HC Deb 20 July 2001 vol 372 cc495-6W
Mr. Laws

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will list the economic penalties imposed on private sector firms in each of the last five years for failures to deliver in relation to key performance indicators in projects involving the Private Finance Initiative; and if he will make a statement. [5731]

Mr. MacShane

Penalties have been imposed in relation to two PFI contracts during the last five years. The details are commercially confidential.

Mr. Laws

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs how many PFI transactions have been overseen by his Department in each of the last 10 years; what his estimate is of the cost savings made in each of these transactions by comparison with the public sector alternative; what are the outstanding payments to be made in relation to these transactions for each of the next 15 years; and if he will make a statement. [5730]

Mr. MacShane

The FCO has overseen four PFI projects over the last 10 years. Details are as follows:

  1. (i)1996—electronic archive system (Minerva) at a cost saving of £140,000 over the public sector comparator.
    2. 496W
  2. (ii)1997—lease of official vehicles through a call-off contract available to posts overseas. Value for money is assessed on a case-by-case basis.
  3. (iii)1998—construction of the British Embassy in Berlin at a cost saving of £1.2 million over the public sector comparator.
  4. (iv) 2000—establishment of FCO Telecommunications Network at a cost saving of £20.3 million over the public sector comparator.
Published guidance on public sector comparators notes that: "Accounting Officers should not rely solely on a straight comparison of a PFI bid to its PSC, which should never be regarded as a pass/fail test but instead as a quantitative way of informing judgment". (Treasury Taskforce Technical Note No. 5: How to construct a public sector comparator).

Details of individual payments to contractors under PFI contracts are usually regarded as commercially confidential. Aggregate figures of estimated payments under all PFI contracts for the years 2000–01–2025/26 were published in Table C18 of the Budget 2001 "Red Book".

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