My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Patten, for introducing this timely debate. I had the unworthy thought that he had acted with mischievous intent, but I quickly recalled that, when he was a Minister, he rightly saw the need for regular statements and restatements of party policy in the light of changing circumstances. That is to say that he understood the need for principles to be reformulated as the basis for future policy. He contributed to that necessary, continuing dialogue by publishing in 1993 Rolling Constitutional Change both in Citizenship and the wider issue of Constitutional Reform. That was the short title. He has strong credentials for initiating the debate.

I doubt that noble Lords, as earnest seekers after truth, will get far towards discovering what is new Labour's operating philosophy. Two years ago, the noble Lord, Lord Hattersley, in a brilliantly satirical piece in Granta, sought to discover the origins, meaning and substance of the widely proclaimed third way. Despite his forensic skills and endeavours, he had to admit total failure. It is unlikely that we will be any more successful today.

I must confess that my views are deeply coloured by the stark fact that so many present Ministers began their political life on the Left and are now to be seen happily ensconced on the Right. It is fashionable to say—doubtless, the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald of Tradeston, will say it—that those traditional categories no longer apply in the post-modern world. However, they still have their heuristic uses. The Labour Party, it is true, has often witnessed its more promising members stride boldly up the left-hand staircase, tiptoe across the landing and eagerly slide down the right-hand banisters—all without a blush to their cheeks. It gave rise to that well known tune with words to the effect that, "The working class can genuflect before me, I've got the foreman's job at last". A more appropriate libretto to match those traditional sentiments to the aspirations and achievements of today's Labour tyros would be rendered by substituting "the foreman's job" with "the chief executive's job and corresponding fat cat emoluments".

It is all part of the revolution of rising expectations, which could not be better exemplified than by the political odyssey of the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald of Tradeston, who, I am pleased to see, will reply on behalf of the Government. When I first knew him, he was a feisty Trotskyite activist and an intrepid investigative television reporter. Since then, he has become a television mogul and is now a Minister in the Cabinet Office, ostensibly in the very powerhouse of government. He is thus especially qualified to expatiate on the philosophy behind new Labour, in terms of his personal travels and as an authoritative elucidator of the Government's core beliefs. Your Lordships' House is, thus, doubly privileged today.

I fear for the immortal political souls of those who make such dramatic ideological U-turns. Indeed, I faxed Saint Peter for advice. The celestial Official Secrets Act is, of course, the most robust and transparent of all. I asked the saint what such politicians could say at the pearly gates to explain the total abandonment of their earlier beliefs in favour of naked expediency. He replied, "It is an almost impossible task for them to offer any justification. The normal tariff is 100 million years in Hell. Up here, we are tough on political sin and even tougher on the causes of political sin". I trembled but thought that a confession in today's debate would, perhaps, obtain, by way of mitigation, some remission in the length of the inevitable fate that awaits.

It is clear that there is no overarching organising idea that informs the Government's actions on public policy. From time to time, there are hints of Christian democratic impulses, but even they have waned on the mainland of Europe, where they originated. That is especially so in Italy, now governed by Signor Silvio Berlusconi, the new-found friend of Tony Blair. Then again, Ministers frequently place emphasis on trust and plead that they should be trusted. I am sure that they should be trusted with the stewardship of government, but, when it comes to specific policies, they should seek to gain support for them by the strength of their arguments. Blind trust is not an appropriate tactic in a mature democracy. The Government are too prone to plead for trust, rather than use persuasive argument.

That brings me to one of the central planks of government policy, consideration of which may make it possible to tease out some of the motives behind government thinking. I refer, of course, to the relentless pursuit of public/private partnerships, which the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald of Tradeston, has promoted in the House, for example in the part privatisation of National Air Traffic Services.

PPPs are, in too many respects, flawed vehicles. As Select Committees in the other place repeatedly state, they represent poor value for money, and the public pays through the nose. The Tube and the extension of the Eurotunnel link to King's Cross demonstrate that. Secondly, when fat profits are made, they are taken by the private partners; when losses are sustained, they are paid by the taxpayer. Despite the noble Lord's undertaking, that happened most recently in the case of National Air Traffic Services. Thirdly, there is an almost complete lack of transparency and public accountability about PPP schemes. It is of particular concern that, time and again, commercial confidentiality is employed tactically to prevent the details of proposed schemes being scrutinised by local councillors, non-executive directors of hospital trusts, school governing bodies and similar organisations, in whose names the contracts are negotiated and who have responsibility for those contracts.

Fourthly, the initial costs of tendering are astronomic: £27 million of taxpayers' money in the case of the first NHS PPP schemes alone; and equally worrying is the fact that cost estimates tend to be revised upwards after the initial tendering negotiations are closed.

Fifthly, the Treasury performs an ambiguous role. As champion of the whole process, it advises on the tendering process and it is the principal agent in the later value-for-money assessment which it invariably accepts, not surprisingly, as it has earlier advised on the preferred bidder's tender. The whole operation is far too incestuous.

Sixthly, how will contract compliance be effectively monitored over a prolonged period of up to 30 years? What happens if a contractor becomes bankrupt or falls short of its obligations? Such failures would have to be bailed out from public funds.

Seventhly, and most relevantly to this debate, is the ideological stance taken by the Government regarding PPPs. Like Mrs Thatcher before them, they claim, "There is no alternative", in pursuance of which they adamantly refuse to consider any other options for funding public services or infrastructure, which are demonstrably cheaper, such as the issue of bonds, as my noble friend Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove Bay has argued. To dismiss all opposition to PPPs as being ideologically motivated when Ministers assert that there is no alternative to them is itself ideological or, more accurately, the mere incantation of a mantra.

Public/private partnerships aim to get the costs of new projects off the Government's balance sheet. It was that dodgy accountancy practice that was used by Enron. As I said during the passage of the Air Traffic Control Bill, it was based on De Lorean book-keeping. PPP as a device has few supporters outside government. There has been unanimous condemnation in the press and in the reports of Select Committees from another place. There is widespread unease in the Labour Party and outright criticism by the trade unions. Even William Hague conceded that PPPs were not appropriate for London Underground. That was significant, bearing in mind that PPPs, as the private finance initiative, were originally conceived by the Major government. As with so many ideas, new Labour, as Thatcherism Mark II, extended them.

PPPs as the only practical manifestation of the so-called third way, reveal their lack of accountability and their excessive costs, the paucity of real coherent thinking as opposed to accountancy legerdemain in the development of the Government's policies. There is no effective philosophy underpinning this Government's actions.