Sports Direct’s efforts to rehabilitate its reputation after a year-long scandal over working practices took a farcical turn on Monday when the retailer was accused of secretly recording a group of MPs visiting its controversial warehouse.
Six MPs from the business select committee, which in the summer published a scathing report into company, also claimed the company treated the parliamentarians with “hostility” and implemented “diversionary tactics” as they carried out an impromptu inspection of the sportswear group’s warehouse.
The allegations of secret recordings were made after the parliamentarians had finished their tour, when they adjourned to a meeting room in Sports Direct’s offices in order to discuss the day’s events and take refreshments.
Anna Turley, the Labour MP for Redcar and a member of the committee, told the Guardian: “The sandwich lady came in and she put them on [a stool] in the corner. I watched her do it because I thought it was a bit weird her putting them in the corner of the room rather than where we were sitting. I saw her kneel down and put a device under the stool.
“I watched her and waited until she got out of the room and I went over [to the stool] and it was a camera that [Sports Direct representatives] had with them on the visit, [when] they were recording every question we asked and everything we said.”
Here is the camera I found which was placed under the stool on which the sandwiches were placed for our private meeting at #sportsdirect pic.twitter.com/aD6StnX5T9
— Anna Turley MP (@annaturley) November 7, 2016
Here is another pic from a colleague. This is where it was hidden & where I found it before picking it up & placing on top as previous pic. pic.twitter.com/HPIoUJanQ4
— Anna Turley MP (@annaturley) November 7, 2016
Iain Wright, chairman of the business select committee, said the whole day had reminded him of visiting factories in China.
He added: “I knew it wasn’t going to be the finished product. I knew we were going to see work in progress, as it were. But the hostility, the controlling manner, with which they dealt with us, the diversionary tactics ... I wanted to to go to [the old part of the warehouse which had been at the centre of the scandals] and it took us about three hours to get there”.
Wright, along with five colleagues, had arrived at the group’s Shirebrook, Derbyshire headquarters at about midday on Monday, after notifying the company earlier that morning that the MPs were arriving for a surprise tour.
The visit had come after Wright’s committee had accused Mike Ashley, the billionaire Sports Direct founder, of running the business like a Victorian workhouse in a report published in July.
The MPs concluded that Ashley had built his success on a business model that treats workers “without dignity or respect”, after they launched an inquiry following an undercover Guardian investigation last year that exposed how Sports Direct workers were being paid less than the minimum wage.
It is understood Ashley was not present at Shirebrook for the inspection and the MPs were instead shown around by the group’s global operations head, Karen Byers.
In his excoriating appearance before the committee in June, Ashley pledged to look at areas where the company might improve conditions of its workers, including looking at the “six strikes and you’re out” policy which threatened workers with the sack after a series of perceived crimes such as long toilet breaks. He also pledged to review if the company needs to engage so many of its workers’ temporary contracts.
The committee has no real powers to punish the tycoon if he fails to deliver on his pledges, although Wright had promised to “continue to hold Mr Ashley’s feet to the fire, in as constructive a manner as possible, checking on the progress he makes on improving working conditions for workers at his premises”.
In September, the company announced a suspension of the six strikes policy and a trial to move some temporary staff on to permanent contracts. It had previously addressed the minimum wage breach by increasing the pay of warehouse workers, while it had also committed to reimbursing with backpay those affected.
The retailer has suffered a stream of criticism over its working practices, with officials from the Unite union campaigning against a strict culture in the warehouse that has made workers afraid to speak out over low pay and conditions in case they lose their jobs.
Last year, primary schoolteachers told the Guardian that parents working at Sports Direct were too frightened to take time off work, resulting in pupils attending school while ill or returning home to empty houses.
Wright and Turley were joined on his visit by fellow committee members Amanda Solloway, Peter Kyle, Michelle Thomson and Craig Tracey.
Ashley appeared in front of the select committee in June having initially challenged the authority of parliament to summon him.
He called the parliamentarians “a joke”, saying MPs needed to come to visit Shirebrook for themselves, but eventually backed down. He then extended an open invitation for MPs to visit the site.
Sports Direct did not return phone calls seeking comment.