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Carillion’s collapse illustrates all that’s wrong with the Tory economic model
The failure of Carillion is about far more than the failure of a company. It is about the failure of free market dogma, writes RICHARD BURGON

AS shadow secretary of state for justice, I have seen how well Carillion bosses have done out of our prisons system. Sadly, our prisons system hasn’t done too well out of Carillion. In just over two years, the Conservative government has given almost £100 million to Carillion to maintain our prisons. 

Prison governors are among those who repeatedly complained about Carillion’s failures in prison maintenance. 

The situation became so bad that in September 2016 even the then Conservative prisons minister Sam Gyimah commented: “I am particularly concerned about the rate of repairs in our prisons,” going on to say that “Carillion is one company that has a contract and receives public funds to perform such work, and I have not been impressed by what I have heard about its response speed.”

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