Carillion and Public Sector Outsourcing

Debate between Jon Trickett and Gareth Snell

Wednesday 24th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Jon Trickett]

Carillion did not go bust eight years ago, when Labour was in power; it went bust last week. The fact is that the hon. Lady has not answered the central point, which is that 13 of the 20 biggest Government contractors have subsidiaries in tax havens—[Interruption.] And the Minister is prepared to defend it. It is outrageous. [Interruption.] Leeds City Council, in which I no longer play a part, did not hand over a contract to Carillion the other week.

Thirteen of the 20 largest Government contractors have subsidiaries in tax havens. Those companies are happy to take taxpayers’ money and make a profit, but it seems that they are not prepared to pay tax back, which is morally incorrect and should not be happening. In fact, it is a scandal.

[Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to see you back in the Chair, Mr Deputy Speaker.

The hon. Member for Redditch (Rachel Maclean) put a question to my hon. Friend the Member for Hemsworth (Jon Trickett) on local authorities. Does he agree that the reason local authorities are too often forced down the route of contracting out services is that the Government have starved them of funding for the past seven years, meaning that local authorities simply do not have the wherewithal to do the work themselves?

[Jon Trickett]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful and unanswerable point.

We want a categorical assurance that the jobs of the subcontractors and employees are protected and that the services will be sustained. Is it not clear that the Government played roulette with people’s livelihoods in the most reckless manner? The truth is that the Government have been so wedded to the dogmatic idea that the private is always good and the public is always bad that they never questioned the existing orthodoxy, even when the evidence was right in front of their nose.