Calls for Carillion Criminal Investigation

14 January 2019, 09:26 | Updated: 14 January 2019, 09:29

A leading trade union is stepping up calls for a criminal investigation into the collapse of engineering giant Carillion on the first anniversary of the Wolverhampton-based group going out of business.

Unite has accused the Government of not taking enough action to ensure there wasn't another "corporate meltdown."

Carillion went into compulsory liquidation on January 15 last year, leading to thousands of job losses.

Unite said the cost to the taxpayer was over £150 million, including redundancy pay and "lucrative" work for accountants.

Unite assistant general secretary Gail Cartmail said: "It is staggering that a year after the biggest corporate failure in modern UK history the 

government has carried on as though it is business as normal.

"The government's failure to take action to ensure that there cannot be similar collapses in the future is a betrayal of workers, who still face 

being cast on the scrapheap without warning because of irresponsible directors who place profits and shareholder dividends before people.

"The fact that no one involved in Carillion has yet had any form of action taken against them demonstrates either that the regulators are 

failing to do their jobs or that existing laws are too weak. If it is the latter then we need better, stronger laws.

"Taxpayers were handed a bill of over £150 million to clean up the mess left by Carillion, yet the government has failed to end bandit 

capitalism in the UK.

"A year on from Carillion's collapse the government needs to stop prevaricating and start taking effective action to drive bandit capitalism 

out of the UK."