The Private Finance Initiative (PFI) used by successive governments to pay for new schools and hospitals is poor value for money, MPs have said.

The Treasury select committee said PFI was no more efficient than other forms of borrowing and it was "illusory" that it shielded the taxpayer from risk.

Government had become "addicted" to PFI, the committee's Tory chair said.

A government source said it had already acted to make PFI more transparent and rigorous and cut the cost of projects.

Following criticism that the true costs of PFI were being hidden "off balance sheet" and excluded from government debt calculations, the coalition published details of total PFI liabilities for the first time last year alongside the national accounts.

PFI was introduced by John Major's Conservative government in 1992 as a way of bringing in private funding to pay for major public infrastructure projects.

the treasury committee have also announced they have discovered the Pope to be catholic and bears defecate in the woods.

The two main parties have a lot of explaining to do.

I am aware the pope has a lot to answer for, but bears?