LONDON (Bywire News) - A Labour MP has blasted Sajid Javid over his £1,500 per hour advisory job for the major private healthcare investor J. P. Morgan - leading to a "pathetic" response from the new Health Secretary.
In September 2020, following his resignation as Chancellor, Sajid Javid took up a highly lucrative second job advising the financial giant, J. P. Morgan.
According to the Register of Financial Interests, Javid - who previously worked for numerous financial institutions just prior to the financial crash and before entering politics - pocketed a hefty £150,000 annual salary for working for less than 2 hours a week.
Speaking in the House of Commons yesterday, the former Shadow Justice Secretary, Richard Burgon, raised the issue with Javid - stating:
"The new Health Secretary hasn’t been on the frontbench for a year, but in that time he has been very busy.
"Very busy indeed, lining his own pockets, getting £1,500 per hour for his second job, £1,500 for his third job as well."
"Given that the Secretary of State has done very well out of the last year, bagging hundreds of thousands of pounds during a national crisis - all while NHS staff, at Seacroft Hospital and St James’s Hospital in my constituency, have been working harder than ever getting our communities through this Covid crisis - wouldn’t it be the height of hypocrisy if the new Health Secretary refused our NHS staff the pay rise they so clearly deserve?"
Unsurprisingly, Javid appeared rattled by Burgon's comments - however, rather than attempting to muster any kind of rebuttal, the new Health Secretary simply told the Labour MP that he would "have to try a lot harder than that."
Writing on Twitter about the exchange, Burgon wrote:
"The new Health Secretary has been getting paid £1,500 an HOUR over the last year for his second job and for his third job too.
"Today I told him that he has absolutely no right to deny NHS staff a proper pay rise.
"He didn't like it."
You can watch the exchange in Burgon's tweet below:
The new Health Secretary has been getting paid £1,500 an HOUR over the last year for his second job and for his third job too.
— Richard Burgon MP (@RichardBurgon) June 28, 2021
Today I told him that he has absolutely no right to deny NHS staff a proper pay rise.
He didn't like it. pic.twitter.com/dX4eaDVoN9
Wow! What a pathetic reply. https://t.co/QHSf5WEUPj
— Paul #NotMovingOn💚🇪🇺⭐🌍☘🦏☀️🌻🦓🐘🕷🦉🦋🐳☘🐕🐞 (@JLilburne1657) June 29, 2021
J.P. Morgan is known to hold major investments in private healthcare - a potential conflict of interest which another Labour MP, Zarah Sultana, also raised regarding Javid's new role overseeing the NHS.
Sajid Javid is the new Secretary of State for Health and Social Care.
— Zarah Sultana MP (@zarahsultana) June 26, 2021
Alongside being an MP, last year Javid was hired as a paid senior advisor to the US bank JP Morgan.
JP Morgan is a major player in private healthcare.
The NHS isn't safe in the Conservatives' hands.
In the past year Sajid Javid has been paid £300,000+ by investment banks, management consultants and other big businesses.
— Zarah Sultana MP (@zarahsultana) June 27, 2021
That's *in addition* to his MP salary.
Now he's Secretary of State for Health, he's going to tell NHS workers *they* deserve a pay cut. Unbelievable.
Labour's Shadow Health Secretary, Jonathan Ashworth, also weighed in on the issue - referencing the new Health Secretary's well-known pro-privatisation political beliefs, and claiming that putting Javid in charge of the NHS was like "putting the fox in charge of the chicken coop."
In addition to his role at J.P Morgan, Javid has also declared a yearly salary of £151,835 for 10-12 days work a year advising the artificial Intelligence software firm, C3.ai.
In the past year, Javid was also paid £30,000 for four hours work with HSBC.
These payments are in addition to his MPs salary of £81,932, and will now be topped up by his recently acquired Ministerial salary of £34,367.
(Writing by Tom D. Rogers, editing by Jess Miller.)