PFI legacy of toxic debt
Last week’s Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland (GERS) figures exposed the Labour Party’s toxic legacy of private finance that continues to be felt across Scotland.
The GERS figures showed that Private Finance Initiative (PFI) payments rose to more than £1.024 billion in 2017/18.
Labour and Tories will often speak of the need for further money for local government and in many Scottish Government Budgets they have received further funds.
But does it not seem very hypocritical that both Conservative and Labour governments supported these private finance schemes?
Money that could be used more positively is ending up in the back pocket of bankers and city fat cats.
But it isn’t just the Tories and Labour who promoted this form of private funding for local authorities, the Liberal Democrats loved it too.
Last week’s figures showed that unitary charge payments relating to PFI projects have risen continuously over the last five years, up £26 million in the last year alone and are still rising.
The SNP has called on all opposition parties to apologise for saddling councils across Scotland with colossal debts of over £1 billion.
This toxic PFI legacy means the public purse is still paying heavily over the odds for their decade-old debts. Deals like the PFI contracts for schools across Scotland, recently revealed as costing the public purse £434.3 million this year alone – a significant amount of the total schools’ budget of £5.2 billion – will leave taxpayers paying way over the odds for years to come.
The reality is, local authorities are saddled with PFI bills of more than £1 billion each year because of Labour’s policies.
This is money that could have been used to pay for teachers, books and healthcare facilities, but instead is being diverted to pay off Labour and the Lib Dems’ enormous PFI debts.
Compare all of this to the way the current Scottish Government funded our new schools. Will we ever hear an apology from the opposition parties with regards to this toxic debt? Probably not.