HC Deb 07 February 1995 vol 254 cc143-4W
Mr. Nigel Griffiths

To ask the President of the Board of Trade if his Department permits consultants to tender for contracts resulting from work they have carried out in(a) drawing up the specification for the tender documents or (b) recommending the contracting out of a Government service.

Mr. Heseltine

(a) No. (b) Consultants are generally excluded from tendering for services where they have been employed to advise on the feasibility of contracting out. Where a general exclusion has not applied, appropriate safeguards have been required to prevent potential conflicts of interest arising between the interests of the project and any other commercial interest the consultant may have.

Mr. Nigel Griffiths

To ask the President of the Board of Trade if Shreeveport Consultants submitted its accounts for 1993–94 to Companies House by the legal deadline.

Mr. Jonathan Evans

As this is an operational matter for Companies House executive agency, I have asked David Durham, the chief executive, to respond directly.

Letter from David Durham to Mr. Nigel Griffiths, dated 7 February 1995

You have recently tabled a Parliamentary Question which asked for details about the filing of the 1993–94 accounts for Shreeveport Consultants. The Minister has informed you that I have been asked to reply as Chief Executive of the Agency as this is an operational matter for Companies House.

There is no company with the name Shreeveport Consultants on the UK Register. There is a company called Shreeveport Ltd, but we have no way of knowing whether this is the company that you are interested in.

Information on document filings by UK companies is a matter of public record, and available to any member of the public either through our search rooms or through our on-line information service Companies House Direct. There is a statutory fee of £1 charged for the screen of information which shows the document filing history of any company. You may find that use of these services provides the quickest and easiest way of checking whether you have correctly identified the company in which you are interested, and of finding out any relevant information on it.