Labour says PFI will be ‘brought back in-house’

In his speech to the Labour Party conference in Brighton, the Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell announced a radical change in the way that a Labour government would pay for building new schools, hospitals and prisons.

Huge public building projects would no longer be funded by private finance, and even existing PFI contracts would be “brought back in-house”. Opponents said that could be very expensive, but Labour insist the taxpayer will make savings.

If that policy sounded definite, the Brexit policy was more nuanced. Delegates heard that Labour is “flexible” on how to retain the benefits of the single market.