Thomas Cook

Debate between Alison McGovern and Grant Shapps

Wednesday 25th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right: there are very profitable parts of this sector. One large British airline has just made record profits, which shows that there is money to be made in the sector. However, I would not want to be in the position of dictating to the sector how it runs its businesses—some will succeed, and some will not. What I am passionately interested in is that, when they do go wrong, as has been discussed, the problems do not fall on the taxpayer’s shoulders.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

I can tell the Secretary of State that my constituents are not happy with the Government’s response. However, at the heart of this problem is a company that was signed off by auditors last year. The Government know that the audit system is not working well, and they had the Kingman review look into this issue and make recommendations. In terms of the cross-Government arrangements the Secretary of State is speaking about, what have the Government done to reform audit, alongside the recommendations that they themselves asked for?