‘Public ownership of public services is a vote-winner which Labour should seize’

In his Conference speech last month, the Prime Minister told us that his theory of growth includes “retaking control of the essentials that make a place work or not”. Among those essentials, few things could be more important than the buildings and assets our public services depend on, from school buildings to bin lorries, care homes and emergency services vehicles.

Yet a growing share of these public sector assets are owned by wealthy investors who own the building or equipment and collect the rent, while the public sector delivers the service and pays the bill.

New polling released today by TaxWatch and the Fairness Foundation shows that the public wants that to change, a view that crosses party lines. 

Six in ten people say buildings used by public services should generally be publicly owned. That view has majority support among voters of every party. Just six percent would allow private owners to make uncapped profits from them. 

READ MORE: ‘Public ownership unites right and left – and will help Labour defeat Reform’

We asked about nine specific assets, including hospital buildings, council housing, emergency services vehicles and buses. More than a third (35 percent) ruled out private ownership of all of them. No public asset got more than 18 percent support for private ownership, and that was for care homes, of which over four in five are already privately owned. 

Yet this isn’t just an issue of pragmatism and value-for-money. We put lease-back deals to people with promises of value for money or discounts for the Government. Even then, 40 percent of people said schools and hospitals should not be privately owned, whatever the terms. No more than 13 percent found leaseback deals acceptable under any scenario we tested. Though it often carries a tangible long-term cost, people’s opposition to selling off the state’s public realm is principled. 

Support for public ownership of these assets is strongest among older voters, but young people largely agree too. Even among 18-34-year-olds, the most common view (48 percent) is that these buildings generally belong in public hands. Nevertheless, more research would usefully explore why attitudes differ between generations, with young people apparently seeming more relaxed about the role of private ownership. 

In all, it’s clear that the centre ground of British politics is that most voters want both public services and public assets to be publicly owned and provided. The strength of this cross-party and cross-demographic backing gives the Government a chance to build support across a broad coalition of voters for public, non-profit or community forms of ownership. 

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The findings also indicate an appetite for real change to Britain’s economy. Over decades, the state has been unable, or unwilling, to invest or borrow for the capital investment public services need. That has left councils and NHS bodies leasing buildings and other assets back from private owners, often at greater cost to taxpayers in the long run.

The tax system also rewards these high levels of private ownership. Forthcoming TaxWatch research shows that tax reliefs which were originally designed to help businesses raise foreign investment are now being used to siphon publicly funded rental income from care homes into offshore tax havens. 

The Times, meanwhile, recently reported on an investment fund that is financing fleets of ambulances and CT scanners which it rents back to the NHS (whose lease payments also qualify as an inheritance tax shield for its wealthy individual investors) using a tax break originally meant to protect family businesses being broken up when an owner dies. 

Tax policies intended to support enterprise are instead subsidising a double extraction from the public purse. The Budget is an opportunity to start delivering on the public’s desire for change. The Government should close or tighten these reliefs to prevent their unintended use. It should also set clear conditions on private ownership of public-sector assets. Over time, it should invest to bring public-service buildings and equipment back into public ownership. 

These are questions of ownership and profit that the Prime Minister has spoken about at length. On this, the public is ahead of Westminster. A clear majority, drawn from every party, wants the buildings that serve them to belong to them, and is opposed to the broken status quo. A Government willing to make a decisive break with that status quo would find broad support and would demonstrate that “retaking control” is more than a slogan. 

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