Q61 Chair: "We will research"-were you or weren't you? I mean, it is quite an interesting question. Rather than us wait two years for the answer, you must know now: could we have got more out of them?
Andrew Hudson: As Charles says, that's hard to judge. We had a number of discussions; we worked hard; we certainly stepped up the share compared with what had historically happened in the UK. They lent well over £1 billion to seven projects, crossing several different sectors. Could we have got more? Hard to judge. Did we get our fair share? We tried hard. In terms of sort of "our share" compared with our contribution and size of the economy or whatever, that is what we will let you have a note on.
Q62 Stephen Barclay: I was asking about in terms of share ownership, but seven out of 35-
Andrew Hudson: Yes.
Q63 Stephen Barclay:-and how we benchmark. My final question in terms of the EIB is just around what happened to their pricing compared with what happened to the commercial banks' pricing? My perception would be that the increase in the EIB pricing was modest compared with that of the commercial banks. Is that a fair view to have?
Andy Rose: Absolutely. The way that the capital markets were working at the time, it was a real flight to quality, and EIB because of its ownership is viewed as a very strong quasi-sovereign AAA, so in the flight to quality in the capital markets there is no question that the EIB's access to finance and its ability to pass it on was beneficial.
Q64 Stephen Barclay: Given that the first one of these, the first TIFU one, which was the Manchester waste authority one, had the EIB involved, it just strikes me as odd, if we were getting value for money, that we didn't maximise that in the subsequent deals.
Andy Rose: Again I think the comment being made is that, in the conversations I was involved in, the Treasury was pushing very hard on EIB to step up its lending; the feedback, as Charles indicated, was around the resources they were able to apply. So the deals they tended to do were the larger more complex deals, such as Greater Manchester. They did do some schools deals as well, but they tended to focus their resources on the larger, more complex deals.
Q65 Ian Swales: Can I just return to this question of risk? Has anybody ever defaulted on a PFI deal for financial reasons?
Charles Lloyd: Would you mind expanding on what you mean by for financial reasons, sorry?
Q66 Ian Swales: Has anybody ever failed to do the payments on a PFI deal because they didn't have the money to pay?
Charles Lloyd: I don't believe so, no.
Q67 Ian Swales: So you said there had been two operational reasons for PFI problems, but there's never been a financial reason?
Charles Lloyd: No, the Government or a local authority has never defaulted on their obligations under that.
Q68 Ian Swales: So PFI is gilt-edged, 100% secure, based on its record so far, financially speaking.
Charles Lloyd: Well, I would say the credit risk-
Q69 Ian Swales: Credit risk.
Charles Lloyd:-of the counterparty is low or negligible.
Q70 Ian Swales: Okay. I think all three of you have used the word "complex" at some time during this morning. Do you think the taxpayer's getting the best value for money by tying up the 100% secure capital financing with the risk of the operational contracts that go alongside most PFI deals, or do you think it would be better if they were separated?
Andrew Hudson: Sorry, just to make sure I understand the-