BOB WALTER MP responses to TTIP concerns
Thank you for your recent email regarding the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and the NHS.
There has been a lot of misinformation regarding the impact of TTIP on the National Health Service. Please be assured that I understand that there is no requirement in TTIP for the Government, or future governments, to open NHS healthcare services to further competition and private sector provision. The Government, and the European Commission, have been clear that the right to decide on the provision of public services will – quite rightly – continue to remain with national governments regardless of the progress of TTIP. And there will be no change to the fundamental principle that access to NHS services is based on need, not ability to pay.
In a letter to the Rt Hon Iain Duncan-Smith MP, Jean-Luc Demarty, the European Commission Director General for Trade, has made it very clear that TTIP “would not affect the UK or devolved governments’ sovereignty over how NHS services are provided, whether in Scotland or the rest of the UK”, reiterating that “the net effect of the EU’s approach is that nothing in TTIP will lead to privatisation of the NHS”.
This has been echoed by Cecilia Malmström, the EU Trade Commissioner, who recently stated that ‘public services including health, education & water management, are not on the (TTIP) agenda.’ As the former Trade Commissioner Karel de Gucht told the BBC this is not unusual as “Public services are always exempted – there is no problem about exemption. The argument is abused in your country for political reasons but it has no grounds.”
Additionally, the EU Chief Negotiator, Ignacio Garcia-Bercero, has stated in a letter to Labour MP John Healey, who chairs the All-Party Parliamentary Group on TTIP, that “there is no reason to fear either for the NHS as it stands today, or for changes to the NHS in future, as a result of TTIP”.
You may also find the content of Jean Luc Demarty’s letter to Dr Sarah Wollaston MP, Chair of the House of Commons Health Committee, comforting. It can be found at:
https://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons-committees/Health/Health-Committee-TTIP-correspondence.pdf
I hope you find this information reassuring.
Kind regards,
BOB WALTER
However David Cameron recently confirmed that the NHS is part of the TTIP negotiations. These negotiations are so secret that even our own parliamentarians are not allowed to know their contents and will not have a vote on the final proposals. If Cameron wanted to reassure us that the NHS will not be under threat from TTIP he could easily ask for it to be excluded. The French have done so for their film industry. Why doesn’t David Cameron do that for the NHS?
Pete Starm
