Public Accounts Committee

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:09 pm on 24 May 2018.

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Photo of Ronnie Cowan Ronnie Cowan Scottish National Party, Inverclyde 12:09, 24 May 2018

I welcome this comprehensive report. When Carillion collapsed, a number of Select Committees scrambled to take evidence, including the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee and the Transport Committee. One thing that really struck me was that after the first credit warning, the UK Government continued to grant contracts of £2 billion to Carillion. The Scottish Government started mitigating that, and offsetting the damage right there and then, but after the second and third warnings, there were more contracts. Does the hon. Lady agree that the Government adopted the attitude that Carillion was too big to fail? They played fast and loose with taxpayers’ money and offered more contracts to paper over the cracks when there was clearly a cash-flow problem in the first place.