P&O Ferries told MPs it broke the law sacking 800 sailors — and it would do it again

P&O Ferries, owned by Dubai's DP World, runs ferry routes between the UK and continental Europe. By 2022 it said it was losing money and that its crew costs were uncompetitive. On 17 March 2022 it sacked around 800 seafarers without notice and without consulting their unions, replacing them with cheaper foreign agency workers. The abruptness — crews told they were fired as they boarded — sparked immediate outrage and protests in Dover, Liverpool and Hull.

A week later, on 24 March 2022, chief executive Peter Hebblethwaite gave evidence to a joint parliamentary committee. He admitted there was 'absolutely no doubt' the firm had been required to consult unions and that it had chosen not to — 'I completely throw my hands up.' He said no union would have accepted the plan. He told MPs the new crew would be paid an average of £5.50 an hour, below the UK minimum wage. And asked whether he would change anything, he said: 'I would make this decision again, I'm afraid.'

The response turned a labor dispute into a national scandal. The Conservative chair of the Transport Committee said it was 'untenable' to admit breaking the law with no regrets and that Hebblethwaite 'needs to hand his card in'; the business committee chair said he should be 'fined, struck off and prosecuted.' The government promised to close the loophole P&O had used. P&O escaped criminal prosecution — the Insolvency Service saw no realistic prospect of a conviction — but a civil investigation continued, and the scandal fed into new seafarer protections in the Employment Rights Bill.