Trade union Unite has published the names of 70 MPs who had links to private healthcare interests when voting to sell-off the NHS –including Bury St Edmunds’ MP.

As reported in the Bury Free Press last year, Unite’s dossier shows that David Ruffley’s Conservative Constituency Association received a £10,000 donation from Caroline Nash, wife of Care UK chairman John Nash, in 2009.

Len McCluskey, Unite general secretary, said: “From lobbying links to investments, and in some cases direct donations, it is clear that many MPs who supported the NHS sell-off had links to the very private healthcare companies which stood to benefit.”

The report, published Tuesday, states that ‘an estimated 96 per cent of Care UK’s business, amounting to £400 million in 2013, comes from the NHS’.

It also lists Mr Ruffley as a strategic adviser to Partnership Group Holdings Ltd, which offers residential care fee insurance and is majority owned by Cinven Funds, whose UK investments include 25 Bupa hospitals and a stake in BMI Healthcare.

Mr Ruffley said: “The House of Commons’ Register of Members’ Interests is a very good idea and I comply with it. Whether Unite are so transparent I somewhat doubt.”