Andrew Rosindell said he would not object to scrapping the NHS and replacing it with a private insurance model.
Reform’s newest MP Andrew Rosindell has said he would support privatising the NHS and moving to a private insurance model for funding healthcare.
On BBC Politics London yesterday, Rosindell was asked if he would back a private insurance model to fund the NHS. He responded: “I don’t object to that.”
He added: “We need an efficient system that works and we don’t have that”.
Labour MP Sarah Sackman said: “We’ve heard it here first.”
Speaking to LBC last January, Nigel Farage said he would be “open to anything” when it comes to replacing the NHS with “an insurance-based model”.
In May last year, he also told Sky News’ Beth Rigby that he didn’t want the NHS to be funded “through general taxation”.
As UKIP leader in 2012, Farage said: “I think we’re going to have to move to an insurance-based system of healthcare.”
In 2015, he said that the idea of replacing the NHS with an insurance-based system was “a debate that we’re all going to have to return to”.
At the 2024 general election, Reform pledged to offer tax relief of 20% on private healthcare policies if it won power.
Health secretary Wes Streeting has criticised Reform UK’s policy to give tax relief on private health insurance, saying it would cost £1.7bn in taxpayer money and be a “tax cut for the wealthiest”.
Rosindell is Reform’s newest MP after he defected to the Conservatives last Sunday.
Asked if he should “do the honourable thing” and call a by-election, Rosindell said his constituents want a general election.
“Yes, I’m happy to have an election but let’s have that general election,” the Reform MP said.
Reminded that the general election would be four years away, Rosindell said: “It doesn’t need to be.”
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
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