How did they get away with privatising public services?

@SharpLily It is my experience from having lived in three European countries - Denmark, Germany and Austria.

Where I currently live in Europe, utilities (water, electricity, gas, internet and fibre-optic communcations) are publicly owned and function extremely well (and are cheaper than in the UK).
Public transport is publicly owned and integrated. Buses dovetail with trains and trams and there is common ticketing. An annual ticket for the entire State (the size of a large UK county) would cost me less than €3 a day - but I don't need one as local buses to the nearest large town 16km away are frequent and free. Walk-up train tickets are very affordable - a 90-minute return journey for a family of 3 costs €30. A 2-hour trip to the State capital costs €14.
Housing is a mixture of private and social housing - with rents capped at affordable levels and strict planning and zoning rules in place to ensure that there is the appropriate mix of housing to meet the needs of the residents.

Tell us about your country and how it compares to this, and to the UK.

Throughout Europe, publicly-owned services run very well

@Havanananana And your evidence for this? Certainly isn't the case in my European countries (dual nationality).

Wasting your time talking total bollocks, yes.

What laws are wrong, specifically. What are the names of the companies doing something wrong? What laws would you enact to correct this?

Corporation tax was increased under the Conservative government. So companies do pay more tax. So was income tax so individuals pay more tax too. Labour have increased that further.

What people are refusing to work? You sound very much like you’re making this up as you go along.

We have had governments from both main parties since privatisation under Thatcher. If it had had disastrous consequences it would have been reversed.

I think most people recognise that overall what happened was necessary although far from perfect.

Yes, mobile big business with more spending power and political power than entire countries - including Britain now - are a major problem. They should never have been enabled to become so powerful. But here we are. Enabled by their supporters they will continue to suck life out of the world until it collapses - and that is now on the way. Enjoy.

Yes. Have been in Britain since 1066. You don’t like that? Then change it.

As for big businesses paying tax in line with law, the problem is that the law is wrong and has been for a very long time. We talk about ‘how the other half lives’ for a reason - you really do live in different worlds, and in Britain with its gross inequality and worship of America that’s not going to improve any time soon - or at all, for long enough to effect real change. And so you will find fewer and fewer people willing to pay to work for a system in which they have no chance and no voice. That’s the natural consequence of this system. But I’m wasting my time.

Companies pay tax in the countries where they are incorporated and registered. For the vast majority of the huge global behemoths, that is the USA. Their offshore entities choose jurisdictions like ROI where corporation tax is 12-15%, compared to 25% in the UK. Companies are highly mobile, which few few seem to grasp.

This is exactly my point. But people love to shout about Amazon etc not paying tax. Just not true. The level of cognitive dissonance not just on mumsnet but generally is insane.

We need people to have businesses here. Hopefully huge businesses. With huge profits subject to corporation tax. Thousands of employees all paying income tax. Hopefully earning huge salaries and paying very high taxes.

But no, rich people = the enemy according to some.

Is this companies such as Amazon, google, Starbucks etc which pay tax in line with tax rules operating in the jurisdictions in which they reside? There is so little understanding of international corporate taxation rules in the UK. No you can’t just slap an extra tax on Amazon. It doesn’t work like that. It’s not that simple.

I’m not sure the link with house prices?

Can you name for me please the companies paying “minimal tax” and your evidence for this? Because they should be reported to HMRC so they can investigate.

This is the problem, hate rich people all you want but they pay a lot of tax which we’re going to need with our ageing population and declining birth rate. Who do you think is paying for all of this going forward?

All ‘foreign investment’ has brought us is massively over-inflated house prices, public funds siphoned off overseas and a reputation as the money-laundering centre of the world. We are running the place off working taxes anyway, with our own elites charging the public sector everything they can get away with. Big business pay minimal tax. I’d be quite happy to see the super rich parasites bugger off, as long as unlike Harry they foreswear all ownership and interest here. It would be difficult for a while I admit, as we have lost huge numbers of skills in the last 50 years and a great deal of basic resourcefulness, needed to rediscover them - but at this point many working people would be no worse off as medieval peasants.

I saw an article the other day that quoted the number of millionaires that left the U.K. last year being massively up on prior years (can’t remember where, people can google it if they’re interested).

I think we need to be careful not to create an environment where people no longer feel the U.K. is a good place to be based if you have money. And I think we are heading that way with our current anti-business anti-growth government (they pay lip service to wanting to boost growth but their actions suggest the opposite).

I realise the consensus of lots of people on Mumsnet is anyone that has money is the enemy and pays no tax, and got a bunch of tax cuts from their Tory mates but that’s just not true. The highest earners paid more in tax prior to the election than they did in 2010, and capital gains allowance was slashed was £12,500 to £500, corporation tax increased to 25% by a supposedly Conservative government.

Sure I’ve said this on here before but I voted Lib Dem in the recent election and have voted Labour and Conservative and abstained previously. I’m not a natural supporter of any party. Just before the shouts of Tory troll start.

For all the faults of New Labour Blair and Brown encouraged wealthy people to based here as it was thought there was economic benefit to it, low corporation tax encouraging companies to be based here meant higher tax revenues overall. I have no data on if that worked or not but that was the idea.

"As for not being in a position to buy everything back - why not?"

The government doesn't necessarily have to buy everything back. For example, the water companies are supposed to still operate in the public interest and are on 25-year licenses. If any particular company continuted to asset-strip, failed to improve their performance or if they were declared bankrupt the government could revoke the license, at which point the government would take over.

And yes, right to buy still exists, making a mockery out of those of us who worked hard and got forced into private renting and would never be considered for social housing. The unholy alliance of the very rich inheritors and the benefit sitters is killing us. The question that urgently needs to be addressed is what is there for working people, because at this point more and more are just dropping out and joining the lawless underclasses.

As for not being in a position to buy everything back - why not?

Quite. Those nationalised industries were created post war, in a society that had been pretty much destroyed. There were those who thought that Europe was entirely finished - and nationalised sectors helped make the difference. If they had the money to do it after the wars, why not now? There is still money in this country. We have a tendency to pretend that the country should run on the accounts of working people who have been impoverished ever since the housing crisis started. But much of the money is still there, siphoned off into private pockets: we have more billionaires being created than ever and the stately homes have been rebuilt. Have a look at this from the Equality Trust (founded by the authors of ‘The Spirit Level’): equalitytrust.org.uk/obscene-wealth-simulator/

@TizerorFizz As cities expanded during the 19th and early 20th century, the supply of water (and the need to dispose of waste water and sewage) became critical and was a task that was far beyond the means of the small private companies that had been supplying these services.

As a matter of vital public health and safety, municipal water boards were set up to address the problem - not state-run, but run by local municipal councils "owned" by the residents rather than by commercial companies. Similar situations existed for electricity and gas supplies, and for public transport in cities.

It is the later privitsation of these vital services that has damaged the services - a mixture of greed on the part of the commercial companies and poor regulation from the regulators and from government.

The world has indeed moved on from the ideologies of the immediate post-WW2 years. A population that had previously shared the deprivation and losses of life of two world wars and the Depression, a population that worked together to rebuild the country, a population that was promised "a land fit for heros" has been turned into a divided "greed is good" "me first" society. Privitisation of vital services and running them for profit, particularly when much of the profit then disappears overseas, is ultimately a recipe for disaster. As for not being in a position to buy everything back - why not? The railways have already largely been taken back into public ownership. Transport in London was never allowed to be privitised. Thames Water is begging for government subsidies, having loaded to company with debt and moved the profits and dividends abroad instead of investing in improvements (or even in basic maintenence).

These services are vital to the social, physical and economic health and wellbeing of the country. If these basic building blocks (along with healthcare, infrastucture and education) are not in place then ultimately things will collapse. To quote Hemingway:

"How did you go bankrupt?" Bill asked.
"Two ways," Mike said. "Gradually and then suddenly."

Urgh it’s so utterly immoral. It’s depressing.

I read on Xitter - believe none of what you read.. - that Pain Management has been hived off by the NHS and is now a private enterprise promoting meditation to people with chronic pain... cos that will work!!!

When some services begin they are the idea of the state. Most were the idea of business owners who put money in to develop them. The railways were not state owned in the 19th century. Nor water companies. Nor steel or coal. Nor most other things. Schools were often charities or church run and there was no council housing until 1890. Lots of state ownership began after ww2. However I’m really glad the government ditched British Leyland and Thomas Cook and Rolls Royce as government owned companies. I also have no desire to go back to the 19th century.

Where were you born abroad and how were utilities and services arranged there?

In the 19th century, most things were privatised. So, why is it ok to revert to this ideology, but not the more modern, post WW2 one? Because you like it better?

There's a distinction between privatisation by selling public services into private ownership, and outsourcing, where private companies are contracted to provide services on behalf of Governments.
I spent 30 years in the public sector, mistakenly believing we were morally superior to our private sector counterparts. I saw our services destroyed by terrible unaccountable decision making, a rampant Trades Union and uncontrolled staff attrition. The privately operated services held up so much better and I eventually jumped ship and joined a private outsourcer. We provide the service much better and more efficiently. We are allowed to innovate and our skills are not stifled by bureaucracy. If I perform really well I'm rewarded- if not I'm held accountable. I want my company to succeed so I make sure my contracts are fulfilled. Without question the public benefits from this arrangement.

A major problem is so much of our services are owned by foreign investors who will cost a fortune to buy out

My idea, probably impractical, is that from now on only a total of 25% of any British service can be owned in total by foreign entities. 75% should at least be owned by British investors - they hopefully might be more interested in the services actually running in this country unlike France who's trains are running very nicely, subsidised by their interest in rail services in Britain

I am not sure which other countries are invested although something is nagging me about Australia owning bits of some of our water companies but I could have got that wrong. I doubt they are going to care about sewage spillage all those many miles away if in fact they do have any interest.

Edited for further thoughts and clarification

@Newname85 You didn’t live through the 60s and 70s then! You would not want to repeat it.

Thames Water hadn’t worked but the regulator has no teeth. Other privatizations are owned by shareholders and many of us are invested with them! It’s how our economy works. We certainly aren’t in the position to buy everything back. The world has moved on from the ideologies post WW2.

Profits from privitised utililities etc. indeed go to shareholders - and not to stakeholders (i.e. customers and taxpayers). Profits are taken out of the business instead of being put back into the services in order to improve them. In fact the reverse has happened - private companies have increased their short-term profits by deliberately not investing, and by loading the services with debt, in order to pay the shareholders and directors huge dividends.

Then there is the question of who the shareholders actually are. For example, some of the largest shareholders in Thames Water are foreign pension funds, so the dividends paid to a Canadian or Australian shareholder do not "trickle down" into the UK economy but disappear overseas.

"Do you really want the state to control and pay for everything?"

No, but it would be beneficial if the vital public services were owned by, and run for, the benefit of the population at large instead of being run as low-risk cash-cows for investors. And anyway, who or what is "the state" if it is not the taxpayers, consumers and citizens themselves? Why should the population not benefit from owning these vital services, whether, in the case of water, that be in the form of lower bills, cleaner water, functioning sewers etc.