Trade Deals and the NHS Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for International Trade
Richard Graham
Main Page: Richard Graham (Conservative - Gloucester)Department Debates - View all Richard Graham's debates with the Department for International Trade
(4 years ago)
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Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I congratulate the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Martyn Day) on introducing the petition to us. I also thank my hon. Friends for their excellent speeches. We heard from my hon. Friends the Members for Birkenhead (Mick Whitley), for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West) and for Luton South (Rachel Hopkins).
The petition is about omitting the NHS from future trade deals with the US. The concerns raised by the petitioners would be relatively easily dealt with were the Minister, in a few minutes’ time, to commit not just to what he has said before about the NHS being off the table, but to putting protections in the Trade Bill—to passing in the House of Lords the amendments that were turned down in this place and retaining them when the Bill comes back here in the next few days or weeks. That would be the simplest way of dealing with what the petitioners are asking for.
The petitioners are concerned about the American healthcare system, the size and scale of the industry in America, the fact that it accounts for one in eight jobs in the United States, its importance to the US economy and its importance to shareholders. Those US healthcare companies have a responsibility to maximise shareholder wealth—as do all companies, of course—so they are only doing what they must do, and that means looking further afield. It means looking with great interest at the national health service. We know that they do that, did it and will continue to do it—for the next few days anyway, with the support of the Trump Administration. Yes, it is welcome news that we have President-elect Biden, hopefully, to take over—court cases notwithstanding —on 20 January, but this petition was signed when President Trump was in office and the petitioners had no way of knowing whether that would change.
The petitioners are concerned about the US objectives published in March. They are concerned about the market access being requested by US negotiators for pharmaceuticals. They are concerned about what that market access means in practice.
Bill Esterson
I will not give way to somebody who has not been here for the whole debate.