Hardingfele
Æresmedlem
Most of these critics have remained silent about the benefits of public ownership.
To start with the benefits: the most easily quantifiable benefits come from not having to pay out dividends to private shareholders or high interest rates on private debt. These savings would amount to about £8bn per year across all sectors: £2.5bn from public ownership of the water companies, £3.7bn from the electricity and gas transmission and distribution companies, about £1bn from public ownership of BT’s broadband and services divisions, £170m from Royal Mail, and up to £1.4bn from taking remaining private-finance initiative (PFI) projects into public hands.
These are net savings, calculated from companies’ own accounts by comparing the dividends paid to shareholders and interest currently paid out by the private companies with the future cost of low-interest government bonds to replace the shareholders’ equity and the private debt.
Regional and local economies and households would get a substantial boost from this. Whether the savings are used to reduce prices or to increase public investment, the money would remain in the local economy rather than being sucked out by international finance, and would be spread fairly equally around the country because we all use these utilities.