A DEAL which saw £150million worth of hospital facilities arrive in East Lancashire, with a £1billion price tag, will be examined by Whitehall.

Burnley MP Gordon Birtwistle has probed in Parliament whether the new coalition government intends to use Private Finance Intiatives (PFI) to fund public building projects in future.

The new Royal Blackburn Hospital and substantial building projects at Burnley General Hospital were paid for by PFI, using separate contractors.

The Lancashire Telegraph has previously reported that interest repayments for the two projects, over the next 25 to 30 years, would amount to more than £1billion.

Mr Birtwistle’s question came during a House of Commons debate on the national deficit and potential cuts to a variety of state budgets.

Chancellor George Osborne said Mr Birtwistle had made ‘a very good observation’ regarding the ‘hidden costs’ of PFI.

He said: “There is the hidden iceberg of the PFI liabilities that the Labour Party ran up over 13 years as well.”