Home » Posts tagged 'private sector'
Tag Archives: private sector
Mary Creagh, Russell Brand, & the privatisation of the NHS
Mary Creagh MP appeared for Labour on Question Time this week and a friend of mine thought she outshone Russell Brand.
I’m not so sure. For example, there was, inevitably, a question on the NHS and privatisation. Mary Creagh argued that Labour’s use of the private sector in the health service was not about privatisation but was used simply to tackle a number of urgent problems. One of them was the problem of “health waiting lists,” she said, “where people were waiting 18 months for cataract operations and going blind.” Others were
“hip replacements, where people were living in pain, and heart operations, where they were dying before they were getting their treatment. We used the private sector to effectively stop the consultants from having large waiting lists … We bought in – in bulk purchasing – using the NHS’s bulk purchasing power to tackle those NHS waiting lists.”
She made it sound like a sort of emergency humanitarian rescue operation. But Labour’s engagement with the private sector was always, and still is, more than that. From the start, the central policy of New Labour in the public services was the Private Finance Initiative (PFI), originally a Tory scheme denounced by Labour shadow ministers. The idea was to attract private money into the public services on the security of the government property involved. Private investors were encouraged to invest in hospitals and schools in exchange for regular annual payments by the taxpayer. Eventually the ownership of the property would revert to the company. Once in office New Labour embraced PFI.
There was a huge wave of hospital building set in train under New Labour’s PFI. Loyal Labour MPs argued that there wouldn’t have been any new hospitals without it. Yet UCL’s School of Public Policy found that University College Hospital would have cost £140m under the old scheme of public finance. Under PFI the cost soared to more than £1bn. They also found there was a 30% reduction in the number of beds compared to the hospitals they replaced and a 25-30% reduction in staff.
Now, all this is old news of course. But Labour’s support for publicly funded health, publicly funded education, publicly funded anything has purposefully declined since then. So can we trust them with the NHS? Mary Creagh’s attempt to plead that private finance was “only used for this, only used for that” won’t wash. It was, from the outset and ever since, based on ideology, neoliberal ideology. That was why they renamed the party “New” Labour. So I’m more inclined towards Russell’s view: “I think”, he said, “that profit … has no business anywhere near healthcare. I think it should be kept well away from it.”
Put differently, private investors should keep their grubby hands off our health service. Now, if a Labour politician would say that, it might be an answer to Russell’s plea elsewhere in the programme: “Give us something we can vote for.”
But it’d be safer not to hold our breaths.
Down the privatised drain
An article in the New York Times today (see below) is both funny and informative. It is about government plans to upgrade London’s sewage system, privately of course. There are concerns here about the environment, and about disruption during construction. But much of the discussion is about who is the most appropriate provider, the public or the private sector. The government, of course, says private.
A few points to make: Ann Rosenberg is surely right here when she says:
“The thing that sticks in my throat is that I will be paying for this until I die, and then my children will pay for this tunnel, which none of us will own but which will go into the asset base of Thames Water and its investors.”
And Michael Gerrard at Thames Water revives a hoary old bit of nonsense: “Londoners”, he says testily to objectors, many of whom, like Ann Rosenberg, catch a hint of the profit motive wafting on the breeze, “will have to contribute to their city’s future. If you want London to grow you must invest in the infrastructure.” Sorry, Michael, Londoners would be “contributing to their city’s future” even if your company was bypassed in favour of public investment. Sewage treatment wouldn’t be free. Londoners would contribute as taxpayers.
Of course, Michael Gerrard is not thinking of contributing. He’s thinking of profiting. And we should never forget that if the service is to be provided by the private sector it has to be profitable. So if profit margins aren’t satisfactory, prices will presumably rise (whatever makes me think that?).
But if the company goes bust? Well, the government that let the company loose on our sewage will try to persuade another company to take over the operation (British Gas, for example, or Tescos). If that doesn’t work, it will step in to pick up the pieces, pay for all the costs of failure, and set about providing the service itself from the public purse. All that will cost Londoners a great deal of money. So couldn’t we move straight to public, and cut out the nonsense in between? After all, it’s quite an essential service.
Anyway, here’s the article:
Bob Mouncer's blog 