Carillion and Public Sector Outsourcing — House of Commons, 2018-01-24
Topic: Government Operations
David Roy Lidington (Conservative, Centre-right): Mr Deputy Speaker, I take comfort in the fact that I can at least join the hon. Member for Hemsworth (Jon Trickett) in expressing a wholehearted welcome to you, Sir, on your return to the Chair of the House I want to start by addressing the motion and to make it clear that, if the motion passes, the Government will of course comply with the will of the House. The Public Accounts Committee, as the House will know, already possesses powers to require the Government to supply it with papers. Whether or not the motion passes, it is my intention to share with the Public Accounts Committee as much information as I reasonably can that will help it with its inquiries. I hope, too, that in debating the motion hon. Members on both sides will understand that the information cited in the Humble Address is highly commercially sensitive I agree that the Public Accounts Committee is a vital mechanism by which Parliament can hold Government to account, but the Government also have an overriding obligation to ensure that information is not placed in the public domain when that would be either improper or give rise to particular risk. There are important considerations not only for Government but for the House to consider about the impact of releasing the documents First, we must bear in mind the impact on markets, whether good or ill, of making such documents public. Because the information requested is highly commercially sensitive, if made public it could have damaging impacts not only on market confidence, individual suppliers and the Government’s ability to manage our relationship with those suppliers effectively, but more widely on the jobs of people employed by those companies—constituents of Members on both sides of the House—the delivery of public services and, potentially, the broader economy. We also need to act in a way that is consistent with our legal obligations and mitigate any litigation risks to Government. If the motion is passed, I will undertake to discuss in short order with the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee the best way to make information available to her and her Committee, while ensuring that those genuine risks are minimised In his speech, the hon. Member for Hemsworth asked several questions about the Government’s contingency planning ahead of what turned out to be the collapse of Carillion a couple of weeks ago, and he also asked about the role of the Crown representative. To be clear, a new Crown representative was appointed in October last year and started work in November. He was appointed just after the regular quarterly list of named Crown representatives was published. The new list, which will include the name of the new representative, is due to be issued imminently, so the House will then be able to see the name of the new Crown representative to Carillion, along with all the others There was a longer-than-usual delay in the decision on the new nominee because, in the wake of Carillion’s first profit warning in July last year, my predecessors rightly took the decision that, rather than a Crown representative who was experienced in finance, they wanted somebody who was experienced in the restructuring of corporations: it was apparent that Carillion would need to undertake some considerable corporate restructuring and refinancing if it was to get its house in order, as it was then confident of doing Crown representatives are experienced board-level executives—they are not civil servants—who work on a part-time basis in the Cabinet Office to advise on commercial matters with suppliers and sectors. They help the Government to act as a single customer, but they do not advise suppliers on their finances or future business strategy. In the course of normal events, they do not have access to privileged information. Given the hon. Member for Hemsworth’s remarks, I should make it clear that Crown representatives are not politically appointed. They are contractors assigned to companies where they have knowledge of the sector and where there is no conflict with other concurrent roles that the individual man or woman may have. They have no authority to take procurement decisions.