Interserve: Provision of Public Services

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Wednesday 12th December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The noble Lord is quite right. On 19 November, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster made a speech to the BSA outlining new arrangements. The noble Lord referred to some of them; we prefer to call them resolution plans rather than living wills. We have recently announced plans for all suppliers to draw up resolution plans in the unlikely event of a business failure, to ensure continuity of services and, where necessary, to enable another provider or the Government themselves to step in. Interserve has volunteered to lead the way as one of the first suppliers to design one of these resolution plans.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, in view of the substantial difficulties that major outsourcers are now going through, do the Government have a view on the minimum number of major outsourcing companies they need to maintain a competitive market for government outsourcing of public services?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The noble Lord raises a good point. We want to promote a healthy and diverse marketplace for public services so that not only the Government but local authorities and, indeed, the private sector can access these companies. For that to happen, we need to ensure that the existing ones have a robust financial regime. We are also trying to break down some of the very large contracts into smaller items so that smaller suppliers, who cannot bid for the major contracts, can bid for contracts that have been disaggregated. I hope this in turn will help to build up the marketplace that both he and I want.