Carillion and Public Sector Outsourcing

Lloyd Russell-Moyle Excerpts

Wednesday 24th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

The ugly side of privatisation and outsourcing has been laid bare by the collapse of Carillion. While fat cat executives have taken action to protect their pensions and pay, the workers have been shafted. With a day’s notice, workers were told to not bother to turn up to work. These are workers with mortgages and families to feed, and the platitudes from this Government will not comfort them.

Make no mistake: this is an ideological obsession of this Government. We have got to the farcical point where Oxfordshire County Council is forced to put firefighters on standby to deliver food in our schools. Private capital has seen all the benefits, and the state has taken the burden of the collapse again. It is estimated that subcontractors will receive only 1p of every pound owed to them. They also have families to feed and bills to pay. What do the Government have to offer them? Nothing. They are obsessed and determined to push ahead with the privatisation and outsourcing of the £1.2 billion HS2 contract. There has been more privatisation and outsourcing in Ministry of Defence contracts, and in school projects. When will they ever learn? We privatised the reward and we nationalised failure. It is the absolute reverse of socialism.

This is a crisis of capitalism. Workers are treated with utter disdain in the pursuit of capital accumulation. This is an ideological issue. Outsourcing, not just by Carillion, has brought our state to its knees. Southern Rail, schools: it is time that this experiment was brought to an end. The smoke and mirrors of PFI and outsourcing are no longer there.

[Luke Graham (Ochil and South Perthshire) (Con)]

In his criticism of capitalism and PFI, does the hon. Gentleman recognise that Labour, between 1997 and 2015, put in a capital value of £49.4 billion, compared with the Conservatives’ £7.9 billion. Labour is more responsible for this problem than the Conservatives have ever been.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

That is right. The public will not fail to notice that the Labour party is under new management. We will build on the positives of the past, and discard the negatives. PFI, I am afraid, was a bad mistake that the Conservatives began under Major, and which we failed to stop. We will stop it this time, because when Jeremy Corbyn gets in and we have a socialist Government what will end is this—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. It is one thing to test my patience but it is another to name Members. The hon. Gentleman cannot name the Leader of the Opposition. He can say “the next Prime Minister”, but he should not use his name.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

I am terribly sorry. I get very excited about the thought of the Leader of the Opposition becoming Prime Minister, which will happen very shortly.

These contracts are an absolute mess. The Government say that civil servants cannot take things in-house. If that is the case, they cannot manage the contracts that they have issued. I call it baloney and ideological rubbish. We will put an end to it. The Government must put an end to it to prevent our country from going to the dogs.