Oral Answers to Questions

Thérèse Coffey Excerpts

Tuesday 21st December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

4. What recent assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the private finance initiative.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

5. What recent assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the private finance initiative.

[Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

13. What recent assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the private finance initiative.

--- Later in debate ---

[Danny Alexander]

That has a striking comment, coming from a Minister who was in the Department responsible for those things, and it reflects the general attitude towards public money that was prevalent under the previous Administration. There is a great deal of work that we can do as a Government to ensure that in future PFI is used only where it is absolutely necessary, and that we get best value for public money. That is how we should approach these things.

[Dr Coffey]

One of my constituents thinks that the PFI contracts that have been negotiated are one of the greatest scandals ever, if only because one of his relatives has made millions out of one. Apart from the potential £875 cost of a Christmas tree, which PFIs have caused the Minister the most angst?

[Danny Alexander]

I am not sure that it would be appropriate for me at this stage to pick out individual examples. The important thing to say is that, in common with the work that we are doing to ensure that we get better value from our suppliers across Government and that those suppliers are making a contribution to reducing the deficit, we are working on examining the future costs of PFI, so that where we can we reduce those costs. That is very important for ensuring that we reduce the deficit effectively and have the maximum amount of money left for front-line services.