Interserve

Debate between Mark Pritchard and Oliver Dowden

Monday 18th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Oliver Dowden]

I will take as a compliment the hon. Gentleman’s opening remarks saying that I have spun this well. I have not spun it well; I have set out the facts, which are that the situation for the companies delivering the services in question remains wholly unchanged as a result of the change in the parental ownership structure.

The hon. Gentleman asked about the contracts that the Government have awarded, and I have already set out that position. Again, if he thinks it is irresponsible to be awarding contracts to Interserve, I suggest he has a word with his colleagues in Scotland, where Interserve has been winning contracts left, right and centre. In fact, it is even protecting the pandas at Edinburgh zoo through an outsourcing contract. Back in November, the Scottish Government awarded a contract, saying it would

“deliver benefits for the North Ayrshire communities as well as long-distance road users upon completion”.

Who was that contract awarded to? Interserve.

[Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)]

Although I do not believe in nationalisation—save for, perhaps, the Brexit process—and although this is not the same as Carillion, I say gently to the Minister that this is a near miss for jobs, investment and the whole credibility of outsourcing. Is this not potentially another case of greedy capitalism—I speak as a Conservative MP—giving capitalism a bad name, rather than considerate capitalism? Will the Minister enlighten the House as to what has happened since Carillion’s collapse and the so-called stress testing, with the unit in the Treasury and the unit in the Cabinet Office, to ensure that this does not happen again? Following on from what the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard) quite rightly said, what else are the Government doing to try to prevent this from happening again?

[Oliver Dowden]

Let me restate this point. My hon. Friend raised the issue of whether this situation was a near miss, as compared with Carillion. The situation with Carillion was very different: it had problems across all its contract base and issues with its management, which are currently being explored. In this case, there is a specific issue in relation to some of the energy for waste contracts, which are being dealt with. The company sought to refinance to strengthen its balance sheet. It failed to do that because of the position taken, some might say, by some greedy capitalists, in respect of some of the hedge funds that owned shares in the company and refused to consent to its restructuring. None the less, it has gone through a pre-pack, and as a result its position has strengthened considerably. It has £100 million more on the balance sheet and it has reduced its debts considerably.

My hon. Friend is right to challenge the Government on what wider lessons we have learned. It is precisely why we engaged in a tremendous exercise of consultation, engagement and reform. For example, we spent more than 1,400 hours gathering evidence and, as a result of that, we have announced extensive changes through the new playbook.