Trade Bill

Kate Osborne Excerpts

Report stage & 3rd reading & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Monday 20th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. After the next speaker, the time limit on Back-Bench speeches will be three minutes. That does not apply to Kate Osborne, who has four minutes.

[Kate Osborne (Jarrow) (Lab)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Ahead of today’s debate, and like my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham (Mary Kelly Foy), I received hundreds of emails from constituents asking me to ensure that the NHS is kept off the table in any trade negotiations. I share their concerns. We know that the United States and Donald Trump expect a trade deal very much on their own terms. We also know that for the President of the United States the interests of corporate America come first and that he will demand that the NHS pays higher prices for US drugs in a trade deal with the UK.

Over 60% of my constituency of Jarrow voted in favour of leaving the European Union in 2016, but they did not expect it to lead to our NHS being controlled from outside the UK. Over the past few months, the NHS has coped tremendously throughout the peak of the coronavirus pandemic, even though it has not been properly funded for years—over 10 years—owing to the Government’s unnecessary and unwelcome programme of austerity. The coronavirus pandemic has demonstrated the importance of healthcare being accessible to all. However, as the Bill currently stands, it gives no protection to our NHS. We know that our NHS has already been turned into a market, making services vulnerable to being included in the deal unless they are clearly and comprehensively excluded. I can see no evidence so far that the Government want to ring-fence the NHS and keep it out of trade discussions.

The Bill also gives no role for Parliament to review or oversee trade agreements, weakening parliamentary democracy. Those on the Government Benches argue that the UK has taken back control of its trade policy, but do they not find it ironic that, compared with what is being proposed now, there was more parliamentary scrutiny and democratic oversight of trade policy when we were part of the European Union?

We also need to ensure that both public health and social care data relating to UK citizens are protected. Research by Global Justice Now concluded that the United States wants its companies to have unrestricted access to UK data, including NHS health records. The value of that health data is estimated to be about £10 billion a year. The Bill in its current form gives free rein to UK data being moved to servers in America. That could mean that the NHS would be unable to analyse its own health data without paying royalties and could find itself buying back, at considerable expense, diagnostic tools, medical technologies and expertise, even when they have been created from freely exported NHS data.

It is not just the NHS that is at risk. The Bill, as it currently stands, says nothing about climate change, human rights or workers’ rights. We need to ensure that any Bill passed protects the employment rights or terms and conditions of employment for public sector employees and those working in publicly funded health or care sectors. Failure to protect our NHS will be yet another broken promise from Boris Johnson that insults us all, but particularly the sacrifices made by our wonderful NHS and care staff. Failing to protect our NHS will mean that instead of a pay rise and a stronger NHS, we will get more US companies profiteering from our ill health. However, it is not too late to put in place strong protections for our NHS, and I call on the Government to commit to protecting our health service so that it cannot be subjected to yet more privatisation through trade deals.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. Members might wonder why I am persistently calling those on the Opposition side of the House and no one on the Government side of the House. I will pre-empt a point of order by explaining that because of the rigid system that we are currently operating, when someone pulls out of speaking, I have no flexibility to go on to the next person on the other side of the House. Therefore, we will have another speaker from the Opposition—I call Navendu Mishra.