Should public services be run by private equity firms? | Letters

Mal Williams thinks private equity should be excluded from essential services, while Ian Graham draws attention to dental practices. Plus letters from Rob Harrison, Tony Fletcher and Michael Moore, who defends private equity’s role

Your timely investigation into private equity’s penetration of public services is important, but the response cannot be merely to “manage” the problem better (‘Financial pandemic’: £1 in every £11 spent on UK public contractors goes to private equity, 28 June). Private equity should be excluded from essential services funded by the public.

This is not ordinary business investment. Too often it is leveraged extraction. A company providing care, health, transport, waste, childcare or education is bought with borrowed money, and the debt used to buy it is then loaded on to the company itself. In plain English, the company is made to buy itself on credit. Staff, service users, suppliers and taxpayers carry the cost, while investors pursue fees, dividends, refinancing gains and resale profits.