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The owner of P&O ferries will attend a key investment summit after Sir Keir Starmer distanced himself from comments by a minister who called the firm a “cowboy operator”.
After efforts by Downing Street to smooth relations, it is understood that DP World will now attend Monday’s gathering, despite the row over Louise Haigh’s comments about the firm.
The ferry operator’s Dubai-based parent company was expected to announce £1bn of investment in the UK at the government’s International Investment Summit, which is thought to be key to government plans to attract investment to the country.
But DP World was reported to have pulled out of the event and placed its investment plans under review, according to Sky News, after deputy prime minister Angela Rayner and transport secretary Ms Haigh’s repeated criticism of P&O Ferries.
The operator faced scrutiny by politicians from both main parties in March 2022 when it suddenly sacked 800 British seafarers and replaced them with cheaper, mainly overseas, staff, saying it was necessary to stave off bankruptcy.
On Wednesday, Ms Rayner and Ms Haigh introduced legislation to prevent similar actions, with the transport secretary describing P&O Ferries as “cowboy operators” and Ms Rayner saying the incident had been “an outrageous example of manipulation by an employer”.
In an ITV interview Ms Haigh went further, saying: “I’ve been boycotting P&O Ferries for two-and-a-half years, and I encourage consumers to do the same”.
However Sir Keir distanced himself from the remarks during an interview on the BBC News Newscast podcast. Asked whether Ms Haigh was right to call for a boycott of the firm, which she called a “rogue operator”, Sir Keir said: “Well, that’s not the view of the government.”
He added: “And that was an issue that well, you know, the issue that cropped up a number of years ago now that I think across parliament was a cause for real concern. And I think one of things we’ve done is to change that. So they can’t forget that that matters.
“But what matters to me is keeping our focus on that inward investment because it’s... the jobs of the future that matter and jobs that are well-paid, that are secure, that are skilled and in different parts of the country.”
In his interview, Sir Keir claimed he had achieved all he had hoped in his first 100 days as prime minister but admitted that “along the way, there were bumps and side winds, which I’d prefer we hadn’t bumped into and been pushed by”.
The department of business and trade confirmed on Saturday that DP World will attend the summit.
Meanwhile 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.
Mr Byrne told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that the ferry firm’s past treatment of its workers is “the kind of behaviour that we can’t have in this country”.
But he added that the government’s Employment Rights bill would provide a “very clear framework” on how companies can treat workers, which would “bite on” firms like P&O.
“I think there’s a bit of a split here between the past and the future. So look, Lou Haigh was absolutely right to say that the behaviour of P&O, owned by DP World, in the past has been completely unacceptable.”
Monday’s high-profile investment summit will be used by the government as a chance to champion firms who have already committed billions of pounds to the UK and attempt to woo others who are considering new deals.
“The message, I think, that is going to go from the summit is really clear that if you want to come and do business here, you can’t behave in the way that P&O has in the past,” Mr Byrne said.
“And I think the prime minister was expressing that confidence in the way in which DP World is going to run their shop.”
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