Health Infrastructure Plan

Lord Lilley Excerpts

Monday 30th September 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell]

I thank the noble Lord for a detailed question. I cannot possibly pretend to know the details of the accounting rules that govern these kinds of arrangements, but I will be glad to write to reassure him on this matter. All I can say is that by designing and publishing a detailed long-term plan, the scope for fiddling around and moving money from one bucket to another is greatly diminished.

[Lord Lilley (Con)]

I congratulate my noble friend on a Statement which proposes a large amount of capital investment that is not being financed by PFI. There is a case for PFI when there is a genuine transfer of risk to the private sector. That has almost never been the case in the health service. It was simply a device to keep borrowing off the Government’s balance sheet. When Enron did that, it went bust and people went to jail. It is a great relief to many of us that the Government are no longer using a criminal form of Enron accounting.

[Lord Bethell]

My noble friend puts it very well, and I endorse his emotion.