HEALTH Secretary Wes Streeting says he put Alan Milburn, who was health secretary under Tony Blair, onto the board of the Department of Health “to help government fix health and care.”
 
But Milburn can’t talk about anything relating “to nutrition, diet, and food, including any work related to the department’s sponsorship of the Food Standards Agency” on that board because he has a part-time job working for Mars Inc.
 
Appointing someone who works for the firm making Mars Bars to the Department of Health board in the middle of an obesity crisis shows how Streeting values corporate interests above public services.
 
Milburn was health secretary under Blair from 1999 to 2003. He oversaw the wide-scale privatisation of the NHS. He continued the Margaret Thatcher and John Major governments’ plans to privatise NHS “support services” like cleaning, catering and building management, with the disastrous PFI scheme expanding on his watch.

Milburn also broke new ground by privatising “clinical” services by buying in private operations or giving NHS money to set up privately run clinics. Milburn then cashed in his experience by leaving government and taking on lucrative corporate jobs.

Milburn and his family get around £1-2 million a year from his “advisory” firm, AM Strategy, where all the funds for his “advisory” jobs are collected. Streeting clearly admires both Milburn’s record of privatisation when he was a minister and his highly paid post post-ministerial corporate work.
 
The Department of Health says Milburn will give up his job as an adviser to Mars Inc at the end of this year, so next year, he will be able to forget all about working for Mars Bars and start discussing obesity.
 
But Milburn will hang on to more important corporate jobs. He will remain an adviser to, and shareholder in, Bridgepoint Capital, a private equity company with important health investments.

Milburn joined Bridgepoint Capital in 2004. Back then, a company they owned got a major contract to replace NHS radiographers and radiologists by doing private scans for the NHS. The performance of Bridgepoint’s scanning company was heavily criticised both for cost and poor performance.

This was one of the most damaging scandals of the Blair years, but Streeting seems to think it was hunky dory. Bridgepoint Capital currently owns the Practice Plus Group, one of Britain’s largest private health firms.

Practice Plus Group own 10 private hospitals and surgical centres. The firm has a £595m turnover made from both treating private patients and outsourced NHS work, so they have an interest in both further NHS outsourcing and picking up work because the NHS has long waiting lists.

The Department of Health has had to create tailor-made rules for Milburn because of this, saying he “will declare his interests in any discussions or activity in the department that relate to products or services that are or may be provided directly by companies owned by Bridgepoint Capital Ltd, making the nature of any potential conflict transparent” while “he will recuse himself from any discussions or activity in the department directly related to these companies.”

The key word here is “directly” — Milburn will be able to generally promote NHS privatisation that will profit both Bridgepoint and other firms, as long as he makes a ritualistic announcement.

It is only when NHS outsourcing discussions relate solely and only to a Bridgepoint firm like Practice Plus Group that he will have to “recuse” himself from the board by stepping out of the room, or just checking his Instagram on his phone and not speaking for a little while.
 
Milburn also has a job as an adviser to consultants PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PWC). The Department of Health say Milburn does no “health-related work” with PWC, but they do get plenty of outsourced contracts from the government.

Labour said it would reduce spending on management consultants, but there is little sign it will follow through on this promise. There are similar rules for Milburn here, where he must “declare an interest” in general discussions on NHS management consultant work and only “recuse” himself if the discussion is specifically about PWC.
 
Were Milburn to follow the rules strictly, a great deal of time in Department of Health meetings would be taken up by him “declaring interests” and “recusing” himself. The civil servants have done their best with these rules, but in reality, if Wes Streeting wants Milburn to recommend further privatisation and outsourcing, that’s what will happen.
 
Labour’s Christmas Carol
 
The London Old Vic Theatre production of A Christmas Carol is a great show. Artistic director Mathew Warchus, playwright Jack Thorne, lead actor John Simm and the cast bring Dickens’s classic to the stage. There are plenty of theatrical twists, including elements of panto, music hall and modern “in the round” staging to keep the old story alive.

Like Dickens on the page, the play mixes comedy and sentimentality with a hard-hitting message. The bad news is there are few tickets left: the Old Vic has put on this play at Christmas for the last eight years, so watch out for tickets next year — a tip: the cheaper “reduced view” seats are still fine.

The good news is leading Labour figures seem to be updating the old story too, saving you the need to go to the theatre. The play opens with Christmas Carollers trying to raise money from Scrooge so “that we should make some slight provision for the poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time.”

Scrooge asks: “Are there no prisons? Are the workhouses still in operation? The treadmill and the Poor Law still in operation?” Reassured that they are, a relieved Scrooge says this shows there is no need for such charity.
 
Former minister and veteran Labour figure David Blunkett managed to update this sentiment, telling the Sunday Telegraph he wanted Labour to push even harder against benefits, saying it was up to the poor to be “getting up in the morning and going to work,” because, “If you can’t be bothered, then I’m afraid we don’t owe you.”

Chancellor Rachel Reeves is also trying hard with her free public performances of a Dickensian misery, always willing to say “no.”

Follow Solomon on X @SolHughesWriter.