Queen’s Speech

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

Monday 23rd May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I want to focus my remarks on the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Owen, on the relationship of the NHS to the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. I make it clear that I and the Opposition have no problems in principle with TTIP and what it can bring in terms of growth, jobs and delivering potential benefits for employees and employers in the United Kingdom. However, we believe it is crucial that the benefits from trade agreements filter down to employees and employers and particularly that worker rights are protected. Importantly, any final agreement needs to ensure and enshrine the protection of our National Health Service.

I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Owen: there is a real fear that, as TTIP stands, a future Government might be inhibited in choosing how they organise our National Health Service. The problem arises from the investment protection standards to be embraced within TTIP, which are being policed through an investor-state dispute settlement, known as an ISDS. This is an arbitration mechanism that will operate outside domestic courts at the level of international law and with no effective appeal system.

The noble Lord, Lord Owen, quoted from a distinguished legal opinion, the conclusions of which were very telling. A number of other organisations have studied this with great care—thankfully, because without that, as the noble Lord said, we would have had very little parliamentary scrutiny. One example of the analysis that we have received is from the Faculty of Public Health. It has argued that the protections afforded to investors are far stronger than the weak and ambiguous exceptions that TTIP affords to states to make policy in the public interest. In effect, that could mean that every service could be forced to be subject to competition, even if a national Government wanted a different policy. It could also, for instance, bar the NHS from taking back into public control some of the services that have already been outsourced or privatised.

In her introduction to that point, the Minister said that we should not worry: she will accept the noble Lord’s amendment but essentially it is unnecessary because there will be a wide range of protections for the National Health Service. The point that I put to her and the noble Earl, Lord Howe, is that they have to accept that there is very little confidence in the Government’s utterances when it comes to the marketisation of the National Health Service. Only two weeks ago in a debate on a statutory instrument, their colleague, the noble Lord, Lord Prior, said that the Government now see very little room for a competitive market in the NHS. However, the fact is that the Health and Social Care Act 2012 enshrines enforced marketisation in law, backed up by the Section 75 regulations that followed.

We know that, under the Government’s watch, one of the chief proponents of competition—the strategic projects team—was established. This rather shadowy body, somehow within the NHS but not subject to any proper governance rules, allows a steady stream of highly paid consultants to masquerade as NHS insiders. Egged on by Ministers, this team has been centrally involved in numerous pro-privatisation exercises. It has greatly overstated the benefits that the private sector can bring and it has pushed competition as the solution to every problem. Its record is abysmal: from the failure of the franchise at Hinchingbrooke Hospital through similar failures at George Eliot Hospital and at Weston, through failed attempts to outsource pathology services, and, now, to the stalled and expensive procurement failures in Cambridge and Peterborough, Worcestershire and Staffordshire.

That programme has been supported by the Government every step of the way. This record of failure, the waste of millions of pounds, the fragmentation of services and the stress caused to staff and the public is ample evidence of why the Government are not trusted over TTIP and over the assurances they have given. That is why a greater measure of protection for the NHS has to be enshrined in legislation in this country and within the treaty itself. For those reasons, the Official Opposition will be supporting the noble Lord, Lord Owen, in his amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Owen]

My Lords, both Front Benches have accepted the amendment. We are at the start of a debate. Another place has exactly the same amendment down for discussion in a few days. I think it would be churlish to push the issue tonight, but I hope we will start to build a cross-party consensus that the treaty needs substantial changes through the negotiation process.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, I ask the noble Lord to clarify. I assume that he will move the amendment formally.

[Lord Owen]

I was not intending to, but if the noble Lord thinks it is important, I am perfectly prepared to.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, the Government have said that they are prepared to accept his amendment; I respectfully submit that the noble Lord should move it.

[Lord Owen]

I have moved the amendment, and I hope that it does not delay the procedures too long.