Iain Wright: The style is softly, softly but he’s playing hardball with Mike Ashley

A smile comes easily to the face of Business Committee chairman Iain Wright, and yet he has set himself on a collision course with the founder of Sports Direct that could culminate in a vicious parliamentary confrontation. Mark Leftly meets him

Iain Wright is glued to his smartphone and has a huge grin on his face.

The smiley 43-year-old MP for Hartlepool might have the look of a middle-aged member of The Monkees, but he’s a massive Stone Roses fan. Word had just spread on the internet that the Madchester band are recording a third studio album 22 years after their last effort, Second Coming.

Mr Wright says he has been to “loads” of Stone Roses gigs, but these days he has swapped the mosh pit for the snake pit that is the House of Commons. The former Deloitte accountant is the chairman of the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee, having beaten the incumbent, his Labour colleague Adrian Bailey, to the role after the general election last year.

Select committees have become increasingly prominent, influential and powerful in recent years. For example, it was while chairing the Public Accounts Committee in 2013 that Margaret Hodge infamously scolded Google’s northern Europe boss over tax: “You are a company that says you ‘do no evil’. And I think that you do do evil.”

Mr Wright’s growing fame is a result of a confrontation with another big boss, albeit one where the pair have yet to come face-to-face. He wants Mike Ashley, the billionaire founder of Sports Direct, to answer questions from the committee on 7 June over allegations about his company’s treatment of workers.

Mr Ashley has refused and instead extended an invitation to Mr Wright and the 10 other MPs on the cross-party committee to visit the company’s headquarters and warehouse in Shirebrook, Derbyshire. The Unite union launched a campaign last year claiming Sports Direct is a “workhouse, not a workplace”, alleging that staff at Shirebrook have been sacked for talking too much, spending a long time in the toilet, or being absent because of illness in a “six strikes and you’re out” policy.

A newspaper investigation in December alleged that temporary workers were paid effective hourly rates below the minimum wage, and Mr Ashley then pledged to £10m to raise wages.

For his part, Mr Ashley has written to Mr Wright to tell him he is “disgusted” at the committee’s “deliberately antagonistic” behaviour, accusing him of “abusing parliamentary procedure in an attempt to create a media circus in Westminster”.

Leaning forward, Mr Wright claims he wants to be “as conciliatory as possible” and avoid an “escalation of tension”. That’s as maybe, but there is no doubt that he is playing hardball here; he makes what he says is not, yet clearly is, a threat of whistleblowers taking Mr Ashley’s place should he not turn up.

“It’s almost like an ‘empty chair’ thing on the 7th of June, but we hope that he comes,” sighs Mr Wright. “We hope he sees sense, we really do. I don’t understand why he’s trying to do this. If he hasn’t got anything to be ashamed of, can’t he answer questions? There are serious reports about working practices in the warehouse in Shirebrook.

“The 7th of June is tabled for looking at working practices at Sports Direct, and if he doesn’t come, whistleblowers might. That’s all I’m going to say on that. There’s a session to which he has been invited, and if he doesn’t want to talk about Sports Direct, some other people might.”

A Sports Direct spokesman says the invitation to Shirebrook remains open and a visit would be “the best way for Mr Wright to see things for his own eyes in order to gain a balanced understanding of the facts”.

But Mr Wright claims the visit is problematic, for the logistical reason of diary clashes for 11 busy MPs. He also says the issue is greater than just one warehouse because he has also been tipped off about working practice problems in the company’s shops. He also points out Sports Direct’s plunging share price while this saga is playing out; it was recently relegated from the FTSE 100.

He argues – noticeably, he never refers to Mr Ashley by name – that “99.9 per cent of witnesses come to all select committees. It could be uncomfortable but they come voluntarily. Why is he different?”

Mr Wright thinks the Sports Direct allegations might be symptomatic of a broader shift in employment attitudes that has emerged since the 2007 credit crunch that became a financial crisis. He says: “The thing we’re interested in is what does employment look like in 2016? Are working practices changing? There’s automation, so are people losing their jobs? There will be a need to upskill. There are zero-hours contracts, there’s an increasing amount of insecurity at work. Is this the economic model in which Britain wants to work in the future?”

Should Mr Ashley decide to turn up, the hearing could be one of the most vicious stand-offs in the first full year of this Parliament. It would certainly be remarkable if Mr Wright adopted the conciliatory tone he promises, while Mr Ashley would surely be intent on wiping that smile off his face.

Beyond Westminister: how he spends his time

Favourite band: It has to be the Beatles. I’d also give mentions to the Stone Roses, New Order, Joy Division, the Smiths and Arctic Monkeys. Basically four lads with guitars [or in New Order’s case, Gillian on keyboards].

Best book: I love political biographies. The John Campbell one on Roy Jenkins was great. I did appreciate the immense Robert Caro volumes on Lyndon Johnson. I like the modern history of Britain books by David Kynaston.

Best business: There’s a company in my constituency, Hart Biologicals – a medtech business focused on blood coagulation products. Run by a great man, Alby Pattison, it is scaling up fast, exporting across the world and training an increasing number of apprentices. It’s the very model of a modern company that I want to see more of in Hartlepool, the North-east and the rest of the UK