Sports Direct boss Mike Ashley claims his company gave cleaning lady £80,000 bonus

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Embattled Sports Direct boss Mike Ashley has defended his company’s treatment of staff, claiming to have even given a cleaning lady a bonus of £80,000.

MPs compared working practices at Sport Direct’s Shirebrook warehouse to a “Victorian workhouse” in a scathing report into working conditions released earlier this year.

However, in a TV interview with BBC Breakfast, Ashley said the company had paid out £200m in bonuses over the last five years.

“The cleaning lady got an £80,000 bonus on top of her normal pay. No one in the UK has done that,” he claimed.

He also defended his use of private planes and helicopter while his employees were paid less than minimum wage.

Mike Ashley said: “I do fly to work by helicopter; it’s a reality, that’s how I travel. I don’t get paid a salary, but I do like to go by private plane because it saves a lot of time and is very efficient.”

“People will say 'how can you have a plane when your workers are on minimum wage?’”

”I said 'but I don't set the minimum wage'. If the minimum wage would be the living wage, then the Government who set the rules should set it at the living wage. That's how I look at it.“

Ashley reiterated that he did not know how his workers were treated across the company.

“You'd be surprised how little I knew about what was going on and I think that's really where the failing was. How do I know what a night shift does from 12am till 7 in the morning,” he said .

"I don't work there on Saturdays and Sundays. There are lots of hours in the week that I'm not there. Remember it's open 365 days of the year 24 hours a day,” he added.

Earlier today, Sports Direct has bowed to pressure and pledged to undertake an independent review of working practices and corporate governance, following months of criticism from investors, MPs and employees.

The move comes after independent shareholders rebelled at the retailer's annual general meeting, with 53 per cent opposing the re-election of Chairman Keith Hellawell.

Ashley said it would take more than a year to fix the problems at his company.

“A year would be too quick [to turn around Sports Direct]. It is an ongoing process. You get to the top of one mountain and then you see another. It will never stop, it will keep going on long after I'm dead,” he said.

The Business, Innovation and Skills committee said the retailer was treating workers as “commodities” rather than human beings in a 37-page report released in July.

The Committee heard a series of accounts of worker mistreatment, including staff being penalised under a "six strikes and you're out" policy for matters such as taking a short break to drink water and for taking time off work when ill.