Tory MP hits out at NHS sell-off 'smears'

Unite published a dossier saying there were 70 coalition MPs who had links to such firms.

In the Black Country they named Stourbridge MP Margot James who co-founded a public relations company, Shire Health Group, before selling it on to Ogilvy & Mather in a deal that was completed in the early 2000s, at least eight years before she became an MP.

Miss James was also once head of European healthcare for marketing parent company WPP Group.

But the MP said she had no links to any private healthcare firms since before she was elected in 2010 and to suggest otherwise was a 'smear'.

The union also named Cannock Chase MP Aidan Burley.

His inclusion on the list was just for having received six bottles of wine from Hitachi consultants in thanks for a short speech he was said to have given in 2011.

The company has experience of working with the public sector and in the NHS but there is no suggestion he has ever been paid by it.

Mr Burley hit out at Unite for its funding of the Labour party and said: "If the Unite union think that accepting a few bottles of wine in return for giving a speech somehow influences the way I will vote on NHS matters in the House of Commons, then we can only wonder at the amount of influence and votes they expect to buy from the Labour party to whom they give over £3 million a year."

And Miss James said: "I resent this smear.

"I believe strongly in a taxpayer funded National Health Service. The implication that I would support anything else is totally erroneous.

"I have no links to private healthcare. I have previously been a director of an NHS trust and did not take a salary, despite being entitled to one."

Len McCluskey, Unite general secretary: "The Government had no mandate to sell-off our NHS, no one voted for it, yet they are doing just that. You have to ask yourself why?

"To make matters worse, David Cameron is still refusing to use his veto and exempt the NHS from an US EU trade deal called TTIP . What is our NHS doing in a trade deal with America? This again exposes the Government's real plan for the NHS - the complete and irreversible privatisation of our NHS.

"From lobbying links to investments, and in some cases direct donations, it is clear that many MPs who supported the NHS sell-off are linked to the very private healthcare companies which stood to profit.

"Since the vote to sell-off our NHS, over £13 billion pounds of our local services have fallen into private hands.

"It is time to scrap the health and social care act and save our NHS."

A Conservative Party spokesman said: "Here in the Conservative Party, donations don't buy our leader, our candidates or our policies. If only the same could be said of Unite and the Labour Party."

"It was shadow health secretary Andy Burnham and Labour that more than doubled the use of the private sector by the NHS in the last four years of their government."

"The most important thing with NHS care is that it is high quality and free at the point of delivery. Because of the realistic assessments this government has made on public spending, we've been able to do exactly that. We've increased health spending, increased the number of doctors and reduced the number of managers."