Privatisation Of English Heritage Direct Works Department

EDM number 629 in 1995-96, proposed by Barry Sheerman on 18/03/1996.

That this House is deeply concerned to learn that the Direct Works Department of English Heritage has been sold to a French-owned waste management company, SITA, and that the Chairman of the parent company and a director of the United Kingdom arm, Jean-Jacques Prompsy, was last November found guilty of corruption and given a four year suspended sentence by a French court, and was taken into custody on 24th January this year as part of an investigation into a second corruption scandal; notes that English Heritage refuses to disclose the price paid by SITA (GB) for assets and goodwill in the sale; further notes that in the Government's guidelines for competitive tendering, prospective contractors are subject to thorough vetting; is dismayed that the procedures for vetting are clearly inadequate and parliamentary scrutiny is being undermined by claims of commercial confidentiality; and calls on the Department of National Heritage and to intervene immediately and re-open the tendering process in the interests of the British taxpayer.

This motion has been signed by a total of 56 MPs.