Ashley spoke in a letter to staff, saying that he’d be appearing at the committee because “we have nothing to hide”.
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As the retail tycoon took his seat in front of the panel of MPs, Mr Wright asked whether he was wearing a black and white Newcastle United tie.
“It’s time politicians stood up for fairness and justice in the workplace and banned these draconian zero-hour contracts”.
“I can’t resist. 100% I wanted to buy BHS”.
Having said that, there are allegations of having searches that last up to 15 minutes for which staff are unpaid and that would drop them below the minimum wage rate, so in that respect, yes, there are allegations that he could be breaking the law, and we want to press him on that too. Today the shares jumped 5.4% to 383p as some investors hoped the billionaire business man had drawn a line under the affair. The value of Sports Direct is its people.
My betting would have been that if MPs hadn’t refused that offer, he would then have claimed after a visit to his headquarters that there was then no need to go to Parliament because he’d already answered any questions they’d had when seeing him on that private visit.
In a letter to Sports Direct’s 27,000 staff late Monday, Ashley said he was appearing before lawmakers “to defend the good name of Sports Direct and all of yourselves”, according to several media. “They’re repugnant, they’re disgusting”, Ashley said.
MPs had earlier heard from the Unite union, who told the enquiry that Sports Direct are in talks with HMRC over back pay for staff who were paid less than the minimum wage.
At Tuesday’s hearing, MPs will also be hearing from the union Unite, which has been highlighting working conditions in the warehouse as well as representatives, from both Transline and The Best Connection, the employment agencies that supply temporary employees to the site. Once an employee had six strikes they were automatically dismissed.
Sports Direct sealed full ownership of Heatons in March, in a €48m deal. “I can agree that in some ways I am not the right person because I am not an expert on every area of employment, obviously”.
“I’m not a saint, but you could have made a success of that business” Ashley added. Sir Philip Green, for example, has agreed to attend as part of our joint inquiry into BHS.
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Turner and Primarolo’s comments concerned agency workers not directly employed by Sports Direct, who are employed on contracts that guarantee only 336 hours per year, meaning that once workers hit that target, (roughly nine weeks of a nine to five routine) they don’t necessarily have to be given more work. Royal London Asset Management, one of the first to criticise Ashley publicly after the Guardian’s investigation, said the hearing had highlighted the fact that significant corporate governance failings still exist and are yet to be addressed.
