Due to the pressure on the company Ashley has said that the group’s chief exec will not be taking his £4m bonus.
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Ashley’s decision to appear is the latest twist in a long-running battle with MPs, which began after a Guardian investigation revealed that thousands of the retailer’s temporary warehouse workers were receiving effective hourly rates of pay below the minimum wage.
Mr Ashley described the review as a “work in progress”.
The billionaire had urged MPs to visit the warehouse in Shirebrook before agreeing to give evidence.
“I’m not there all the time”, he added. When asked if he thought this system was fair, he said that if it is executed correctly and reasonably then it works.
He also said that perhaps ambulances had been called so many times to the warehouse because of overly anxious co-workers.
He said: “Let us assume that every single call-out was needed”.
There are now no Sports Direct stores in Ireland, but the company is planning to open a store at the former Boyers outlet in Dublin, having bought the premises last month for €12m. You can not have that number of serious incidents – it is impossible.
“We will continue to say we want things to improve and we are ready to work with Sports Direct stamping out all the abuses highlighted today”. In a letter published on Monday ahead of Ashley’s appearance, he said he had “identified a need for improvements to our security procedures at Shirebrook” and said these have now been carried out.
Labour MP Paul Blomfield suggested that he had a duty of care to the people who built his business and he had been negligent by not knowing their contract conditions.
Ashley insists that people are at the heart of what Sports Direct does. I 100 per cent wanted to buy BHS. “They’re repugnant, they’re disgusting”, Ashley said.
Mr Ashley agreed that Sports Direct had become too big for him alone to manage and vowed to review the firm’s corporate governance structure.
I am mindful of your statement to the press on Friday in which you question whether or not Sports Direct has anything to hide.
The remaining directors on the Rangers retail board are Rangers director Paul Murray, club chairman Dave King and Sports Direct’s head of legal Cameron Olsen, who acts as company secretary.
On reflection of all the issues discussed, Ashley stated to the committee that the business has “definitely outgrown me”.
MPs summoned Mr Ashley to answer questions in March after he refused previous invitations on the grounds that he would not “stand idle” while Sports Direct was “subjected to public vilification”.
Failure to appear in front of MPs meant Mr Ashley had risked being found in contempt of Parliament.
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But he admitted that at one point workers had been effectively paid below the minimum wage because they weren’t being paid while queuing to go through security at the warehouse.
