NHS and Future Trade Deals

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Monday 22nd July 2019 Westminster Hall

[Mike Hill]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point, and I completely agree that the Government need to pay urgent to attention to that.

The Government’s response continued:

“the Government will continue to ensure that decisions on how to run public services are made by UK Governments, including the Devolved Administrations, and not our trade partners.”

It also said:

“Trade agreements do not prevent governments from regulating as they see fit, and they also do not require governments to privatise any services… The Government will ensure that nothing in our future trade agreements dilutes the powers of UK regulators to maintain the NHS’s position as the best health service in the world.”

However, as the petitioner says, words are not enough. By tomorrow, we will have a new Prime Minister; by the end of the week, we will probably have a new Cabinet, a new Secretary of State for Health and Social Care and possibly a new Government position on these matters. Although we hear time and again, from across the Benches, support for the great institution that is the national health service and for its abiding principle of being free at the point of need, those are only words without deeds.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on opening this debate. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) that the Government should repeal section 75 as a matter of urgency, because it if they do not, they will throw the national health service to the dogs. Nobody wants that to happen, particularly with predators such as Donald Trump’s Administration. Does my hon. Friend agree?

[Mike Hill]

I agree that it is truly a case of words, not deeds.

Although people may find it reassuring to hear the current Secretary of State for Health and Social Care say that the NHS is not for sale and will not be on the table in any future trade talks, we cannot take his word for granted. Equally, we cannot ignore the remarks to which he was responding. They were made by the US ambassador to Britain, Woody Johnson, in an interview with the BBC’s Andrew Marr. In that interview, he confirmed that in a trade deal with the United States, the whole economy—including the NHS—would be on the table. The shadow Health Secretary described those comments as “terrifying.” He went on to say:

“The ambassador’s comments…show that a real consequence of a no-deal Brexit, followed by a trade deal with Trump, will be our NHS up for sale.”

Others such as Nigel Farage, the leader of the Brexit party, have advocated a move away from state-funded healthcare to a more Americanised model. In 2014, he told UK Independence party supporters:

“I think we are going to have to think about healthcare very, very differently. I think we are going to have to move to an insurance-based system of healthcare.”

Whatever opinions, promises or pledges are out there, it is clear that if the NHS is not for sale, it must be protected and future-proofed against the outcomes of any trade agreements with the USA and any other nation state. That, simply, is what the petition asks for.