£200bn cost to taxpayer of PFI schemes
TAXPAYERS will be saddled with a £200billion bill for PFI deals by 2040 even if no new ones are signed, a bombshell report warns today.
A National Audit Office probe found the UK has 716 PFI and PF2 deals with a value of around £60billion.
Annual charges under the Private Finance Initiative and its successor
scheme PF2 totalled £10billion in 2016/17. Future charges continuing until 2040 will cost £199billion, the NAO said.
The GMB union said the report showed the game is up for PFI and called on the Government to fund public services upfront instead.
National secretary Rehana Azam said: “The NAO’s figures show what we’ve all known for some time – PFI is a catastrophic waste of taxpayers’ money.
“Carillion is just the latest example of how things go wrong when public services are left in the hands of profithungry companies.”
Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury Peter Dowd vowed Labour would end the era of PFI deals. He said: “Today’s report further demonstrates this Tory Government’s continued commitment to fleecing taxpayers for the benefit of large PFI firms.”
The report was compiled before the collapse of contractor Carillion.
Under PFI and PF2, private consortiums raise funding to build public facilities such as hospitals and roads, in return for regular payments over up to 30 years. The report warned it “results in additional costs compared to publicly financed procurement”.
A Government spokesman said: “Many vital infrastructure projects are paid for by PFI and PF2, stimulating our economy, creating jobs and delivering better public services.”