P&O Ferries chief executive Peter Hebblethwaite has issued a “late apology” after the on-the-spot sacking of 800 staff.

He told a Commons joint committee he had spent the past week talking to people one-to-one after the company lost an “unsustainable amount of money” and would have closed without the action.

Mr Hebblethwaite said no union would have accepted the company proposal, but then admitted he had not consulted them.

He was answering Labour MP Darren Jones, who asked: “Are you in this mess because you don’t know what you are doing, or are you just a shameless criminal?”

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