NHS AND THE NEW EU/US TRADE TREATY

That this House notes that a new EU/US trade treaty is currently under negotiation; further notes that one of the purposes of this treaty will be to open up European public services budgets to capture by national and transnational companies; further notes that the recently enacted Health and Social Care Act 2012 and specifically section 75 of that act has established the legal framework by which such an opening up of the NHS budget for competitive tendering by multinational companies will be pursued; further notes that unless the NHS is specifically excluded under the terms of the treaty with the US, control of key NHS services by foreign and UK companies will become irreversible, no matter what the future will of Parliament, without abrogating that EU/US trade treaty or leaving the EU; believes that the EU/US trade treaty will herald the wholesale privatisation of the NHS and its recasting in the image of the failing US healthcare system unless the NHS is exempted by the treaty; and therefore calls on the Government to demand that the NHS should be explicitly exempted from the terms of the EU/US trade treaty currently being negotiated as part of the text of the treaty.