Andrew Lansley has called for a fundamental review after it emerged that the National Health Service will have to pay private sector contractors an incredible £53 billion for hospitals worth only £8 billion.

Describing the cost of the Private Finance Initiative deals as "complete lunacy", the Shadow Health Secretary said: "For all too many hospitals, PFI has turned into a straightjacket. It is time for a fundamental review of how the NHS accesses capital for future investment."

Under new figures forced out of the Government by Mr Lansley's Parliamentary questioning, it has become clear that the taxpayer will have to cough up an extra £45 billion for up to 30 years to pay for NHS hospitals built at a fraction of the cost. Private sector firms involved in the PFI projects will benefit from a massive 540 per cent return on the initial agreement.

This is at a time when the NHS is confronting a £500 million deficit this year, leaving medical staff facing job cuts, wards facing closure, and patients facing further delays in securing treatment. At the same time, the Government is declaring that some of the new hospitals may be surplus to requirement as treatment systems change.

Commenting, Mr Lansley said: "Six years ago, Labour promised the biggest ever hospital building programme in the history of the NHS. Now, they say they do not want care to be provided in hospitals after all. It is perverse that, with hospitals around the country now suffering cutbacks and closures, over 80 NHS organisations are locked into long-term contracts for the building of large hospitals that we have no idea whether the NHS will actually need."

He declared: "While there is a key need for private sector investment in the NHS, Gordon Brown has failed to recognise that 30-year-long PFI contracts are often at odds with the Government's concept of competition between hospitals. The extra cost of £45 billion is complete lunacy in the context of an NHS under intolerable financial pressure.

"Every hospital I talk to wants the freedom to structure its borrowing projects as they wish. For all too many, PFI has turned into a straitjacket. Hospitals do not want to be locked into costly contracts which last into the 2040s. The NHS needs much greater flexibility when it secures borrowing from the private sector.

"It is time for a fundamental review of how the NHS accesses capital for future investment."