Jack Straw
Main Page: Jack Straw (Independent - Blackburn)Department Debates - View all Jack Straw's debates with the Home Office
Olympics (Security)
Jack Straw Excerpts(12 years, 4 months ago)
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Mrs May
My hon. Friend raises an issue that has not previously been raised with me. I will look into it, but it is of course for G4S to decide how it will provide the numbers. It has had significant difficulties in scheduling both existing staff and the new staff that it is bringing in, but I have noted his point.
Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)
Given the scale of the shortfall between what G4S contracted to provide and what it is now providing, which must have been obvious upon inquiry, is the Home Secretary saying that G4S was guilty of wilful deception of HMIC, or was there some failure in the monitoring of what G4S was doing?
Mrs May
I suggest that the right hon. Gentleman looks at some of the comments that G4S has made about its situation. It may be of interest to the House to know that the accreditation process has accredited more than 20,000 G4S personnel. The problem for G4S has been allocating personnel to particular venue security tasks through its scheduling programme. It was when it examined that situation and saw the difficulties it was having that it came to the Government last Wednesday and said that it could not meet its full contractual obligation.