Leaving the EU: Preparations

Jon Trickett Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) (Lab)]

This is the first opportunity that I have had to congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on his appointment. He may regard it as a poisoned chalice, but no doubt the Prime Minister thought it appropriate that he took it.

I thank the Minister for his courtesy in providing advance sight of the statement—it was rather vacuous, but we did have a good chance to study it carefully. He makes much of the work that has been carried out by civil servants who have been working under intense pressure preparing businesses, individuals and wider society for Brexit. We acknowledge the very hard work of all those civil servants and thank them for their service, and we welcome the work that the Government are doing in that respect. However, the truth is that £6.3 billion is being spent on Brexit preparations, yet it is too little now, because it is too late. Even if all the preparations had been carried out in time and in a more comprehensive way, the country would still have no idea whether we will leave with a deal or with no deal.

Let me come straight to the point, because there are significant omissions in the Minister’s statement. There is no mention, for example, of medical supplies, but in the past 24 hours serious-minded health leaders have warned that no deal could result directly in medical shortages, affect treatment for UK nationals in Europe and exacerbate the already difficult NHS crisis. It has been reported that the Government are now stockpiling body bags because of concerns that there may be an increase in the mortality rate. Will the Minister assure the House that that is not the case, but if it is, will he explain what he is doing about it?

The statement mentions that 1 million EU citizens have been given settled status. We welcome that, but there are more than 3 million here. The Government’s prevarication over time and their inadequate preparations right from the beginning have caused great anxiety and left millions of people who live here, pay taxes here, have made their lives here and have their children here wondering what their future holds. It is a mark of the slow progress that is being made that the Government still have not resolved the status of UK citizens who are living in Europe, as the Minister said.

The Minister talks about getting businesses ready, yet it is only a few weeks ago that these serious-minded business leaders demanded an independent inquiry into what a no-deal Brexit would consist of, amid accusations that vital information about potential problems was deliberately being held back by the Government—that was from the business community itself.

In the early part of his statement, the Minister made much of trust—trust in this House and trust in democracy—but the truth is that the Government are playing fast and loose both with democracy and with the House. I say that because of the proposal that the House be prorogued and because the Prime Minister’s staff are now hinting at a possible cynical general election, which we are ready for. One way or another, the Government are set on closing down the House of Commons for weeks when the country is facing one of the most difficult times in our recent history. If there is an election—this is a very important point—the direction of the country and its relationship with the EU will be hotly debated. We and the country will need full access to all the relevant information. The Minister’s statement conceals more than it reveals, but can he confirm that, during an election period or a Prorogation period, whichever it is, civil service preparations for Brexit will continue through the election purdah if necessary? Can he confirm whether, during the purdah, Ministers will continue to provide political guidance to civil servants on Brexit? I give notice now that the Opposition will seek immediate access to the civil service and ask to be kept fully informed, as is the convention, of all the information that the House and the country have been denied about all developments. That request must be responded to the minute the election is called.

Just eight weeks ago, the current Prime Minister told his party and the country that the chances of a no-deal Brexit were a million to one against. Yet this morning, the former Chancellor, who is no longer in his place, stated that no progress has been made and that there are no substantive negotiations going on. Is that true? The two positions cannot be easily reconciled. Either there is progress or there is not. Having heard the Prime Minister in the Chamber just now, it is clear that most people still have no idea.

To most informed observers, however, it appears that the Government’s favoured deal—whatever they say—is no deal, so let us listen to the Minister’s own words from earlier this year. He said:

“Leaving without a deal…would undoubtedly cause economic turbulence. Almost everyone in this debate accepts that.”

He went on to say:

“We didn’t vote to leave without a deal”.

That was from the man who led the whole campaign to leave the European Union. He was for May’s deal and against no deal, but now he is the Minister for no deal. How does he reconcile the progress of his career?

The House must be allowed to see the detailed assessments contained in the Yellowhammer dossier. The truth is that the Minister is hiding it, but why? The media are reporting that the Yellowhammer papers—even the watered-down versions that he is working on—paint such a disastrous picture of the country after no deal that the Government dare not publish them. Yet shockingly, leaked excerpts talk of potential shortages, delays and even protests on the streets.

Is it not a disgrace that the Government intend to close Parliament down for five weeks without allowing the House to scrutinise their detailed preparations for no deal? Members have a right to know what those preparations are, as has the country. After all, it was this Minister who said:

“We are a parliamentary democracy, and”—

listen to this—

“proroguing Parliament in order to try to get no deal through…would be wrong.”

Those were his exact words. But that is precisely what the Government are now trying to do. How can he justify the amount of resources being spent on preparations for no deal without any scrutiny or accountability to this House? It is simply unacceptable.

Under normal purdah rules, the Select Committees looking at Brexit preparations and Yellowhammer could also be suspended, leaving absolutely no scrutiny by Members of the Government’s plans. When it comes to Yellowhammer, the media appear to be better informed than the House, so let me briefly ask the Minister some questions.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The hon. Gentleman, who is well in excess of his time, can ask two or three questions, but they need to be in a sentence or two.

[Jon Trickett]

What assessments has the Minister received about disruption at the ports? What assessments have been made and reported to him about the situation in Ireland? What assessments has he received about the impact of no deal on food prices? All these matters must be addressed by the House, so let him place the documents in the Library so that we all can explore them.

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his questions. I am also grateful to him for asking me how I reconcile the progress of my career—it is a question my wife asks me every night, so I am grateful to him for repeating it. I have enormous respect and affection for the hon. Gentleman. We both represent constituencies that voted to leave the European Union, and both of us are impatient to see us do so. When a Brexit delay was suggested in January 2019, he said that it

“sounds like the British establishment doing what it always does, which is ignoring the views of millions of ordinary folk, and that I am not prepared to tolerate.”

Comrades, neither am I, which is why we have to leave on 31 October.

The hon. Gentleman said that civil servants are doing a fantastic job in the preparations, and I join him in paying tribute to them for their work. He asked about medical shortages. Sadly, medical shortages sometimes occur, whether we are in or out of the European Union, as we have seen recently with the hormone replacement therapy shortages, which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care is doing so much to help counter. But that is a shared issue for us all. Two thirds of the medical supplies that reach the Republic of Ireland pass through the narrow straits. That is why it is so important that we secure a deal, not only to safeguard our superb NHS, but to help citizens in Ireland, who are our brothers and sisters, too.

The hon. Gentleman also asked about the EU settled status scheme. He made the point that 1 million people have received the status so far, and he asked about progress. Every day, 15,000 more people are applying. The settled status scheme is working. He is absolutely right that now is the time for our European partners to extend the same generosity to UK citizens as we are extending to EU citizens.

The hon. Gentleman talked about the money being spent. At the beginning of his questions, he said that £6.3 billion was too little, too late, but subsequently at the end of his statement he asked how we can justify such expenditure. I think that is the fastest U-turn in history, in the course of just six minutes. He also talked about our contemplation of a “cynical” general election. I thought it was the policy of the Opposition—certainly the Leader of the Opposition—to welcome a general election at the earliest possible opportunity. [Interruption.] I see the Leader of the Opposition seeking guidance on this question from Mr Speaker.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jon Trickett Excerpts

Wednesday 10th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Foster]

I understand that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland will be visiting to look at this issue. As we have discussed in other areas of common frameworks, there will clearly need to be some consistency on these types of issues, as crime does not respect political boundaries or borders.

[Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) (Lab)]

I wish the Front Bench all the best in the coming reshuffle. We will be watching their futures and careers with interest. In recalling Labour’s achievement in introducing devolution, we are reminded that our country is still very over-centralised, power being concentrated in the hands of a tiny elite governing at the expense of the rest. For example, in the north and south-west alone, more than 1 million children are now living in poverty. If power was truly devolved, that situation would not arise. Basic social justice requires us to recast the constitutional contours of the British state. When will the Government finally abandon their top-down, old-fashioned ways and help to build a modern decentralised state based on a partnership with the nations and regions that reflects our diversity, instead of suppressing it, as they do now?

[Kevin Foster]

I do not recognise the shadow Minister’s description, not least given that we have been driving forward devolution settlements and devolving power to combined authorities in England, as well as what we have seen happen in devolution in the nations. Only this week, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales met those in the potential great western powerhouse to see how that could be taken forward. I find it ironic, however, to be lectured on control from the centre by a party whose leader wants to take control of the entire economy from Whitehall.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jon Trickett Excerpts

Wednesday 24th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Oliver Dowden]

I can tell my hon. Friend that the latest data shows that 10 of the 16 Government Departments were meeting the target of paying 90% of suppliers within five days, and 10 were also meeting the target of at least 96% of invoices within the 30-day target, so there is a good record overall.

[Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) (Lab)]

The Minister’s own Department has seen a threefold increase in late payments over the last couple of years. As we know, the Government are diverted from their day jobs with daydreams of a new Prime Minister, and this distracted Government are raising incompetence to a completely new level. We have seen that they are careless when paying small and medium-sized enterprises that provide services to the public, and those SMEs are the backbone of our economy. Yet the Government are very careful when it comes to outsourcing to wounded giants such as Interserve or failed dinosaurs such as Carillion. Is it not time that the Minister and his Department got their act together?

[Oliver Dowden]

I assure the hon. Gentleman that I am dreaming of nothing but securing my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister in her continued position as Prime Minister.

[Jon Trickett]

“It says here.”

[Oliver Dowden]

Sadly, I do not have a note on that point.

I can also reassure the hon. Gentleman on his point regarding prompt payments in my own Department, the Cabinet Office. According to the latest figures, in March we paid 88% of all our suppliers within five days and 98% within 30 days—a perfectly credible record.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jon Trickett Excerpts

Wednesday 13th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Brandon Lewis]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. As the Government have said consistently over the past couple of years, we are working so that we are prepared, whatever the outcome. The legislative default for this Parliament is to leave without a deal, if we do not agree a deal.

[Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) (Lab)]

The country is hanging on to a no-deal cliff edge. Today, we read about the Government’s latest brilliant idea: a ludicrous TV advert telling the public, from Friday onwards, “Don’t panic”, which is a bit like Corporal Jones in “Dad’s Army”. However, this is not the Home Guard in the 1940s, and the prospect of thousands of job losses and shortages of food, medicine and so on are no joke. We can prevent this. Today, the Commons will take control from the Government to prevent such a disastrous scenario. Will the Minister join us?

[Brandon Lewis]

I find it somewhat ironic that the hon. Gentleman, along with his colleagues, is talking about preparation—the previous question was about preparation too—but complains that we are preparing the public for what may happen on 29 March. The simple answer is that he and his colleagues should have voted with us last night to make sure that we left the EU with a deal.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jon Trickett Excerpts

Wednesday 19th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

I discuss these matters regularly with both the Secretaries of State my hon. Friend alluded to. I am afraid that there is no getting away from the fact that going to WTO tariffs would impose very considerable additional costs upon our dairy, meat and livestock exports, and upon our vehicle manufacturers. That is another reason why the House should back the deal on the table and not let us be sucked into the damage that a no-deal exit would bring.

[Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) (Lab)]

Season’s greetings to you, Mr Speaker, everybody in the House and all our staff.

Yesterday’s Cabinet meeting appears to have decided to abandon all non-essential Government business and reveals an Administration in an advanced state of decay. Will the Minister now tell the House which Government functions he regards as non-essential and is now putting into deep freeze?

[Mr Lidington]

We have taken no decisions to put anything into deep freeze. We are engaged in prudent contingency planning so that we are prepared for all eventualities. I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman yet again has ducked the opportunity to say what the Opposition’s preferred outcome is, if they object to the deal on the table.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jon Trickett Excerpts

Wednesday 14th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

The Smith commission was clear that it is the responsibility of the Scottish Government to work with the Scottish Parliament, civic Scotland and local authorities to ensure that power is devolved from Holyrood to local communities. For our part, we are ready to help the Scottish Government to implement the Smith commission in full and will give them our support if and when they choose to do that.

[Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) (Lab)]

Will the Minister confirm without equivocation that the Government will fully comply with yesterday’s resolution that all information provided to the Cabinet will be made available to the House as soon as the Cabinet finishes, if it ever does?

[Mr Lidington]

I set out the Government’s position yesterday in the debate. We will reflect upon the outcome of the vote yesterday, but at the moment, there is no agreed deal. There is a provisional agreement between negotiators, which has yet to be considered by the UK Cabinet or the 27 member states meeting in Council.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jon Trickett Excerpts

Wednesday 27th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

Clearly, criticisms have been made of the major accountancy firms by Select Committees of this House and others. The appropriate financial services regulator keeps this under review, and it is for the regulator to decide what, if any, steps to take.

[Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) (Lab)]

With 2,300 jobs down the pan and the taxpayer paying £148 million to clean up the Carillion fiasco, how can the Minister give such complacent responses on value for money? Will he now admit that earlier Front-Bench assurances from those on his side of the House that the burden of Carillion’s collapse would not fall on the taxpayer have turned out to be incorrect?

[Mr Lidington]

No, I would not accept that at all. We have said from the start that our priority has been to keep public services running. We have paid the costs of the official receiver to enable the contracted operations to continue; the schools have been cleaned, and the meals have been served in schools and hospitals, by those providers. It is the lenders, directors and shareholders in Carillion who have taken the big financial hit, and rightly so.

[Jon Trickett]

The fact of the matter is that the Minister has admitted that £150 million has been paid to the liquidators. We see that his commitment to value for money has no credibility when we consider that only one civil servant is monitoring 700 taxpayer-funded contracts, with £60 billion in assets. The Government are sleepwalking from one outsourcing disaster to the next. Will he now accept the widespread public view that he should abandon his obsession with outsourcing?

[Mr Lidington]

The report by the Select Committee on Work and Pensions and the Select Committee on Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy concluded that the directors, not the Government, were responsible for the fact that Carillion failed and that the Government had made a competent job of clearing up the mess. I refer the hon. Gentleman again to the fact that independent research commissioned by the last Labour Government showed savings to taxpayers of, on average, between 20% and 30% from outsourcing, compared with undertaking tasks in house. That is money that can go back into frontline public services.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jon Trickett Excerpts

Wednesday 28th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Chloe Smith]

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland has been clear that, although she does not have any plans to provide for publication of the pre-2017 data, we will look to review the broader framework once those arrangements have bedded in. What I would say is that she and her predecessor took those decisions because the majority of parties in Northern Ireland agreed at the time that it was the right thing to do, and, indeed, the Labour Front Bench team, before it was against it, was for it.

[Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) (Lab)]

Last month, access to members of the British Cabinet was auctioned off for around £55,000 per Minister—although the Secretary of State for International Trade was worth only £2,000. The Minister’s job in the Cabinet Office is to ensure “propriety, ethics and transparency” in government; does she agree that auctioning off access to Ministers undermines confidence in democracy by giving the impression of a Government for sale? Will she take steps immediately to secure transparency and propriety in all such matters in future?

[Chloe Smith]

As I said in answer to a previous question, all donations are registered in accordance with the law. I appreciate that in recent days some points have been raised; indeed, some were raised in the Chamber yesterday, after your decision to grant an emergency debate, Mr Speaker. There are a lot of allegations in the air at the moment, but what the Government have to do is deal with the law as it stands and allow the correct bodies to carry out their investigations.

EU Referendum: Electoral Law

Jon Trickett Excerpts

Tuesday 27th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this debate. We have heard a number of important contributions, and it is difficult to disagree with any of them, given that nobody on the Government Benches actually bothered to make a speech, although they attempted to prick the arguments from time to time.

However we voted in the referendum and whatever our views now, the recent revelations in connection with the Brexit campaign raise serious questions about the functioning of our democracy and go to the heart of who we are as a country. First let me say, however, that we would not even be holding this debate were it not for the hard work, courage, diligence and honesty of journalists in the media.

Theirs is a profession that politicians rarely thank. The same applies to whistleblowers. However uncomfortable it may be for the powerful in our society, or for any of us, it is clearly essential to the functioning of a democracy that we protect the roles of both journalists and whistleblowers. It demeans our politics to attempt to destroy a whistleblower’s case not by addressing the matters that were being raised, but by insinuating that there was a malicious personal motive on the part of the whistleblower. It is especially sinister—indeed, it is shameful—when those insinuations emerge from Downing Street and when their source is defended by the Prime Minister personally. After all, the Government have a clear policy on whistleblowing. Their website states:

“As a whistleblower you’re protected by law—you shouldn’t be treated unfairly or lose your job because you ‘blow the whistle’.”

But Mr Sanni has been treated unfairly and in a way that is absolutely disgraceful.

Democracy depends on more than just journalists and whistleblowers. It needs transparency and a rules-based level playing field. If those attributes are missing, our democracy will be in severe danger and I believe that it may well be. The stakes have never been higher because the referendum itself was a major turning point in the country’s history. Moreover, the House will not forget that the Leave campaign was headed by two distinguished Members of this House, who arguably owe their membership of the British Cabinet to the role that they played in the Brexit campaign. To the victor belong the spoils, as they say.

It is too soon yet to draw any firm conclusions that Vote Leave broke the rules, but there are clearly reasons to worry. Before reciting some of the known facts, I remind the House that the law on referendums, which we passed, does not prevent donations from one campaign body to another, but it does forbid collusion between them, because otherwise there would not be a level playing field between the two sides in the referendum. If one campaign exceeds the spending cap by deliberately and surreptitiously spawning satellite or puppet operations, that crucial principle of equity between the two parties is lost.

Let me briefly list the facts that we do now know, some of which have already been mentioned. We know that Vote Leave raised more money than the statutory spending cap. We know that it donated surplus funds to other campaigning bodies, including a youth body called BeLeave. We know that the two campaigns shared the same building, and that there was a revolving door for staff between the two organisations. We know that they both used the same small Canada-based company, AIQ, whose purpose seems to have been to harvest data from social media in order to target Leave messaging to British voters. By a strange coincidence, the Leave.EU campaign—led by Messrs Farage and Banks, among others—used the very same small Canadian firm.

Incidentally, at least two other bodies, which have been mentioned briefly today, received donations from Vote Leave. One is Veterans for Britain and the other is the Democratic Unionist party, none of whose members are in the Chamber. Another remarkable coincidence is that both bodies reportedly used that same firm based in Canada, AIQ, whose premises are, I am told, above a shop.

[Martin Docherty-Hughes]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Jon Trickett]

I will, very briefly.

[Martin Docherty-Hughes]

The hon. Gentleman mentioned Veterans for Britain. Is he aware that that organisation consistently gives evidence to the Defence Committee and that—this is relevant to my earlier comments—there is now grave concern about the links between national security and this very debate?

[Jon Trickett]

I think that the hon. Gentleman’s point speaks for itself.

So far, so good. Those are the facts as I understand them. Until last week, there was evidence that the various Leave campaigns rubbed shoulders with each other, but no evidence that there was specific collusion. This is where the recent revelations by the whistleblower that have given rise to this debate change the nature of our understanding of what happened. Mr Sanni was right at the core of the BeLeave organisation from its inception; indeed, I understand he was the treasurer, although he says he never saw the money pass through the accounts. He had previously worked in the Vote Leave organisation and says he was directed by it to join BeLeave. He goes on to say that BeLeave was established by Vote Leave and the money it donated was in effect under the control not of BeLeave but of senior members of the Vote Leave staff, and he argues that the money allegedly donated by Vote Leave to BeLeave was actually directed by Vote Leave, to be spent on AIQ. If these allegations of collusion are true, they amount to a serious breach of the regulations and a de facto fusion of the two campaign groups, and one has to assume that under those circumstances there was an illegal spend by Vote Leave-BeLeave of about 10% of the total statutory cap.

That was illegal, yet a further allegation has been made. It is said that after the referendum Vote Leave staff destroyed or doctored the electronic data files they held in order to remove any reference to an interconnection between the two campaigns. It is therefore hard to conclude anything other than that this was a puppet campaign designed to avoid electoral law. If there was nothing to hide, why would they destroy or change the files?

Given the historic scale of the referendum and what it has presaged for our country, we must have a proper and urgent investigation, but the truth is that the House is not the proper place to carry it out, and let us be blunt about the reason why: it is because the Government are in this up to their neck. Two Cabinet Ministers fronted the organisation. They sit here week after week, the Bonnie and Clyde of Brexit—I will leave it to the House to decide who is Bonnie and who is Clyde. They had a pantomime swag bag allegedly full of £350 million a week for the NHS, which, as we know, turned out to be completely untrue. Meanwhile, the sheriff herself, in the shape of the Prime Minister, has publicly defended her own political secretary after his personalised attack on the whistleblower. They cannot represent themselves as honest brokers, so who will step up to carry out the investigation into these new revelations?

It must be the Electoral Commission and, if necessary, the police. At present, however, the Electoral Commission is under-resourced and lacks the necessary powers to carry out the task. After all, the situation last week with the Information Commissioner revealed how limited its powers and resources are in trying to get access to Cambridge Analytica files.

We on this side of the House demand that the Government recuse themselves from looking into these matters and commission a wholly independent investigation instead. The Electoral Commission should be given the extra powers and resources it needs to follow the evidence wherever it takes it. It should then report to this House and to the public directly, so that there is no suspicion of interference by interested parties in powerful places.

Sunlight is the best disinfectant. We have seen the Prime Minister beholden to the extreme wing of her party, who are running wild and unchecked. If she wants to stand up for our democracy and show she has nothing to hide, she will surely now work with any investigation as a matter of urgency.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

Capita

Jon Trickett Excerpts

Thursday 1st February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am keen to accommodate the substantial interest in this matter, but may I remind the House that there is the business question to follow, and thereafter two debates to take place under the auspices of the Backbench Business Committee? I am anxious that time for those debates should not be artificially truncated, so pithy questions and pithy answers, please, and we will make progress.

[Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) (Lab)]

I will take your advice, Mr Speaker.

Only two weeks ago, I warned that there was a danger that this whole outsourcing problem would become a set of dominoes, with one falling after another. I believe the House will conclude that the Government’s behaviour in response, and the Minister’s response today, has been marked by indifference to corporate mismanagement, incompetence in office and complacency in the face of a crisis.

The Minister will not tell the House, but I will: Capita was given 154 Government contracts last year. Only last week, Carillion contracts were being re-brokered to Capita, yet the company was clearly in trouble. Share values were plummeting and profit warnings were being issued. There was short selling on the stock market and allegations against Capita of fraud in the handling of public contracts. Yesterday, Capita’s total value on the exchange was barely much more than its total debt. The company is in serious trouble. It is a familiar tale of woe, with strong echoes of Carillion.

We want to know that the Government’s contingency plans in relation to Capita will assure jobs for current employees and protect the pensions of those employees and the pensions of the public sector workers that the company is managing. Will the Minister confirm that the public services that Capita manages will be protected in the event of a corporate disaster? Does the Government’s contingency plan allow for that? What will be the common impact of the problems at Carillion, and now Capita, on the spiralling costs of HS2? Does the Minister agree with the Opposition that not a single penny should be used to prop up badly managed outsourcing companies?

The Government are blind to the corporate greed of these outsourcing companies. Does the Minister agree that it is clear that, as the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, the hon. Member for Bracknell (Dr Lee), said only the other day, the Government should be driven by the “evidence, not dogma” on outsourcing?

[Oliver Dowden]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his questions, the core of which was about support for outsourcing companies. He said we should not provide a penny more to prop up badly managed outsourcing companies. Indeed, that is exactly what we did in respect of Carillion. We took the decision that this was a private company and should bear the loss. That is why shareholders in Carillion are unlikely to get more than a few pennies in the pound back for their investment. The private sector has taken the risk, but the job of the Government is to ensure the continued delivery of those public services—to ensure that the dinner ladies get paid, that the hospitals get cleaned, and that the railways continue to be built. That is exactly what we did in respect of Carillion and it is exactly what our contingencies involve for all our strategic suppliers. That is the test for the Government: can we ensure the continued delivery of those public services, and can those public services continue to be delivered?

The hon. Gentleman made a point about pensions. The fact that Capita has embarked on this course of restructuring means that it is effectively choosing to switch resources away from the continued payment of dividends and towards pension funds. That should give pensioners confidence in respect of that pension fund. He also asked about jobs, and again, the restructuring can give confidence about the continuing delivery of those jobs.

I keep coming back to the same point. This is a private company and the interest of the Government is to ensure the continued delivery of those public services, and those public services continue to be delivered. That takes me back to Labour’s position. What Labour seems to be suggesting is that the private sector has no role in public life, and that the level of small and medium-sized businesses working for the Government should be zero. If that is not Labour Members’ position, are they going to tell us where they choose to draw the line? Labour has gone from pumping billions of pounds into private companies for the delivery of public services when Gordon Brown and Tony Blair were Prime Minister, to saying that they should not have a penny. Some clarity would be helpful, because otherwise people may draw the conclusion that there is more than an element of opportunism here.