Private Finance Initiative
Debate between Jesse Norman and Marcus Jones(13 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Jones
I am not necessarily saying that PFI should not happen at all, but that contracts should be negotiated in the correct fashion to minimise the taxpayer’s exposure to situations such as those we have seen. Contracts must be right when ensuring that organisations are a suitable size, for example, to fit into the local health economy. With hindsight, we might question whether the PFI hospital at Coventry was too large for the wider Coventry and Warwickshire health economy.
The general point is that we must get the issue right in future. I accept the hon. Lady’s comments, but I am confident that Ministers are ensuring that any contract negotiations will be made properly, so that we do not over-commit the Government, as was done previously.
Jesse Norman
Does my hon. Friend share my view that there is a world of difference between Building Schools for the Future, a form of PFI that the Government could and did cancel, or specific projects which were inherited but which they were uncomfortable with, such as Hartlepool hospital, which they have also stopped, at least for the time being, and the vast preponderance of the 61 projects inherited from the previous Government? The toxic inheritance from the previous Government was an enormous sausage machine, with huge embedded costs, which we have had to deal with despite a difficult economic situation. There is something grossly wrong in comparing £200 billion of spending under the previous Government with the need to get the situation under control. Does he share my view?
Mr Jones
I share my hon. Friend’s view, which he has expressed powerfully. We must also consider a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom) that, thanks to the Labour party, the country is now so indebted that, to put in any new infrastructure, we have to look seriously at schemes such as the PFI, because without them the country simply does not have the money to finance any projects.