P&O owner to attend summit despite UK minister’s comments row

P&O Ferries owner, DP World, will now attend the UK’s investment summit on Monday, despite a row over a minister’s criticism of the firm.

It had been feared they might pull out from the summit – where they were expected to announce a £1bn investment – after Transport Secretary Louise Haigh criticised the ferry firm and urged consumers to boycott the company.

An expansion of the firm’s London Gateway port, in Essex, is likely to go ahead, with an announcement expected by some in the coming days.

Whitehall sources said on Saturday that there had been “warm engagement” between senior figures in the firm and the government since Sir Keir Starmer distanced himself from his minister’s remarks.

The government is hosting the International Investment Summit, where it hopes to attract billions of pounds of investment.

A Downing Street spokesperson said the summit would “show Britain is open for business” as it looks to enable economic growth.

DP World has said the expansion of the London Gateway port would bring Thurrock hundreds of jobs.

The United Arab Emirates-based company also owns Southampton Port.

Speaking to the BBC’s Newscast on Friday, Sir Keir said Haigh’s comments were “not the view of the government”.

The prime minister is understood not to have been directly involved in talks with DP World, nor has he personally spoken to Haigh about her remarks.

The row started after Haigh described P&O as a “rogue operator” in an interview with ITV on Wednesday, after it sacked nearly 800 seafarers in 2022 and replaced them with cheaper workers.

Asked whether she used the ferry service, she said: “I’ve been boycotting P&O Ferries for two-and-a-half years and I would encourage consumers to do the same.”

DP World insisted the move was needed for the survival of the ferry operator and to secure thousands of jobs.

Haigh’s comments in the interview coincided with the Department for Transport announcing new legislation aimed at protecting seafarers’ jobs from so-called “fire and rehire” practices of “rogue employers”.

In that announcement, Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner was quoted calling P&O Ferries’ prior actions “outrageous”.

But senior government figures have since told the BBC that they were incensed by the specific suggestion that consumers boycott the ferry firm.

Haigh’s comments also attracted criticism from the Conservatives, with shadow business secretary Kevin Hollinrake arguing Labour “don’t understand business”.

However, the Labour chair of the House of Commons Business and Trade Committee, Liam Byrne, defended Haigh.

She had been “absolutely right to say that the behaviour of P&O, owned by DP World, in the past has been completely unacceptable”, he said.

The row has exposed a tension between the new government’s desire to attract business and strengthen workers’ rights.