Jeremy Hunt makes £500,000 in a year: Health Secretary pockets £360,000 from his business interests - on top of Cabinet salary

Jeremy Hunt pocketed £366,000 last year from his outside business interests, it emerged yesterday.
The millionaire Health Secretary received the bumper payout from the publishing firm Hotcourses, which he helped set up before entering Parliament.
The payments include a £285,000 dividend and £81,000 for renting the company a building it used as its headquarters.
The cash is on top of his Cabinet minister’s salary of £134,565, which took his income last year to more than £500,000.
An aide last night stressed that Mr Hunt has not been involved in running the firm since 2009.
‘He is a shareholder and is paid a dividend but he has no control over how much he is paid,’ she added.
‘It is not a second job and it does not impact on his job in any way – it is just a shareholding like someone owning shares in BT.’
Nevertheless the scale of the payments may raise eyebrows among low paid Health Service workers who are suffering a Government-imposed pay freeze.

 

Mr Hunt, 45, who is married to a Chinese woman, has previously courted controversy by charging the taxpayer for lessons in mandarin. The lessons, which he has been taking since 2009, when he got married, have cost more than £3,000 to date.
Mr Hunt, who was appointed Health Secretary in last month’s Government reshuffle, has also faced criticism for heading off on a two-week holiday less than a fortnight into his new job.

Mr Hunt was appointed to turn round the Tories' reputation on health which was damaged by his predecessor Andrew Lansley (pictured)

The latest revelations will shine a fresh light on Hotcourses, the firm co-founded by Mr Hunt in 1996. The company produces a number of websites enabling people to locate the right course.
It has a string of public sector clients, including the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, the Skills Funding Agency, the Higher Education Funding Council and the British Council.
The company’s accounts, made public this week, show its overall dividend payment of £586,000 for 2011 was sharply down on the £1.8million paid out in 2010, the year before the 50p top tax rate was introduced. The company blamed the recession for a 12 per cent fall in profits.
In a jibe at Mr Hunt’s recent  holiday, Jamie Reed, a Labour health  spokesman, said: ‘With all these outside interests it’s little wonder we haven’t seen or heard from him.
‘We’ve got a silent, invisible Health Secretary earning large sums as nurses are sacked and services are rationed.’
Mr Hunt was appointed by David Cameron to turn round the Tories’ reputation on health, which had been badly damaged by the row over reforms imposed by his predecessor Andrew Lansley.
He is credited with delivering a successful Olympic Games in his previous role as Culture Secretary.

Mr Hunt was praised for helping to deliver a successful Olympic Games in his previous role as Culture Secretary

But in the spring he faced fierce criticism following revelations about his cosy relationship with Rupert Murdoch’s media empire while he was overseeing its failed attempt to buy the part of BSkyB it does not own.
Mr Hunt’s aides stressed that h