‘It was the only game in town’: Rebecca Long-Bailey defends working on PFI contracts as a lawyer ‘You were part of a legal team that handed over ownership of £190million worth of NHS assets to a Luxembourg investment vehicle’

Labour leadership hopeful Rebecca Long-Bailey was challenged over her involvement in controversial NHS private finance initiatives (PFI) during an interview with Andrew Neil on Wednesday.

She argued that she was involved in the “insidious” contracts as they were the “only game in town” when she was a solicitor, after reports she worked on a deal that meant a Luxembourg-based “investment vehicle” bought up £190 million of NHS property.

PFI is a means of financing public projects, brought in by Conservative Prime Minister John Major and continued by Labour leader Tony Blair, that has been criticised for being a form of “backdoor” privatisation of the NHS.

The i politics newsletter cut through the noise Email address is invalid Email address is invalid Thank you for subscribing! Sorry, there was a problem with your subscription.

Critics of PFI, which include Ms Long-Bailey, have raised the issue of significant repayments to private investors lasting decades, leaving taxpayers out of pocket.

‘The intricacies and the insidious nature of PFI’

The Labour MP, who has claimed she worked “defending the NHS”, told Mr Neil: “What I will say is that we did have a department, I did commercial property and this is where I first experienced the intricacies and the insidious nature of PFI.”

When the presenter asked if she had worked “on PFI contracts” she revoked: “Well, you couldn’t not work on PFI if you were doing NHS estates.”

As she tried to explain her point, Mr Neil said: “If you were working on (PFI contracts) in what way were you defending the NHS?”

She said: “Now in terms of those PFI contracts, if you are granting a lease to a GP, a pharmacy or any other local community organisation, any new health centre or new hospital was comprised of a PFI deal.

“So all of the leases out of that, for 30 years, Andrew, would be subject to those PFI terms, insidious PFI terms. That meant they were paying far above market value for those services.”

The issues around PFI came to prominence in 2018 after construction firm Carillion collapsed. The company had received significant amounts of public money, but left a number of projects uncompleted.

‘In what way were you defending the health service?’

Returning to his point, Mr Neil asked Ms Long-Bailey: “Since you were involved in this, in what way were you defending the health service?”

When she replied that “it made me angry and I have always been vehemently against PFI contracts”, he said: “You just worked for seven years doing them.”

She added: “But I understand how wrong they are Andrew, I’ve never been unclear about my position on that.”

The presenter said: “You were part of a legal team that handed over ownership of £190million worth of NHS assets to a Luxembourg investment vehicle. In what way was that defending the NHS?”

She told him: “I defended the NHS on a daily basis on a whole range of issues. Commercial property was one aspect of the work that I did. I worked in comprising local authority contracts to provide joint services – a vital necessity to our communities.

“But on the issue of PFI, unfortunately, Andrew, for the NHS, it was the only game in town and, unfortunately, that was the fault of the Conservative government and previous Labour governments.

“Any NHS manager in that NHS at the time, if they wanted to build a new health centre or a new hospital, they were only allowed to use PFI and that was wrong.”

Ms Long-Bailey is currently polling second in the race to succeed Jeremy Corbyn, behind Sir Keir Starmer but in front of Lisa Nandy. Sir Keir faced his own filling by Mr Neil during the show and faced questions over his backers.