The Conservative Party accepted a £50,000 donation from a pharmaceutical boss who exploited a pricing rules loophole to hike up the cost of drugs sold to the NHS, it has emerged.
The Times reports that Amit Patel donated the money to the Tories during the general election campaign in 2017 - a year after the newspaper revealed that his company Auden Mckenzie was among several businesses that had drastically inflated the prices of old drugs.
Following investigations by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), Patel was banned last week from standing as director of any company for breaking competition law with the so-called “price gouging” exercise.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
In a separate charge, he also admitted tax fraud, paying nearly £15m to settle a case with HM Revenue & Customs over payments for fake invoices.
Auden Mckenzie was able to sell drugs at inflated prices by “exploiting a loophole in NHS pricing rules that meant drugs were no longer subject to a profit cap if they were ‘debranded’ and sold under a generic name”, The Times says.
Under his ownership, the company bumped up the price of an oral steroid of which the firm was the sole manufacturer from 70p a packet to £66.
A Conservative Party spokesperson told the newspaper that all large donations, defined as single amounts over £7,500, “are received in good faith. They are properly and transparently declared to the Electoral Commission, published by them, and comply fully with the law.”
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––For a round-up of the most important stories from around the world - and a concise, refreshing and balanced take on the week’s news agenda - try The Week magazine. Start your trial subscription today –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
In the final weeks ahead of last December’s general election, The Guardian reported that the Tories had been handed “large donations worth 26 times the amount received by Labour”.
Boris Johnson’s party raised a total of more than £5.67m in large donations from donors including “the wife of a Russian businessman, property developers and a theatre producer”, the newspaper said.
Meanwhile, The Sunday Times reported that Johnson had blocked the publication of a report into Russian interference in British politics that named “nine Russian business people who gave money to the Conservative Party”.
-
Democrats push for ICE accountabilityFeature U.S. citizens shot and violently detained by immigration agents testify at Capitol Hill hearing
-
The price of sporting gloryFeature The Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics kicked off this week. Will Italy regret playing host?
-
Fulton County: A dress rehearsal for election theft?Feature Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard is Trump's de facto ‘voter fraud’ czar
-
The Mandelson files: Labour Svengali’s parting gift to StarmerThe Explainer Texts and emails about Mandelson’s appointment as US ambassador could fuel biggest political scandal ‘for a generation’
-
Three consequences from the Jenrick defectionThe Explainer Both Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage may claim victory, but Jenrick’s move has ‘all-but ended the chances of any deal to unite the British right’
-
The high street: Britain’s next political battleground?In the Spotlight Mass closure of shops and influx of organised crime are fuelling voter anger, and offer an opening for Reform UK
-
The MAGA civil war takes center stage at the Turning Point USA conferenceIN THE SPOTLIGHT ‘Americafest 2025’ was a who’s who of right-wing heavyweights eager to settle scores and lay claim to the future of MAGA
-
Is a Reform-Tory pact becoming more likely?Today’s Big Question Nigel Farage’s party is ahead in the polls but still falls well short of a Commons majority, while Conservatives are still losing MPs to Reform
-
What does the fall in net migration mean for the UK?Today’s Big Question With Labour and the Tories trying to ‘claim credit’ for lower figures, the ‘underlying picture is far less clear-cut’
-
Asylum hotels: everything you need to knowThe Explainer Using hotels to house asylum seekers has proved extremely unpopular. Why, and what can the government do about it?
-
Five takeaways from Plaid Cymru’s historic Caerphilly by-election winThe Explainer The ‘big beasts’ were ‘humbled’ but there was disappointment for second-placed Reform too
