THE Foreign Office (FCO) failed to come clean yesterday over whether it grassed up cleaners to their agency employer after their plea for decent pay.

Shadow foreign secretary Hilary Benn wrote to government counterpart Philip Hammond asking him to reveal whether the FCO had ratted on cleaners to Interserve after they asked for the London living wage (LLW) of £9.15 an hour.

Three of the 14 contract cleaners who wrote a letter to Mr Hammond in July asking for a boost to their £7 an hour pay have been made “redundant” by the privateer.

The other 11 cleaners are being punished for “bringing the contract into disrepute” — according to Interserve, which is chaired by Tory peer Lord Blackwell, a former adviser to Margaret Thatcher and John Major.

Mr Benn said he “doesn’t see the arguments” in the FCO getting away with paying less and urged the department to pay the LLW rate by Christmas.

About 50 people — including cleaners, community leaders and other campaigners — protested outside the FCO yesterday, delivering a bag of letters calling for the sacked cleaners’ to be reinstated and paid properly.

The FCO failed to respond to repeated requests from the Star over whether it had got the cleaners in trouble by passing the letter on to their employer.

Other government departments such as the Treasury, Department of Work and Pensions, and Department for Energy and Climate Change already pay the LLW.

FCO cleaner Katy Rojas, originally from Ecuador, said she lost her job and her bosses treated her badly because of her years-long campaign for better wages.

She said at the protest: “My bosses started bullying me. They looked at me with hate.”

Anonymous testimonies describe to Mr Hammond in the letter how difficult it is for the cleaners to live and work in London on low earnings.

“This is a genuinely troubling case,” said Paul Jennings, partner at law firm Bates Wells and Braithwaite, who is representing some of the cleaners.

“It is extremely worrying that a group of vulnerable and low-paid workers may face possible sanctions for raising their voices about the impact of low pay.”

The Reverend Rosemia Brown, who protested outside the FCO with campaign group Citizens UK, said that the cleaners “have the right to let Mr Hammond know” that they are unhappy.

Interserve is also notoriously known as having blacklisted trade unionists.

In April, power station rigger and Unite member John Kelly was awarded £3,253 in damages after being dismissed by Interserve Industrial Services for trade union activities.

WHAT THE WORKERS SAY

- I take my job very seriously and work hard to make a nice and clean environment for you. I would like to be paid the living wage because I would like to be able to pay my rent without having to rely on housing benefit. It would be good because I really don’t want to receive any benefits, but at the moment I have no choice.

- We are professionals but we are not treated this way. I take my responsibilities very seriously. I often work extra hours without pay to make sure that all the work has been done to a high standard. It’s not just about the money, it’s about being recognised for the good work that we do. We are good, hard-working people. I work hard to support my family but the pay just isn’t enough.

- Family is the most important thing to me. Life has become hard because my husband was made redundant from his job. He is very sick, he is suffering and his liver is failing. I work to support him but London is very expensive and it is difficult to keep going. I love my job but I would like to be paid the living wage so that things could be a bit easier.