Question

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what recent assessment his Department has made of the potential effect on the NHS of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership.

There is no threat to the UK’s National Health Service from TTIP. This was confirmed again by the European Commission’s chief negotiator Ignacio Garcia Bercero at a meeting organised to the All Party Parliamentary Group on TTIP this week.

The chief negotiator outlined that EU public services are automatically excluded from all EU trade in service market liberalisation agreements. Publicly funded health services are specifically excluded. Member states decide how to deliver their public services and can change the delivery model at any time. TTIP will not change the fact that it is up to UK Government alone to decide how UK public services, including the NHS, are run.