P&O owners will attend summit as £1 billion port investment comes into question

The Department of Business and Trade confirmed that DP World will attend the international investment summit, as ITV News' Tom Sheldrick reports

DP World, the parent firm of P&O Ferries, will be attending the government’s international investment summit on Monday, despite reports that a row over calls to boycott its subsidiary P&O Ferries had put a £1 billion investment at risk.

There were reports the company had pulled out of the summit, where it was expected to announce the investment, after Transport Secretary Louise Haigh called for a boycott of P&O in an interview with ITV News Business and Economics Editor Joel Hills on Wednesday.

The Department of Business and Trade confirmed on Saturday that DP World will attend the summit. DP World has been contacted for comment.

Downing Street has distanced itself from Ms Haigh after her comments, with Sir Keir Starmer saying call for a boycott of the ferry firm was “not the view of the government”.

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ITV News understands DP World has been upset by Ms Haigh's description of DP World's subsidiary company P&O Ferries as a "rogue operator" and her encouragement of consumers to join her in boycotting the company.

The comments came two and a half years after P&O caused outrage by firing almost 800 seafarers and replacing them with cheaper foreign agency workers.

The company was paying some of them as little as £5 an hour and asking them to work up to 17 weeks without a day off.

Labour MP Liam Byrne, chairman of the House of Commons’ Business and Trade Committee, sought to play down the row, saying Ms Haigh was “absolutely right” to criticise P&O’s past behaviour, but that new legislation would regulate how the firm can treat its staff.

The transport secretary was visiting Dover to announce new legislation, which she promised would end controversial fire and rehire practices and force companies to pay seafarers operating from Dover to Calais the minimum wage. P&O Ferries insists the sackings were necessary to save the company from bankruptcy.

DP World was due to announce the major investment in London Gateway port at the government's Investment Summit on Monday.

The company is now reviewing that announcement.

ITV News also understands that comments made by Ms Haigh alongside the announcement in which she called P&O Ferries "cowboy operators" were signed off by Downing Street.

Since 2009, DP World has invested more than £2 billion in both the London Gateway and the Port of Southampton.

Monday's summit will see hundreds of business leaders and investors descend on London as the government seeks to drum up the private investment it says is vital to achieve its aim of economic growth.

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