Tory MPs back healthcare tax relief

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Chancellor Alistair Darling said that the findings once again showed the "two faces" of the Conservative Party when it came to healthcare.

But shadow health secretary Andrew Lansley insisted that the Tories were committed to ensuring that people had access to high quality healthcare without the need to take out private insurance.

He acknowledged however that there was a need for a "serious debate" as to how healthcare was best delivered through the NHS.

The poll of 150 MPs, carried out by ComRes for BMI Healthcare, a private hospital group, found that 66% of Tories supported tax relief on standard rate income tax for private medical insurance. In contrast, just 1% of Labour MPs and 5% of the Liberal Democrats backed the idea.

More than half the Conservatives, 55%, favoured the introduction of tax relief on private healthcare fees, compared to only 1% of Labour MPs.

Two thirds of Conservatives, 67%, said that patients should be able to receive treatment part paid for by the NHS and part privately funded, as against 36% of Lib Dems and 14% of Labour MPs.

Views among the parties were however more mixed on the issue of the NHS funding the treatment of patients through private providers in order to bring down waiting time, with 77% of Conservatives, 47% of Labour, and 55% of Lib Dem MPs in favour.

The findings come after David Cameron sought last week to position the Tories as "the party of the NHS", after Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan had attacked it as a "60 year mistake".

Mr Lansley told Sky News's Sunday Live: "We want to arrive at a position where nobody feels they need private medical insurance in order to have access to good quality healthcare." He accepted, however, that there was a "serious debate" as to how that should be achieved.