Olympics (Security) Debate

Full Debate: Read Full Debate
Department: Home Office
Monday 16th July 2012

(12 years, 5 months ago)

Commons Chamber
Read Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts

Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.

Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.

This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record

Baroness May of Maidenhead Portrait Mrs May
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

No, I would say that G4S came forward and made a statement to the Government that it would not be able to provide the numbers required. It would have been easy for G4S to carry on saying, “We will provide the required numbers”—but it did not; it recognised that it could not and at that point it came to the Government and we took the necessary action.

Meg Hillier Portrait Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
- Hansard - -

On 14 December, the chief civil servant in the Home Office gave evidence to the Public Accounts Committee, assuring us that everything was fine with the G4S contract. We now hear from G4S that 9,000 people are still being processed. Does the Home Secretary share her senior civil servant’s confidence now?

Baroness May of Maidenhead Portrait Mrs May
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

I explained this on a number of occasions last Thursday and this afternoon. There was a rolling programme for G4S for recruiting individuals and taking them through the training and accreditation process. G4S repeatedly assured us that it was going to overshoot rather than undershoot its target. It came forward and said it could not meet its contractual obligations only last Wednesday.