Corporate Governance and Insolvency

Stephen Kerr Excerpts

Tuesday 20th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Griffiths]

The hon. Lady asks two important questions. The Government have a role to play in this as a customer. We give billions of pounds of contracts and we have the power in our own hands to demand that the supply chain is treated properly. I can assure her that, in the very near future, we will be coming forward with a clearer set of principles and tools to ensure that the supply chain is treated properly and paid fairly, using the 30-day terms. That is what we expect of our suppliers. I agree with her point about apprentices. Unfortunately, we have to accept that there will always be businesses that go bust. That is one of the realities—[Interruption.] That is the way in which the business environment works. We are putting the employees at the heart of this consultation and at the heart of the decisions we make.

[Stephen Kerr (Stirling) (Con)]

I congratulate the Minister on his statement and on launching this much-needed consultation. As a member of the Select Committee that is inquiring into the collapse of Carillion, I should like to share with him the fact that one of the startling things we discovered was that the company could not even give the Insolvency Service the names of all the directors of all companies in the group. Does he agree that steps should be taken to improve governance and accountability in groups of companies with complex structures?

[Andrew Griffiths]

My hon. Friend has hit the nail well and truly on the head. I commend the work that his Select Committee has been doing in shining a light on the realities of the way in which Carillion operated. In the very early days of the Carillion collapse, when the Government were looking to protect those vital services that were being delivered and to protect the 18,500 people employed by the company, it became clear that it was a hellishly complicated business with a hellishly over-complicated structure. It is still proving a difficult job to untangle the web of the Carillion business structure. If it is difficult for the Insolvency Agency to do that, so many weeks on, how much more difficult must it have been to run the business? We need clear, accountable business structures in our businesses today.