This House believes that public services are best run by private companies

WIKI DEFINITION: Public services is a term usually used to mean services provided by government to its citizens, either directly (through the public sector) or by financing private provision of services. The term is associated with a social consensus (usually expressed through democratic elections) that certain services should be available to all, regardless of income. Even where public services are neither publicly provided nor publicly financed, for social and political reasons they are usually subject to regulation going beyond that applying to most economic sectors.

OTHER DEF: Non-rivalrous and non-excludable 

Health and education are considered to be the main public services.

Plan: Privatising public services

Philosophy: There is a social consensus that certain services should be available to all, regardless of income and thus the government either runs the services itself or holds a decisive power concerning those services. We feel that the services are not run to sufficiently high standards at the moment; it is common knowledge that a pizza may arrive quicker than an ambulance. The inability of states to improve those services is shown by the citizens of the UK, who after an unsuccessful spending spree have lost trust in the government to spend the taxpayers’ money on improving the quality of public services. 

·         In 2000 an international poll for The Economist found that Britain was alone among 17 countries in having a majority of people prepared to pay more taxes to finance more spending on public services. By 2008 that generosity had vanished, as a rising tax burden had squeezed incomes and as it became clear that public services had failed to improve that much despite the spending spree.

Problem: The level of public services is not good enough.