“Privatisation has been a failed experiment, it has cost this country dearly and it is an experiment that needs to end.”
Novara Media’s Ash Sarkar has perfectly illustrated how privatisation is ripping off the British public. On the most recent episode of the BBC‘s flagship political debate programme Question Time, there was a discussion around whether British people paid enough tax for good public services.
Sarkar used the debate to explain how privatisation is at the core of why public services are broken.
Sarkar began by setting out what’s wrong with Britain’s public services at the moment and the impact this is having on British politics. She told the audience: “There are two things in this country which are unfortunately really true. One is: everything is too expensive. And the other is: nothing works.
“And that’s the picture of our public services, and I think that’s why people feel so frustrated. And everything that you can see in politics, whether it’s the Tories’ collapse last year, the fact that this Labour government polls worse than a cold sore, that people are flocking to Reform, that the Greens are racing up the polls – it’s because of these two facts, everything is too expensive and nothing works.”
Sarkar then said that “taxation is a part of that”, but went onto explain the role of privatisation in undermining public services.
She said: “The first thing I actually want to talk about is where we’re paying too much money. So, 200 billion pounds of our money has been paid out to shareholders for privatised utilities like rail and mail and energy and buses and stuff of that nature. That’s money that could have gone into reducing customers’ bills or investing in infrastructure. It hasn’t. It’s gone out in the form of shareholder profit.
“Or if you look at social care – which is really the monster under the bed whenever you look at any local authority’s budget – the role of private equity is disgusting. So, nearly a quarter of foster placements and children’s residential homes are run by companies backed by private equity, and they’re looking for profit margins of about 20 per cent or more. So it’s hugely expensive for local authorities and the money isn’t going into workers’ wages, it’s going into private equity.
“So the first thing we need to do is admit that privatisation has been a failed experiment, it has cost this country dearly and it is an experiment that needs to end.”
Chris Jarvis is head of strategy and development at Left Foot Forward
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