Education Minister learned of Libelle liquidation through media

Education Minister Erica Stanford only found out school lunch provider Libelle was going into liquidation through media reports, as the Associate Education Minister decided not to tell her.

Written Parliamentary Questions from the Green Party show David Seymour found out there was a possibility of Libelle's liquidation on March 6.

Libelle was officially placed into liquidation on March 11, and it was only then that Stanford found out.

According to the first report by liquidators Deloitte, Libelle exhausted its cash reserves on March 6, after paying employees' wages.

It was no longer able to purchase essential goods and services to enable ongoing trading.

Libelle approached Deloitte on the evening on March 6, seeking its consent to act as liquidators.

Deloitte spent until March 10 planning for the insolvency appointment, to ensure there was a strategy for the ongoing supply of lunches once the liquidation was made official.

Deloitte then publicly announced Libelle was being placed into liquidation on March 11.

The Green Party's education spokesperson Lawrence Xu-Nan asked the Education Minister, Associate Education Minister and Prime Minister when they were first made aware that Libelle was going into liquidation.

He also asked the Education Minister and Prime Minister who informed them of the liquidation.

Seymour told Xu-Nan that Ministry of Education officials verbally briefed him on March 6 of the possibility of Libelle going into liquidation.

"I was kept abreast of developments until the liquidator was appointed on Tuesday, 11 March 2025, as I was focused on continuity of supply," his reply said.

The Prime Minister said Seymour's office told his office on March 7.

Stanford, however, told Xu-Nan she was "informed via the media that the Libelle Group had been placed into liquidation".

Seymour told RNZ, as the responsible minister, his duty was to make sure the programme delivered.

"Updating other ministers on every development would be nice, but I think they would rather I fix the problems," he said.

"In this instance my office made sure that the Prime Minister's office was kept informed of developments, as is appropriate."

Xu-Nan said it reinforced the need to return to the original school lunch model and expand it.

"If we had good and well-funded, nutritious, warm, locally-made lunches that are resilient and aren't going to have all of these issues, we wouldn't have this in the first place," he said.

Stanford's office told RNZ they would not be commenting further.

rnz.co.nz