Interserve: Provision of Public Services

Lord Fox Excerpts

Wednesday 12th December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

As I said, the Government are in regular contact with Interserve to monitor its performance. Not only does the Cabinet Office have overall responsibility for monitoring the health of the company, but individual government departments that have contracts with Interserve have a dialogue with it about those specific contracts. The noble Lord may have seen the statement which the Cabinet Office issued a few days ago:

“The Cabinet Office has expressed full support for the work the company is doing to implement”,


its “long-term recovery plan”. It is worth making the point that Interserve is very different from Carillion. Interserve is now taking the action that Carillion ought to have taken—to restructure its balance sheet and improve its robustness—and, unlike Carillion, it does not need new money. It needs to turn debt into equity. It is not accurate to make a direct comparison between the two companies.

[Lord Fox (LD)]

My Lords, in a meeting in the Cabinet Office in the spring, I specifically asked David Lidington about Interserve. Since then, there have been a number of warning signals. Ministers may be talking to Interserve, but are they talking to the companies that support Interserve by delivering its services to people? If they did, they would hear from Rudi Klein, the chief executive of the Specialist Engineering Contractors’ Group, who is advising its members not to work for Interserve. The Minister’s response seems very relaxed in the light of what is actually going on. What contingencies are the Government taking in the event that Interserve is unable to deliver services?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

On the first point, I made inquiries to Interserve about the suppliers: 90% are paid within 60 days or less. The Government have now insisted that, where they place new contracts with suppliers, there is a contingency plan to take effect if and when that contract runs into difficulties. Interserve, along with four other companies, is piloting this new arrangement, which was introduced post the problems with Carillion.