Tory funding from a ‘shadowy world’
Maybe there will be some hope over the rainbow? Time will tell. But with it being called a roadmap out, I see some potholes on the journey ahead
I WRITE further to the letter by S Clarke, headlined ‘Party owes the NHS a big apology’ (Sentinel, February 17).
It is true Unison, the health service union, provides funds through the political levy to the Labour Party, as does my own union USDAW.
The process in which unions administer their funds is, however, open, transparent and rigorously scrutinised under law – of which the 2016 Trade Union Act is the most recent legislation.
It is overseen by a government appointed certification officer.
On the other hand you have the covert shadowy world in which Tory MPS receive funding from private health organisations that seek to undermine the NHS.
Paymaster General Penny Mordaunt received £6.9k for speaking to the Boston Consulting Group, which was later awarded £10m by the NHS to assist its track and trace programme, paying consultants up £6.2k per day.
Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab’s leadership campaign received donations from Dominic Burke, whose Marsh & Mclennan subsidiaries provide, among other things, healthcare insurance reports for private providers including AXA, Bupa, and Vitality Health.
And Health Secretary Matt Hancock received a £10,000 donation for his campaign bid in 2019 from Wol Kolade, head of Livingbridge private equity firm that owns Vanguard Healthcare, which provides mobile facilities such as operating theatres and wards.
If a public apology is required, as S Clarke suggests, for costly mistakes,
how about taxpayers’ money spent on the Lansley health ‘reforms’ of 2010 which the Tories now want to scrap?
The Department of Health reported that the administrative costs were in the region of £1.8 billion, although the National Audit Office in 2012 put the costs closer to £4 billion.
CLLR BILL CAWLEY LEEK WEST