Speeches by Coleman.

“I would like to interrupt you. We are discussing the benefits of the neighbourhood approach. What is it that makes you think that there is a danger of the financing tail wagging the public policy dog, to use your analogy? What makes you think there is an actual danger of that?”

“That is very helpful. I would like to come back on some of those. I just want to get other witnesses’ views as well on what the key learnings from PFI are.”

“If you just take as your main criterion that we are going to build quickly and you do not build in a different way, you are not going to really address the problems of PFI, are you?”

“Did that not happen previously?”

“Are you saying there is no future for PPP that is based on starting with the outcome that you want to achieve? It is always going to have to be adapted, twisted, whatever you want to say, to what the market will actually stump up for.”

“Why did we do that?”

“Why do you think that? I am really genuinely interested in this. It is very helpful to have the high-level view, and I am getting a bit granular here, but it is helpful to have the granular. Why did it not happen previously? Maybe Lord Hutton would like to comment on this in a minute after you finish, Dr Hellowell. Wha…”

“Absolutely, and that is what I would have thought would be the case. When, Dr Hellowell, you say that there is evidence that this was not the case, what are you thinking of particularly? Are you thinking of any particular PFI projects?”

“Lord Hutton, do you want to comment on that?”

“Did they not set out the health systems case? Fortunately, I think I now understand the broad point. If that was the case, you need to make the health systems case first and then everything flows from that. Did that not happen 15 years ago?”

“If you do not want to go into any more detail, just let me know. You are still talking in generalities, which makes sense as an approach and I appreciate that, but I am asking for evidence. You said there is evidence—Lord Hutton says it is not the case—that the tail was wagging the dog, and I am asking for some evidenc…”

“To begin, what is the difference between PFI and PPP?”

“You are saying PFI was one form of PPP. How would you categorise that? How is it different from all the others?”

“Paulette has the pleasure of rounding off the session. What I really want to talk about are the lessons from PFI and where we go from here. We are talking about delivering neighbourhood infrastructure. What are the specific lessons that we need to learn from PFI?”

“Thank you, that is helpful. Mr White, would you like to comment on that?”

“You said it is one form. One form of what? Can you say in one sentence?”

“I am going to put words in your mouth, and they may be the wrong ones. We used a procurement model that said we can get money for this, and therefore we should do that, because it is easier to get money for this than to do something else. Is that what we did, or am I misunderstanding what you are saying?”

“You have done a lot of work in this area, obviously. What do you think are the most important lessons from PFI when it comes to designing PPPs to deliver the neighbourhood health scheme infrastructure that we have been talking about?”

“Yes, you can. I have enjoyed reading your report.”

“We have got that. That is very helpful, thank you. Lord Hutton, going back to PFI and the problems that there were initially, what do you think we can really learn from your experience? Looking back at what you did then, what would you advise people to do differently now?”