Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many private finance initiative contracts related to energy there are in the NHS.

We are not aware of any Private Finance Initiatives (PFI) contracts listed on the HM Treasury database for the National Health Service which are primarily related to energy, although energy provision may be included in some of the NHS’ larger acute care sector PFI contracts.

In 2014 HM Treasury provided advice to Accounting Officers on considerations they should make when agreeing to the early termination of contracts. An addendum was provided to this letter in 2015 that related specifically to Public Private Partnership (PPP) and PFI contracts. These are available at the following links:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dao-0214-early-termination-of-contracts

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dao-0214-early-termination-of-ppp-and-pfi-contracts

The precise mechanism to terminate a PFI or PPP contract early will depend on the terms of the individual contract. Early termination of a PFI or PPP contract would require approval from NHS England and NHS Improvement, the Department for Health and Social Care and HM Treasury.