Business Secretary Greg Clark (pictured outside No10 on Monday) said the new body, which will meet later today, will involve businesses and unions and support to anyone affected by the bankruptcy
Ministers are setting up a task force to support workers and companies whose jobs and firms have been plunged into crisis by the collapse of Carillon.
The Business Department said the new body, which will meet later today, will involve businesses and unions and support to anyone affected by the bankruptcy.
It comes after Theresa May insisted bosses at the failed firm can have their bumper bonuses clawed back as she was grilled over her response to the crisis during yesterday’s PMQs.
The Government has faced fierce criticism over its decision to award nearly £2billion of public sector contracts to Carillion after its shares tumbled and it issued profit warnings.
Ministers had been accused of ‘feeding’ the firm contracts to prop it up while the bosses ‘rewarded failure’ by giving themselves bumper salaries and six figure salaries.
The PM flatly denied that ministers had been ‘negligent’ in continuing to hand out contracts to the stricken firm despite profit warnings.
But fresh questions are being asked about the future of controversial PFI contracts after a damning National Audit Office report revealed taxpayers will be on the hook for £200billion of debt from public-private contracts until the 2040s.
Speaking yesterday during her weekly parliamentary clash with Jeremy Corbyn, the PM defended the Government’s handling of the Carillion crisis.
She insisted that shutting Carillion out of work would merely have guaranteed its collapse.
And she stressed the taxpayer had been protected and liquidators could now pursue former executives who took home huge pay packets while problems spiralled out of control.
Carillion’s former boss Richard Howson, 49, who headed the company from 2012 until July 2017 and pocketed £1.5million in 2016.
The pay included a £122,612 cash bonus and £231,000 in pension contributions.
The Insolvency Service revealed that 90 per cent of the company’s private customers have said they will provide funding to keep employees on.
Carillion, which was Britain’s second biggest construction firm, went into liquidation on Monday after running up losses on contracts and huge debts
Mr Corbyn raised the example of Carillion’s former boss Richard Howson, 49 (pictured with his wife) who headed the company from 2012 until July 2017 and pocketed £1.5million in 2016
Bonus payments to Carillion directors – including severance payments to former executives – have been stopped after the date of liquidation.
A spokesman said: ‘Any bonus payment to directors, beyond the liquidation date, have been stopped and this includes the severance payments which were being paid to some senior executives who left the company.’
Mrs May told Mr Corbyn that investigators will look at clawing the cash back from the disgraced bosses.
She said: ‘Of course people are concerned about this issue and are rightly asking question about it.
‘That’s why we’re making sure the official receiver’s investigation is fast-tracked, that it looks into the conduct not just of current directors but of previous directors.
‘And the official receiver does have the power – he can take action to recover those payments.’