A UK Parliamentary Treasury Select Committee report criticised SPV funding as replacing government investment with a complex system that was unaccountable.

Quoting from the report, opposition main spokesperson for public service Helena Dalli, said it concluded that this system did not provide taxpayers with good value for money and called for stricter criteria in governing its use. This had higher borrowing costs as a result of the credit crisis and provided poor investment in the public sector.

She said that the SPV method had been used abroad for illicit funding, as in the Enron and Olympus cases, and asked whether the government had opted for this method of funding because the EU had warned it that it could not increase its public borrowing.

Dr Dalli added that the Parliament building project was not a priority when at the same time the government initiated a campaign to encourage citizens to use existing property rather than build new ones. The government could have used one of the many existing buildings to house Parliament so that the Palace could be restored.

The government would use taxpayers’ money to pay the rent of about €9 million per annum for 20 years for this building because it would not render any new revenue.

The Governor of the Central Bank Professor Josef Bonnici had spoken on living within one’s means and Dr Dalli promised that a Labour government would honour this commitment.