Ms Stella Creasy

Yes. But in that time, many of us have had persistent concerns, and one of mine has always been the private finance initiative. The Government are asking all of us to make and support some very tough decisions because of the economic mess that the country now finds itself in. My view is that we must look at all outgoings in that process. If somebody came to a constituency surgery because they had multiple outstanding loans and could not pay their rent, we would look at the debts that they held. That is the challenge with private finance: it is the legal loan-sharking of the public sector. Amendments 6 and 7 are about the process of getting a grip on our debts and ensuring that we learn from the damage that private finance has done. Let us be clear: nobody can absolve themselves from private finance. Governments of all persuasions have sought to use that process—the ability to put only the repayments on the books, rather than the substantial cost of borrowing. That started under John Major; yes, there were multiple PFIs under the previous Labour Government; and indeed, the previous Conservative Government continued to use private finance until 2018. That is why, as of February this year, there are still 700 PFI schemes representing a capital value of £57 billion, but for which we will pay back £151 billion in the years ahead. We are asking pensioners to pay more for heating their homes, but we should be asking how we can pay less for the private finance debts that we have built up. Private finance was about being able to build things such as schools and hospitals. Anybody who has an outstanding PFI debt in their constituency, or a school or hospital that urgently needs rebuilding, such as Whipps Cross hospital in my constituency, understands the importance of being able to access private finance. For the avoidance of doubt, I am not saying through my amendments that we should never work with the private sector; I am saying that PFI was a catastrophically bad deal and that, cumulatively, it would meet the legislation’s targets of 1% of GDP, so it is a fiscally significant policy. My amendments are about trying to understand how we will deal with cumulative debt and cumulatively fiscally significant policies.