Oral Answers to Questions

Grahame Morris Excerpts

Tuesday 25th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

3. What representations he has received on exemption of the NHS from the provisions of the transatlantic trade and investment partnership.

[The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Jeremy Hunt)]

The Government will not allow TTIP negotiations to harm the NHS. Any suggestion to the contrary is both irresponsible and false. I am grateful to the former Labour shadow Health Secretary for confirming that.

[Grahame M. Morris]

That is an interesting answer but, without specific exemption from TTIP, how can the Secretary of State give any reassurance that predatory organisations such as the Hospital Corporation of America, which was prosecuted for fraud in the US, will not use the TTIP provisions to seek contracts in our NHS?

[Mr Hunt]

The best assurance I can give the hon. Gentleman is not what I have said, but what the EU Trade Commissioner, Karel De Gucht—I challenge colleagues in Hansard to spell that correctly without looking at my notes—has said. In an interview in September, he said:

“Public services are always exempted—”

from TTIP—

“there is no problem about exemption. The argument is abused in your country for political reasons but it has no grounds.”