The NHS is not for sale

I posted this on Facebook a few minutes ago and wanted to share a copy here too:

Believe it or not, I normally try to keep as much politics as possible off this page, but I've been irked enough to break that rule in this instance.

Before I launch into the long version (below), here's the short one: the NHS is not on the negotiating table for any trade deals. Full stop. The government did not vote to sell it. Anyone who says different is being - at best - economical with the truth and are scaremongering to make a political gain.

Here's the long version:

You may have read that a couple of days ago we passed the Trade Bill in the House of Commons. This is a very helpful piece of legislation that allows us to pave the way for future trade deals with the rest of the world post-Brexit. But it's not a Free Trade Agreement in and of itself. Broadly, it allows us to transition 20 trade deals which we already have with other countries via the EU into UK law.

As is always the case with legislation, anyone can attempt to amend them. Sometimes amendments are welcome additions to the original text (like ending the 'rough sex defence' in the recent Domestic Abuse Bill - an amendment that was adopted by the government). Other times they are poorly thought out or, even worse, are just there to score political points.

Tabling ropey amendments which are not relevant to the purpose of a piece of legislation and forcing the Government to vote them down is a standard opposition parliamentary tactic. It might make the other side look like they're evil, but it's poor politics and erodes trust even further for a very small gain.

And so, that's what happened on Monday night. We voted down an amendment which had one purpose - to create a political football.

It has been claimed by the Labour Party that by voting down an amendment to the Trade Bill, the government has in effect agreed to sell off the NHS to the US. The truth couldn't be further from this.

So you have it, here's the relevant text from the Bill itself:

Regulations under subsection (1) may make provision for the purpose of implementing a free trade agreement only if the other signatory (or each other signatory) and the European Union were signatories to a free trade agreement immediately before exit day.

To normal people who don't read legislation every day, that means that the bill only refers to existing EU trade agreements. So, the US is explicitly not included in this piece of legislation. This should be the proof you need to see that Labour's claims about selling the NHS off the Donald Trump are complete lies.

So why not vote for the amendment anyway, you might well ask?Well, there are a few reasons:

First, this amendment doesn't fit here and won't work. It is the equivalent of trying to add a seatbelt regulation to a law allowing electric scooters on roads. We can all agree that seatbelts are a good thing and save lives, but that doesn't mean that the good intention is compatible with using scooters. Far better to apply it to a law on cars.

Second, the government has been clear in quite a few places that the NHS is off the table when it comes to future negotiations.

Here's a list:

• in our Manifesto, which every member of the governing party was elected on ("When we are negotiating trade deals, the NHS will not be on the table. The price the NHS pays for drugs will not be on the table. The services the NHS provides will not be on the table");

• in bilateral meetings with the US (recorded for all the world to see), where the Prime Minister is on the record saying that "when we do a free trade deal, we must make sure that the NHS is not on the table" and "we will do everything to increase free trade, but the National Health Service is not on the table as far as our negotiations go";

• in the Department for International Trade's statement on a US/UK Free Trade agreement: "The NHS will never be privatised, and any future trade agreements will not change that", and

• in the stated objectives for further free trade agreements where we say, amongst other things, that the NHS is not for sale, nor is medicine pricing.

For many people that might be enough, but here's another reason - and this is the key one:

• Parliament has the right to scrutinise and block any trade treaty from being ratified. Free Trade Agreements cannot change UK law. So, in the event that an FTA with Japan, India, the US, or anywhere else in the world means that we have to change our own laws to implement it, Parliament has the ability to say no.

So Parliament already has the powers which this amendment was calling for. But when you put it like that it's not so easy to score political points.

It's maybe worth saying that the same is true about food and environmental standards. We have been clear that there will be no drop in our standards and that we won't accept chlorinated chicken or hormone-injected beef. It's in our trading rules, it's been stated on the floor of the House of Commons (once following a question by me), and a Trade and Agriculture Commission has been created with people like the NFU sat on it to make sure that this remains the case. But that doesn't stop Labour from shouting about it, worrying people unnecessarily and tabling amendments that serve no purpose but to create division where there isn't any.

The NHS has saved mine and my son's life. It's very special to me, as it is to all of us - something we've all been reminded of daily during the pandemic. I hope you believe me when I say that I will never let it be 'sold off' to the US, or to anyone else.

I made that pledge in hustings during the election, on people's doorsteps after Jeremy Corbyn desperately tried to peddle the idea that the NHS was for sale using documents leaked by the Russian state, and it was explicit in the manifesto - the contract - that I was elected on. I intend to stick to it.

One final thought - in the general election I repeatedly said to people that we needed to take the politics out of the NHS and stop treating it like a football. At one hustings every single representative from the other parties agreed with my comment, from Labour to UKIP to the Greens to the Lib Dems. It's a great shame that agreement hasn't held up now.