PFI racket must end

CONTROVERSIAL contracts with the Carillions of this world, costing £200billion over the next two years, show taxpayers are being taken to the cleaners.

The cost of funding the construction and maintenance of everything from hospitals and schools to prisons and military bases is more expensive under this system than if the Government borrowed the money itself.

Scrapping the Private Finance Initiative is the only sensible option. Britain should revert to the era when the NHS owned its own hospitals, instead of signing costly long-term deals to lease them from private developers.

Our disclosure that a hedge fund deep into Carillion donated £50,000 to the Tory Party helps explain why Theresa May is incapable of ending this scandal. Her party is apparently happy to continue handing public money to their financial paymasters.

Jeremy Corbyn gets what’s wrong and what needs to be done to wind up a “costly racket”.

We simply can’t afford to persevere with PFI.