Forth Crossing

Part of the debate – in the Scottish Parliament at 2:56 pm on 15 January 2009.

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Photo of John Swinney John Swinney Scottish National Party 2:56, 15 January 2009

I accept Mr Kerr's terminology.

As I said, the second option represented value for money, but the forthcoming changes to accounting practices that the United Kingdom Government has chosen to introduce from April 2009 will fundamentally change the viability of the proposition. The incorporation of the international financial reporting standards means that almost all infrastructure projects, including private finance initiative and PPP schemes, will come on balance sheet. The budgetary impact of PPP is that the capital cost is recognised in the year that construction is completed, which would be 2016 for the replacement Forth crossing. The affordability consequence would be that a capital obligation of around £2.15 billion would fall in 2016-17, which is a higher burden than that which would arise with conventional procurement as a consequence of capitalising the cost of the capital used during the construction period.