Dave Thompson MSP

Dear editor,

it is highly ironic that Peter Peacock should accuse me of spin in his letter to the Free Press last week (25 Sept). For Mr Peacock’s letter is one of the finest examples of the dark art that I have ever seen, a letter which Alistair Campbell himself would be proud of.

To describe PPP as ‘mortgage plus’ is the sort of statement that you would expect to hear from one of the financial spivs in the City of London. The sort of people who brought the UK financial system crashing down with their dodgy deals.

No homeowner would be daft enough to take out a PPP ‘mortgage plus’ from Peter Peacock, as they would end up paying off the value of their house many times over. All for the dubious benefit of having the grass cut and a lick of paint every few years.

For instance, the cost of financing Hairmyres hospital in East Kilbride has been estimated as being at least twice the level it would have been under traditional public sector borrowing. The private companies behind the deal stand to make around £145m from an initial investment of just £8.4m. Not bad for a bit of maintenance work every few years, and we all know how disastrous the Skye Bridge and Inverness airport PPPs were.

Peter Peacock also claims that the current Scottish government’s alternative to PPP has not delivered. Can he then explain why the government has already completed over 150 schools and is on course to open 250 new schools by May 2011. This is more than twice the number Labour provided under PPP and at a fraction of the cost.

Peter Peacock says that he doesn’t find the enormous profits private companies have made from PPP excessive. I think most reasonable people would disagree with him; and would rather see the money spent on new schools and hospitals, instead of lining the pockets of private financiers.