Severance deal payments to exbosses have also been stopped. Prime Minister Theresa May also said the Official Receiver would investigate the conduct of past as well as current directors, and could recover payments to executives "where those payments are unlawful or unjustified".

There has been outrage that Carillion's former chief executive Richard Howson pocketed £1.5million in salary, bonuses and pension payments during 2016. As part of his leaving deal Carillion reportedly agreed to keep paying a £660,000 salary and £28,000 in benefits until October.

Interim chief executive Keith Cochrane was set to be paid his £750,000 salary until July, despite leaving in February.

An Insolvency Service spokesman said: "Any bonus payments 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."

The spokesman added that more than 90 per cent of the firm's private sector customers had indicated they want Carillion to keep providing services until new suppliers can be found and will provide funding to keep employees on.

But work on Carillion construction sites has "paused, pending decisions as to how and if they will be restarted".

Warnings Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn accused the Government of "negligence" for signing more than £2billion worth of contracts with Carillion in the past six months, even after the firm issued profit warnings.

Mrs May hit back saying the Government ensured all but one of the new contracts was a "joint venture" so another firm could take over if necessary.

And she told Mr Corbyn: "You said it was the Government's job to ensure that Carillion was properly managed but we were a customer of Carillion not the manager of Carillion - a very important difference. It is also important that we have protected taxpayers from an unacceptable bail-out of a private company." ? Taxpayers will pay private firms an average of £7.7billion a year for the next 25 years and a total of nearly £200billion for private finance initiative schemes, the National Audit Office reports.

PFIs provide funds where private firms are contracted to complete public projects.