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Calls for P&O Ferries to pay back all their £10m furlough payments
Ministers have demanded for the British taxpayer to be reimbursed by the ferry company
A minister has said it would be the ‘right thing to do’ for P&O to repay the £10m in government furlough money following its ‘disgraceful’ decision to make all its staff redundant.
The ferry operator, which was bought by Dubai-based logistics giant DP World in 2019, sparked outrage yesterday when it told its 800-strong workforce that their jobs had been terminated with immediate effect in a virtual Zoom meeting.
The staff will reportedly be replaced by ‘cheaper’ agency workers in a move that unions have called ‘outrageous’.
And P&O’s lack of consultation with staff, unions and the Government has now led to calls for the company to reimburse the £10 million it received in furlough cash during the Covid pandemic.
This morning, Defence Minister James Heappey slammed the company’s behaviour and lack of consultation as ‘horrendous’, and urged the Treasury and Department for Transport to take back the £10m in furlough cash.
He said: “It certainly feels to me that it would be the right thing to do for P&O to hand that money back and I am sure that colleagues at the Treasury and Department for Transport will be looking into it.
“It’s absolutely disgraceful behaviour by P&O.
“As far as I know from my colleagues around Government, the Government didn’t get much more notice than the employees of P&O did.”
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Heappey also said that beyond offering the sacked employees support, there is very little Ministers can do to reverse P&O’s decision, telling Sky News: “Sadly it’s the case that the government cannot force an employer to continue to employ people it has said it doesn’t want to continue to employ.”
In its statement, P&O cited significant year-on-year losses and taking decisions to ensure its ‘survival’ as an explanation to its controversial decision.
The statement read: “In its current state, P&O Ferries is not a viable business. We have made a £100m loss year on year, which has been covered by our parent DP World.
“This is not sustainable. Our survival is dependent on making swift and significant changes now. Without these changes there is no future for P&O Ferries.
“These circumstances have resulted in a very difficult but necessary decision, which was only taken after seriously considering all the available options.
“As part of the process we are starting today, we are providing 800 seafarers with immediate severance notices and will be compensating them for this lack of advance notice with enhanced compensation packages.
“In making this tough decision, we are securing the future viability of our business which employs an additional 2,200 people and supports billions in trade in and out of the UK.”
P&O said today it would not be able to operate services ‘for the next few days’ from Dover to Calais, Hull to Rotterdam, Liverpool to Dublin, and Cairnryan, Scotland, to Larne, Northern Ireland.