P&O Ferries' proposals on British seafarer jobs

That this House notes with concern P&O Ferries’ proposal to make 1,100 redundancies amongst key workers in Dover and Hull; further notes that this includes over 730 seafarer ratings who make up 8 per cent of the total UK workforce; offers support to the workers and families in coastal communities affected by this decision which is reminiscent of P&O’s attacks on British seafarer jobs and trade unions in the 1980s; notes that P&O has received an undisclosed figure from the taxpayer to keep freight routes from the UK running and over £10 million public funding to pay 80 per cent of the wages of 1,400 furloughed staff members, some of whom now face redundancy; believes that any public funding received by shipping companies to address the economic effects of the covid-19 pandemic should be conditional on the protection of UK seafarer jobs; further notes that P&O Ferries’ parent company DP World made £1.3 billion profit last year and paid a £270 million dividend to shareholders at the end of April 2020; believes that P&O is seeking to permanently replace British crews with cheaper foreign crews using the low-cost crewing model, including on the fleet of new Ro-Ro passenger ferries on order from a Chinese shipyard for the Dover-Calais route; and calls on the Government to intervene immediately in order to save British seafarers’ jobs at P&O Ferries.