Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what analysis he has made of the exposure of NHS trusts to the liquidation of Carillion.

Carillion provides facilities management services to 13 National Health Service trusts through subcontracts with Private Finance Initiative (PFI) project companies. Carillion is also building two NHS hospitals under PFI contracts.

The Department and the hospital regulator NHS Improvement have been helping trusts supplied by Carillion with planning and will continue to work intensively with trusts over the coming days to minimise disruption. The Government is committed to maintain public services and has an agreement with the Official Receiver to ensure that Carillion workers in public sector contracts will continue to be paid.

The contracts between the trusts and PFI Companies are still in place, which means that each PFI Company is still contractually obliged to manage the projects and find another construction or facilities management services subcontractor who can continue to deliver the services and building work. The PFI Companies are currently in discussions with PWC (on behalf of the official receiver), their lenders and with other service and construction companies to assess how best to continue delivering these contracts.

Three NHS trusts also directly contract Carillion (ie outside of PFI contracts) to provide facilities management services and car parking management. Each NHS trust with a direct contract may, at any given point in time, have amounts owing to or withheld from Carillion on the basis of the contract’s provisions. This data is not collected centrally.

The Department has no direct contracts with Carillion.

In addition, Carillion provide maintenance services to a number of NHS LIFT Companies. The NHS LIFT Companies have their own contingency plans in place to source these maintenance services from other companies and prior to the current issue have replaced Carillion on a variety of sites. These buildings are typically primary care facilities ranging from general practitioner surgeries to small community facilities.