Carillion

Stephen Crabb Excerpts

Monday 15th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

The hon. Lady risks ignoring the £60 billion of capital investment that it has been possible to use to modernise and improve public services, and that would not have been available had this Government and their predecessors not used the PFI and PF2 approaches. The events of the past 24 hours have demonstrated that for private contractors this is not an easy ticket to riches; there are very real risks associated with taking on a contract. In this case it is—and rightly so—Carillion’s shareholders and creditors who are suffering very substantial losses as a consequence of the financial difficulties into which the company has fallen.

[Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that sad occasions such as this demonstrate the importance of the strength and resilience of our model of pension protection? They also serve to underline the real importance of not allowing individual directors who might have put at risk employees’ pensions to walk away from their responsibilities. Will he assure the House that the investigation by the Pensions Regulator will be full and thorough?

[Mr Lidington]

My right hon. Friend makes a very good point. Obviously, the Pensions Regulator acts independently, but I am sure that both the Pensions Regulator and the trustees of the individual pension schemes will respond appropriately to what has happened. In addition, as I said earlier, the official receiver can take account of detriment to pensioners and pension contributors as part of his analysis.