exactly, but it's a chep headline to say Labour will increase public borrowing by X amount when they suggest bringing PFI financed projects back under public control.
There have been cross party committees which have concluded PFI don't give tax payers value for money, perhaps a cross party committee could look into a solution so regardless of whose in No 10 we rid ourselves of it.
Up to a point, yes. And I'm definitely in favour of cross-party committees to resolve thorny issues. There are technical reasons why it's not just a simple transfer from a forward obligation into debt. These are some things to consider; I don't know if it would end up making sense to bring them in house or not without more details:
1. If the buy-out terms are not written into the contracts, the current owners could play hard ball and insist on a payment of the present value of all future obligations. That wouldn't bring a saving - it just changes the timing of the payments (from the future to now).
2. When the government takes the real debt on balance sheet it has to find investors to buy it. It depends on lots of factors and the amount of money, but it's possible that the interest rate on that debt could increase as a result. That could have a non-linear impact on all debt payments (increasing the interest rate on the whole of the debt, over time, rather than just the amount needed to buy out the PFI contracts).
The devil is in the detail. It's valid to raise it as a subject for analysis but it could turn out beneficial to stay as we are for now, with regrets, and not do it again.