The minister at the centre of a row over the NHS on Question Time last night was named in a report exposing Tory MPs’ links – past and present – to private healthcare.

Margot James, who was branded a liar as she clashed with an audience member over claims her party wants to privatise the NHS (watch below), appeared in a “dossier of disgrace” which the Unite union published in 2014.

.@margot_james_mp responds to accusations that she has set up the NHS to fail, saying, “nothing could be further from the truth” #bbcqt pic.twitter.com/9gtfncIXk8 — BBC Question Time (@bbcquestiontime) January 18, 2018

It detailed “MPs who have previous or current financial links to companies or individuals trying to profit from the sell-off of the NHS.”

All the MPs featured had voted for the 2012 Health and Social Care Act, which resulted in billions of pounds worth of NHS contracts being handed to the private sector.

Unite general secretary Len McCluskey said at the time: “From lobbying links to investments and in some cases direct donations, scores of coalition MPs who voted for the NHS sell-off had links to the very private healthcare companies which stood to profit.”

This is James’ entry in the report:

James provided this response to the report at the time of its publication:

“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.”

Thirteen more current government ministers were named, including Jeremy Hunt, Philip Hammond, David Davis, Liam Fox and Amber Rudd.

If, as James claims, people have the ‘wrong idea’ about the Tories, it’s not hard to see why…

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