That the Parliament notes with concern the report in the Edinburgh Evening News that the private finance initiative (PFI) contract for the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary (ERI) is such that the contractor can be fined a maximum of only £28.24 a day for serious failures in the maintenance contract; understands that the most recent of these failures involved a serious breach in hygiene, with flies being found in operating suites leading to operations being cancelled; is of the view that this is just the latest example of what it believes to be a disastrous PFI contract agreed in 1998; contrasts what it sees as this totally inadequate level of fines liable by the contractor, Consort Healthcare, with what it considers the inflated PFI charges, which now run at £60 million a year; understands that taxpayers will have paid out £1.28 billion to Consort Healthcare for the maintenance of the ERI by 2028; considers that this will deprive patients in Edinburgh and across Lothian of vital resources that should be used to recruit and retain hard-working NHS staff and to provide high-quality patient care; commends Gordon Beurskens for obtaining what it considers this vital information on the operation of the contract; further commends the Edinburgh Evening News for highlighting this issue and other instances of failure, such as surgery completed by torchlight and incomplete checks on staff, and believes the operation of PFI in Lothian and across Scotland to be a major public scandal.