Sajid Javid under pressure over AI shares after promoting NHS use of technology

Labour is demanding an ethics investigation into health secretary Sajid Javid over share options which he holds in a US artificial intelligence company.

Mr Javid holds options worth a total of around £45,000, after working for C3.ai for eight months while out of office between October 2020 and June this year.

In a letter to the prime minister’s ethics adviser Christopher Geidt, Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner said the shares created a potential conflict of interest, because Mr Javid had promoted the use of AI in the NHS.

The health secretary said in September that AI technology could help cut waiting lists in the health service.

And in October he said that artificial intelligence had the potential to be an “incredible force for good” in spending up diagnoses and tackling racial inequalities in the treatment offered by the NHS.