decision to limit crew rotations to 2 weeks onboard ship and 2 weeks rest “means it is no longer practical to employ crew from outside Europe in large numbers, due to travel time and the requirements of the immigration system.

The statement added: “P&O Ferries is committed to operating the highest standards of service and we continue to recruit qualified and highly experienced international seafarers.

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