Public/Private Partnerships

Baroness Kramer Excerpts

Monday 7th September 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wilson of Sedgefield (Lab)]

The noble Lord makes some very good points. I do not know whether the noble Lord heard the Chancellor’s speech earlier today, but that is one of the things he wants to do: he wants to break down all the regulation, look at ways of investing more money into infrastructure, et cetera, and make sure that investment is there from the private sector. The National Wealth Fund has £27.8 billion in it, but we want to ensure that it releases £100 billion of investment over five years.

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

My Lords, so many PFIs and PPPs were inappropriate, poorly negotiated and cost the taxpayer a fortune. Frankly, they were motivated primarily to keep debt off the public books. Surely it is time to draw a line under those frameworks and update that approach with a much better record, such as joint ventures, concessions and targeted capital collaborations, as well as tackling the overall weakness in government procurement.

[Lord Wilson of Sedgefield (Lab)]

The noble Baroness has got the wrong end of the stick. We are not going to go back to the PFI contract system that we had in the past and which came to an end in about 2018. However, we are going to learn the lessons of what happened with PFI about flexibilities on contracts, investment and transparency, for example. It is also fair to say that where the PFI worked best, it gave us more schools, hospitals and doctors’ surgeries, and it helped us with Sure Start. It had some good points and we should not throw it all out just because there were some issues. We will learn from that and invest in a way that protects the public purse.