Sir Keir Starmer has publicly rebuked one of his ministers for the first time since becoming prime minister, following her remarks that appeared to throw a £1bn investment into doubt.
Transport Secretary Louise Haigh said this week that she had boycotted P&O Ferries in recent years and would encourage others to do so, after the firm sacked hundreds of workers in 2022 and replaced them with lower-paid agency staff.
P&O Ferries’ parent company, DP World, has now suggested it will not attend the government’s flagship investment summit on Monday – and may postpone the investment announcement it was due to make there.
Discussions between the government and DP World to resolve the row are ongoing, the BBC understands.
“I think we’ll resolve that,” Starmer told the BBC’s Newscast podcast.
In an interview with ITV News on Wednesday, Haigh was asked whether she used the ferry service.
“I’ve been boycotting P&O Ferries for two-and-a-half years and I would encourage consumers to do the same,” she said.
The transport secretary also described P&O Ferries as a “rogue operator”.
When I asked the prime minister if Haigh had been wrong to say this, he said: “Well, look, that’s not the view of the government.”
Haigh’s comments in the interview coincided with her department announcing new legislation aimed at protecting seafarers from what it described as “rogue employers”.
In that announcement, Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner was quoted calling P&O Ferries’ mass sacking “an outrageous example of manipulation”.
A Downing Street spokesperson told the BBC on Friday afternoon: “We welcome P&O Ferries’ commitment to comply with our new seafarer’s legislation, which protects against damaging fire and rehire practices”.
It said it was continuing to “work closely” with DP World, which also owns Southampton Port.
On Monday, the UK is hosting its International Investment Summit, where ministers will try to attract billions of pounds of investment.
DP World declined to comment on the reports that the London Gateway investment was under review because of Ms Haigh’s comments.
Responding to the incident, Conservative shadow business secretary Kevin Hollinrake said that on the eve of the investment event, it was a “body blow for the government”.
“[It] shows that Labour cabinet ministers have never been in business, don’t understand business and don’t know how to talk to business. They just haven’t got a clue,” he said.
But Liam Byrne, the Labour chair of the House of Commons Business and Trade Committee, defended Haigh.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that she had been “absolutely right to say that the behaviour of P&O, owned by DP World, in the past has been completely unacceptable”.
Byrne would not be drawn on whether a boycott of P&O would be a good thing, though, and said there had been cross-party calls for a boycott.
Senior figures I have spoken to in government are incensed at the suggestion from a senior minister of a boycott – at just the point they are trying to claim they lead a “pro-business” administration.
I understand conversations between the government and the company are ongoing to try to tempt them to turn up on Monday.
Starmer added that he believed the investment summit was evidence of a growing confidence from companies in the UK’s economy.
“I think Heathrow Airport’s had to sort of expand the VIP area, the sheer number of people coming in for our summit,” he told us on Newscast.
But the prime minister could have done without a public row with one of those invited and with one of his cabinet ministers.
