Jeremy Hunt 'proud' as he nets £14.4m from business sale

The Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, has pocketed an estimated £14.4m from the sale of a business he helped set up - pledging some of the proceeds to charity.

Confirmation of the sale of Hotcourses came hours after Sky News revealed the looming windfall for Mr Hunt as he fights an increasingly intense political battle over the NHS’s latest winter crisis.

The education course listings service, which employs almost 300 staff, was sold to Australian firm IDP Education (Frankfurt: 30434685.F - news) for £30.1m.

Mr Hunt is understood to have owned 48% of the shares in Hotcourses but had no influence on the running of the 20-year old business since becoming an MP in 2005.

He said today: "I am incredibly proud to have set up a successful business, even prouder of the current Hotcourses team who have taken it from strength to strength, and intend to use a significant proportion of the proceeds to campaign for causes I believe in when I eventually leave frontline politics."

News of the windfall is politically awkward for Mr Hunt on a number of levels - not just amid the row over NHS funding .

He is among Cabinet ministers facing questions about private wealth as PM Theresa May signals a willingness to crack down on excessive corporate pay.

She (Munich: SOQ.MU - news) herself has even been urged to disclose the contents of a blind trust held in her name, which was created when she took office in Downing Street last summer.