From the FT this morning, from a useful article on PFI:
The data is significant: what it shows is a PFI peak in 2000, which were all Conservative begun contracts. In absolute value 2007 was bigger, I admit, but as a proportion of spend the Tories, on whose watch this all began, were more wedded to PFI than Labour.
And now it's time to clear up the mess.
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Weren’t Labour in power from 1997…?
Do you know how long schemes take to get going?
As it’s the FT I would guess they’re hoping people will not twig that one and are using it to tarnish Labour.
Instructive.
While on the subject, it’s probably worthwhile noting that McDonnell’s spokesman is said to be saying that “not all contracts will be seized back – instead they’ll be reviewed and taken back into public control “if necessary”.” Is this what was inferred in his speech? Not from the excerpt I’ve seen, but I’ve only seen an excerpt. http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/john-mcdonnell-labour-conference-pfi-11232394
We have no real idea of Labour’s policies at all then.
It seems to me all onerous contracts will be bought out
Are there PFI contracts which in your view aren’t onerous? Anyhoo, it seems to me all he has to do to fulfil this election pledge, if so it be, is to buy back a mere two contracts. Any two contracts. McDonnell mentions the NHS later in his speech, true,, but doesn’t himself make any specific promise to end PFI contracts affecting it, not going from what I’ve seen reported anyway.
I am confused as to what you want Bill
If you think there’s a utopia I have to tell you that you’re always going to be disappointed
The reality is that PFI was supported by successive governments at the UK level, just as it has been in Scotland (though in the latter case, with more justification). However, it’s also clear that the most consistent opposition to the policy came from within the parliamentary Labour Party – and specifically, the part of it that now constitutes the front bench.
I could not believe it when Gordon Brown decided to continue with the PFI intiative introduced by the Conservatives.
Not least because it was incomprehensible; there was the key test of risk transferability which immediately militated against the standard determining whether the resulting outcome represented a finance or an operating lease and whose balance sheet any asset would sit on. Important in the financial caluclations since the PFI provider could benefit from taxation allowances whereas the public sector could not. The whole thing became the plaything of a small number of “specialists” (those who could work hand in hand with the Treasury to deliver a preferred outcome).
If the accounting/ audit profession could justify the introduction of PFI it should certainly be under an obligation to unpick it without undue cost falling on the public sector.
I agree: I opposed PFI as well
But I think the graph is clear: once the Tory deals went through the numbers began to fall
I accept 2007 was an aggregate total aberration
I think that the more interesting things to note may be that:
1. Despite all the trouble, failure and controversy that it caused, PFI never represented more than 16%. Therefore a peripheral contribution, more trouble than it is worth and probably not that expensive to reclaim.
2. PFI’s rapid decline to to zero since 2007 – which speaks for itself and should speak volumes to anyone still foolish enough to think that it was ever a good idea.
Agreed
Data sometimes helps clarify issues
New Labour’s support of PFI was a key component of their neo-liberalism. A 1994 document under the names of Brown, Cook and Prescott, signalled their support for “public-private partnerships”. The damage that New Labour did to the NHS was considerable. It was they who introduced the £20 billion cuts just before they lost the 2010 election. They opened the way for the Tories.