Starmer's NHS 'fixer' has made £8m+ from private health consultancy

Alan Milburn, tipped 'to drive NHS reform' in Starmer government, has had a lucrative few years. His company has just one employee and more than £4.9m in the bank

A company owned by Alan Milburn has paid out more than £8 million to the former Labour health secretary and his family, Democracy for Sale can reveal. 

The cash was generated primarily from Milburn’s consultancy roles in the private healthcare sector. 

Having previously served as health secretary under Tony Blair, the former Darlington MP has been hotly tipped for a return to government, with Keir Starmer said to be keen for Milburn “to drive through NHS reform”.

Since leaving office almost two decades ago, Milburn has built up a lucrative private sector career - his consultancy business, AM Strategy, boasts “corporate and government clients around the world”.

Accounts filed with Companies House show that AM Strategy Ltd paid out £1.27 million in dividends last year, bringing the total dividends it has paid out to more than £8.36 million since 2016. 

The company is majority owned by Milburn, with his wife and two sons holding minority stakes. 

The same accounts show that AM Strategy held more than £4.9 million in cash. The company has a single staff member.

The prospect of Milburn’s return to government has prompted concerns among some healthcare campaigners who say companies that he has been paid to advise could profit from NHS reforms. 

Milburn has a number of private healthcare interests. He chairs PricewaterhouseCooper’s ‘health industries oversight’ board, which was set up to expand the accountancy firm’s business interests in public and private healthcare. 

Milburn is also a senior advisor to private equity group Bridgepoint Capital, which owns one of England’s largest external providers of NHS services and a large care home chain. He has also advised confectioner Mars Incorporated and been chair of US private healthcare giant Centene’s former Spanish subsidiary, Ribera Salud. 

He is also currently chair of the Social Mobility Commission and chancellor of Lancaster University.    

In his previous stint in government as health secretary, Milburn was widely seen as a champion of NHS outsourcing and controversial Private Finance Initiative (PFI) deals that saw hospitals built on decades-long contracts. 

Private Eye reported that the BBC was forced to apologise in 2021 after Milburn appeared on Newsnight calling for NHS “partnerships with the private sector” billed as “former New Labour health secretary” but without any mention of his more recent work for private health care interests.

Responding to a complaint, the BBC said it “accept[ed] that we could have been clearer about his position and we could have done more to provide more context to this during his introduction.”

Julia Patterson, who leads NHS campaign group Every Doctor, said “a lot of people are deeply concerned to see Alan Milburn tipped to play an influential role in Starmer’s government, and for good reason.” 

“It is deeply concerning to witness the revolving door between political operators and private sector consultancy. Starmer needs to ask himself what message he is delivering to the public, by considering involving someone so linked to the private health sector in his plans,” Patterson told this newsletter. 

New health secretary Wes Streeting has said that the NHS “should seek to use” private health care capacity - although he said that in the longer term he hoped nobody in England would have to go private for healthcare treatment.

Alan Milburn has yet to reply to requests for comment. 

In other news, just days before their record general election defeat, the Conservatives took a £50,000 donation from a company linked to a billionaire who has been jailed for exploiting his domestic staff.

Figures released by the Electoral Commission show Westminster Development Services made the donation to the Tories on July 1. According to Companies House, Westminster Development Services is up to 50% owned by AMC Project Services, which itself lists Prakash Hinduja, the chairman of the Hinduja Group and one of Britain’s richest men, as its owner.

Ten days earlier, on June 21, Hinduja and three members of his family were convicted of exploiting domestic workers at their mansion in Switzerland, and sentenced to prison. They are appealing the sentence.

The latest donation figures - for the final week of the campaign - confirm the dominant trend of money in the election. The Tories, struggling for donors, raised just £225,000 in the seven days before their record defeat. Labour, which raised more than anyone else during the campaign, took in £465,000 in donations. The Liberal Democrats and Reform UK raised £156,000 and £45,000, respectively.

Democracy for Sale will be keeping track of where all the money in British politics goes in the coming months. If you can, help keep us going…