NHS: US Companies

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Thursday 22nd March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

My noble friend is right. The main point to make is that the same strong safeguards as we have now will be in place once we leave the EU. These include: that all providers of NHS healthcare in the UK must meet our standards of safety and quality; that staff must be registered with UK regulatory bodies; that decisions on which services to provide are locally led by clinicians; and that NHS hospitals will remain state owned.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

Does the Minister accept that there is a considerable lack of transparency in the discussions taking place in the US-UK trade working group currently under way? If the group had been set up under the aegis of the European trade rules there would have been a scoping exercise about the breadth of the discussions, which would have been published, and the Commission and the Council would have sought a mandate from the European Parliament. Is it not unacceptable that Britain’s representatives in the European Parliament would have a greater degree of oversight over any discussions than its representatives in this Parliament would? That is perhaps why, under TTIP, access to the National Health Service was indeed excluded.

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

The noble Lord raised the question of transparency. Perhaps I may point out to him that, as we set out in the White Paper Preparing for our Future UK Trade Policy, we are committed to a transparent and inclusive trade policy. So it is there in writing, and the noble Lord should be reassured.