Labour MPs appeal to Reeves to drop private finance plans for NHS

Rachel Reeves has been urged by 40 Labour MPs to drop plans to fund NHS buildings with private finance initiatives (PFI) that would saddle the health service with debt.

- Rowena Mason

The Labour MPs, including Cat Eccles, Clive Lewis and Rebecca Long-Bailey, pressed the chancellor to commit to investment in the NHS without the use of private capital and said that a return to the New Labour era of private funding for public projects would be damaging for trust in the government.

“We are asking you to learn from the mistakes of the past. We must reject the notion that private finance can be used to build public services in a way that can be to the long-term benefit of the public,” they said in their letter. “We ask you to please drop any plans for new private finance in the NHS from the autumn budget and any future policy.”

While PFI was originally conceived under the Conservatives, Tony Blair’s Labour government made significant use of it to build schools, hospitals and other public infrastructure without adding to the national debt.