Corbyn: NHS privateers are earning huge sums at taxpayers’ expense

This is the full statement published by Jeremy Corbyn following the publication of figures showing private provision in the NHS has more than doubled since 2010.

The Conservatives are privatising our NHS by stealth despite the repeated failures and costs of private provision. The latest figures show private provision in the NHS has more than doubled under the Conservatives.

Privatisation fails our most valued national institution: the NHS. It saddles us with an expensive and unnecessary internal market. It puts tax avoidance, not patient care, at the heart of its management. It also promotes excessive boardroom pay and grotesque inequality.

Health privateers are earning huge sums at taxpayers’ expense, while health workers have faced a pay freeze. When health services are privatised, the brakes come off the pay of the executives in charge.

On Tuesday, I announced that Labour will insist on a pay ratio of no more than 20:1 for any company awarded a government contract.

That will apply to the private health companies who bid for NHS contracts and pay their top executives indefensible and sometimes obscene amounts.

Shrinking the widening pay gap in health will support Labour’s plans to end health privatisation and bring services into a secure, publicly-provided NHS.