Dewsbury’s Tory MP, Mark Eastwood, has said he does not believe the NHS should be protected in the Trade Bill – the law which that will define the framework for every trade deal Britain makes.

The Trade Bill is currently progressing through Parliament – and without amendment it puts the NHS on the table.

The Prime Minister has repeatedly said that the NHS “won’t be on the table” in any future trade deals. Donald Trump has made it clear that everything is on the table and also that he thinks the prices the UK pays for medicines are far too low. (They are currently a fraction of what American patients pay because of the bargaining power of our NHS.)  

The Prime Minister simply cannot deliver on his promise unless amendments are made to the Trade Bill to protect the NHS.  The Trade Bill sets the framework for the negotiation of trade deals and lays down what the UK will and will not accept in a trade deal.

Some Labour Party members, and other local people, have had virtual meetings with Mark Eastwood to ask him to support an amendment to protect the NHS.  He says he supports the NHS and says the Government will stick to its promise to keep the NHS off the table in each individual negotiation.  He doesn’t think an amendment is necessary and he is sticking to that line.  

But he’s wrong.  Without an amendment of the kind put forward by Stewart Hosie (SNP) this week, the NHS is left unprotected in future trade deals.

Mark Eastwood says every trade deal will be scrutinised by the Houses of Parliament and that is the process by which unsatisfactory elements will be put right.  

The reality is that UK trade agreements are entirely negotiated under the Royal Prerogative and the Government is able to decide when and with whom to start negotiations, set its own priorities and objectives, conduct negotiations and conclude and sign the eventual deal.  Neither the public nor civil society are guaranteed a right of input and Parliament does not oversee and scrutinise trade negotiations.

Although Parliament has a right to object at ratification stage, the government can provide an explanation and continue doing that in the face of repeated objections.  In the end, it is not technically possible for Parliament to reject outright a trade agreement if the Government wishes to persist.  And as regards the Prime Minister’s promises, we know how quickly his promise on food standards disappeared in the Agriculture Bill, which will damage the farming community in rural parts of our constituency.

The people of Dewsbury will not forgive Mark Eastwood if he is party to allowing the NHS to be put up for grabs by rapacious US negotiators.

Before the Trade Bill comes back to the Commons for its Third (and final) Reading, before it becomes law, we will be launching a petition calling on Mark Eastwood to protect our NHS.  If you want to protect our NHS from being sold off in a Trumpian trade deal please sign our petition here. 

Here are the aspects of a trade deal that should worry us and against which the NHS is entirely unprotected if the current Trade Bill goes through unamended.

1. US negotiators are likely to insist on “negative listing”.  This means UK negotiators must “list” each and every one of the wide range of public sector institutions and private companies on which our NHS relies, including public health provision, social care and a whole range of privatised services, plus new services and technologies that don’t even exist yet.  Anything they leave out – and progressive privatisation has made this a very complex picture – is “on the table”.  

2.  If those services are run by US firms, or have US shareholders, then the Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) court system could kick in.  This is a dangerous international court system which permits companies to sue Governments if they make changes that harm investors’ profits.  (This happened to the Australians when they tried to curb smoking by introducing plain paper packaging). 

3.  Will UK negotiators be able to stand up to pressure from the US to make us pay more for drugs?  Will they be able to demand cost-effectiveness before approving their use?

4.  NHS patient data is a very valuable commodity. US trade negotiators want US firms to be able to harvest this data freely and sell back products made from it to the NHS, and globally, at premium. International trade deals typically include a provision which insists that data must be able to flow freely across borders.

5. It is clear that US negotiators will be looking to drop safety standards for new drugs and new technology and to enforce the reduction of the numbers, skill levels and pay and conditions of staff to make our NHS more profitable to US firms.