> The MP who has taken the most cash is Tory John Redwood who has amassed a haul of almost £700,000 in earnings from Charles Stanley – investment managers with investments in the global private healthcare sector.
Stepping back and looking at what Charles Stanley do, I feel this is really clutching at straws to try and make a story. They are a large and 200 year old investment and wealth management company, they will have investments in pretty much everything and he is there because they bought a company he founded.
EveryDoctor has organised a petition to stop MPs receiving donations and hospitality offers from companies with links to the private healthcare sector.
Nobody should be profiting from people’s poor health.
All MPs are required to complete an entry in each year’s Register of Members’ Interests (the “Register”).
The purpose of the entry, according to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, is to: “…provide information about any financial interest which a Member has, or any benefit which he or she receives, which others might reasonably consider to influence his or her actions or words as a Member of Parliament.” [Emphasis added]
They must also update the Register if any changes occur.
All of the information on the map comes directly from the Register.
The first tranche of data came from the most recent Register (the year to May 2023).
As MPs acquire or dispose of interests then their entry changes so additional tranches of data come from examining every copy of the Register published since the last General Election (i.e. from January 2020).
As new information arises it is added to the map so you have a clear picture of what an MP has done with their interests since January 2020; you will be able to see how much an MP has accepted/earned since the last election.
Where interests have been provided by/derived from a company then we have searched for the company online at Companies House using the precise name provided by the MP. If a company is part of a group then we have searched for all other members of the group in order to establish the corporate structure and any relationships to private healthcare interests (as described below) that might not have been immediately apparent from the name of the company/entity provided by the MP.
Where interests have been provided by/derived from a private individual then we have, insofar as is possible, searched for that name. Many such searches produced multiple possible candidates and so we have not included the donor (this is one of the real problems with the absence of transparency of contributions from private donors who do not have to provide any further detail such as an address, details of any companies they are linked with, etc.).
Some such donors are more high profile or have been publicly linked with the donation they have made in which case we have included them.
There is a rather murky underbelly in the whole registration system which is comprised of “unincorporated associations”. These are completely private organisations (a bit like a club) that are unregistered, have no public face, do not have to provide any public information but which contribute significant sums to the Conservative Party in particular. There is no way of knowing whether these associations have any links to private healthcare organisations and/or whether they are seeking to buy influence amongst MPs, but the lack of transparency is extremely worrying and seems ripe for abuse.
What do you mean by an interest?
The map contains information about MPs who have direct interests in a private healthcare organisation.
The register breaks interests which must be declared into a number of categories. All of those interests included on the map fall into one of the following four categories:
1. Earnings
2. Donations
3. Hospitality
4. Shares
And the winner of the red section is! Cooper, Streeting, Starmer…
Oh lol, what a fucking surprise
Everyone has an equal chance to donate, that is what makes politicians independent, there is not a single person who can make pressure on them if they receive money from the opposite groups of interest.
The NHS doctors should just donate a similar amount of money to the same politicians.
The NHS isn’t safe in the hands of Tory or Labour.
I know I’m being naive here but shouldn’t it be the case that no private corporation can give donations to MPs/parties? Isn’t that muddying the waters?
And what’s to stop the exceedingly rich from flexing their financial prowess and swaying them?
Put a limit on donations and everything has to be public. Seems simple.
Has anyone heard any TV journo put any question about this to any of these guys?
8 comments
> The MP who has taken the most cash is Tory John Redwood who has amassed a haul of almost £700,000 in earnings from Charles Stanley – investment managers with investments in the global private healthcare sector.
Stepping back and looking at what Charles Stanley do, I feel this is really clutching at straws to try and make a story. They are a large and 200 year old investment and wealth management company, they will have investments in pretty much everything and he is there because they bought a company he founded.
EveryDoctor has organised a petition to stop MPs receiving donations and hospitality offers from companies with links to the private healthcare sector.
Nobody should be profiting from people’s poor health.
More info here:
https://www.everydoctor.org.uk
Copying from the [FAQs](https://www.everydoctor.org.uk/map-of-nhs-privatisation) so people can see how EveryDoctor got this information – they’re a lot more transparent than MPs.
MPs Privatisation Links- FAQs
Where have you sourced your information from?
All MPs are required to complete an entry in each year’s Register of Members’ Interests (the “Register”).
The purpose of the entry, according to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, is to: “…provide information about any financial interest which a Member has, or any benefit which he or she receives, which others might reasonably consider to influence his or her actions or words as a Member of Parliament.” [Emphasis added]
They must also update the Register if any changes occur.
[You can see copies of the Register here](https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmregmem/contents2223.htm)
All of the information on the map comes directly from the Register.
The first tranche of data came from the most recent Register (the year to May 2023).
As MPs acquire or dispose of interests then their entry changes so additional tranches of data come from examining every copy of the Register published since the last General Election (i.e. from January 2020).
As new information arises it is added to the map so you have a clear picture of what an MP has done with their interests since January 2020; you will be able to see how much an MP has accepted/earned since the last election.
Where interests have been provided by/derived from a company then we have searched for the company online at Companies House using the precise name provided by the MP. If a company is part of a group then we have searched for all other members of the group in order to establish the corporate structure and any relationships to private healthcare interests (as described below) that might not have been immediately apparent from the name of the company/entity provided by the MP.
Where interests have been provided by/derived from a private individual then we have, insofar as is possible, searched for that name. Many such searches produced multiple possible candidates and so we have not included the donor (this is one of the real problems with the absence of transparency of contributions from private donors who do not have to provide any further detail such as an address, details of any companies they are linked with, etc.).
Some such donors are more high profile or have been publicly linked with the donation they have made in which case we have included them.
There is a rather murky underbelly in the whole registration system which is comprised of “unincorporated associations”. These are completely private organisations (a bit like a club) that are unregistered, have no public face, do not have to provide any public information but which contribute significant sums to the Conservative Party in particular. There is no way of knowing whether these associations have any links to private healthcare organisations and/or whether they are seeking to buy influence amongst MPs, but the lack of transparency is extremely worrying and seems ripe for abuse.
What do you mean by an interest?
The map contains information about MPs who have direct interests in a private healthcare organisation.
The register breaks interests which must be declared into a number of categories. All of those interests included on the map fall into one of the following four categories:
1. Earnings
2. Donations
3. Hospitality
4. Shares
And the winner of the red section is! Cooper, Streeting, Starmer…
Oh lol, what a fucking surprise
Everyone has an equal chance to donate, that is what makes politicians independent, there is not a single person who can make pressure on them if they receive money from the opposite groups of interest.
The NHS doctors should just donate a similar amount of money to the same politicians.
The NHS isn’t safe in the hands of Tory or Labour.
I know I’m being naive here but shouldn’t it be the case that no private corporation can give donations to MPs/parties? Isn’t that muddying the waters?
And what’s to stop the exceedingly rich from flexing their financial prowess and swaying them?
Put a limit on donations and everything has to be public. Seems simple.
Has anyone heard any TV journo put any question about this to any of these guys?