(5 years, 10 months ago)
Lords ChamberWe can only speculate that the information was provided either by the liquidated company or by the liquidator. There were visits to the storage facility by Defence Equipment and Support, security officials, MoD Police and the Defence Land Safety Regulator. They all asked UES&S for a list several times but, disappointingly, it was unable to provide one. This may seem strange to the observer, but apparently this facility has been used for more than 20 years. It is full of defence and non-defence related items. UES&S has not catalogued each item. This is apparently why it could not produce a list, but it would have been helpful if, when a list finally emerged, it could have been passed to the MoD.
My Lords, surely one point becomes abundantly clear: the Government, through the MoD, were not monitoring the contract correctly. Surely they should have known that this was happening.