Born in 1946 and brought up in Cupar, Fife, I was educated at the local school - Scottish Parliament
Thursday 20 June 2002
[THE DEPUTY PRESIDING OFFICER opened the meeting at 09:30]
Thursday 20 June 2002
[THE DEPUTY PRESIDING OFFICER opened the meeting at 09:30]
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Public Infrastructure Investment
The Presiding Officer (Sir David Steel): We move to consider the second debate of the morning, motion S1M-3228, in the name of Alasdair Morgan, on investment in public infrastructure, and two amendments.
10:46
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12:04
Stewart Stevenson (Banff and Buchan) (SNP): I note that Mr McCabe has been moved from the front benches to the back benches, but he would not wish me to comment unduly on that. On behalf of Mr Russell, I thank Mr McCabe. Mr Russell will be happy to pass on the cheque shortly.
Did I hear an echo of 1979 in Tom McCabe's speech? Should we rejoice, rejoice, rejoice? Darrin Grimsey is a partner in PWC—it is strange how often that company comes up in this context—and is based in Australia. He speaks about Scottish conditions with some liberality. He said that the Tories promoted PFI as
"a preferred procurement method—a position which did not change with the incoming Labour administration".
Not much changes.
We do not condemn new schools—we condemn the waste of the £8 million that my colleague Alasdair Morgan mentioned. That money could build more new schools and SNP members would welcome that. We might even use the word "rejoice".
Des McNulty made some interesting comments about trusts. [Interruption.] I know that I have exaggerated there, but I will deal with his comments for the sake of debate. He said that trusts may be marginally cheaper, but they have no effect on the running of operation. That is good news. If trusts have no effect on operation, we can use them to reduce costs.
I want to turn to costs. Some figures are beginning to leak into the public domain—for example, in the prisons, the figures are 7.05 per cent for Pucklechurch Custodial, 7.05 per cent for Medomsley, 8.04 per cent for Moreton, 7.05 per cent for Lowdham Grange and 7.05 per cent for Kilmarnock. Alternatively, if the company that runs Kilmarnock prison rather than the holding company is considered, the figure is over 8.5 per cent. Those differences are interesting.
There is another interesting issue relating to Kilmarnock prison that is at the heart of PFI projects. We are not even sure where the risk that is associated with the projects—which often justifies the high interest rates—lies. The annual accounts of Kilmarnock Prison Services state that the PFI asset is being transferred to the Home Office. We have been told that that is wrong, but apparently it is. The Scottish Prison Service is involved. That seemed mysterious, so I spoke to the financial director of Premier Custodial Group Ltd in the past couple of days. He said that the company no longer carries substantial rewards or responsibility to have that fixed asset on its accounts. In many ways, that method of cloaking finance in a mystery inside a PFI leaves us in the dark over what is happening.
We could get money for much less. We should separate off the finance from the delivery of the services and from the building of the buildings and not confuse people about costs.
12:08
