Corbyn demands Johnson takes the NHS off the table in Trump trade talks
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Jeremy Corbyn, Leader of the Labour Party, has written
to Conservative Party leader Boris Johnson to demand the NHS is
taken off the table in trade talks with Donald Trump and lay out
how he must do it. In a letter sent this morning,
Corbyn sets out in detail how the NHS has been on the
table in the secret UK-US trade talks, which he revealed last week.
He goes on to demand as a matter of urgency that the
Conservative leader...Request free
trial
Jeremy Corbyn, Leader of the
Labour Party, has written to Conservative
Party leader Boris Johnson to demand the NHS is taken
off the table in trade talks with Donald Trump and lay out how he
must do it.
In a letter sent this morning, Corbyn sets out in detail how the NHS has been on the table in the secret UK-US trade talks, which he revealed last week. He goes on to demand as a matter of urgency that the Conservative leader shows the NHS is not for sale by:
a) Exclude any reference to pharmaceuticals;
b) Accept the role of the National
Institute for Health and Care Excellence
to set the threshold for the cost-effectiveness of drugs for the
NHS;
c) Explicitly rule out US companies
gaining access to UK public services
through investor-state dispute settlement mechanisms beyond the
reach of UK domestic courts.
Ends
Notes to editors
Full text of the letter:
Dear Boris Johnson,
I am writing to you to about the
protection of the National Health Service and other vital public
services from the impact of a future trade deal with the United
States.
The threat to the NHS from a future
post-Brexit US-UK trade agreement, given the statements made by
both US and British officials and politicians, is of profound
concern to the British public.
Nowhere could this be clearer than
in the cost of medicines to the NHS. The cost of patented drugs
in the USA is approximately 2.5 times higher than in the UK, and
the price of the top 20 medicines is 4.8 times higher than in the
UK.
Your proposed trade deal with the
US clearly threatens to drive up the cost at which our NHS buys
drugs, which could drain £500 million a week from our health
service.
While you have claimed that NHS
medicines procurement is ‘not on the table’ in UK-US trade talks,
that claim has now been shown to be false. The evidence is clear
that you have misled the public.
Last week I revealed the leaked
readouts from six secret meetings of the UK-US Trade and
Investment Working Group held over the past two
years.
The fourth round of UK-US meetings
included a three-hour session dedicated solely to patents and
pharmaceuticals, during which British government officials
presented a full explanation of the operation of the patent
system in relation to pharmaceuticals and
the NHS.
It does not take three hours to say
“not for sale”. That is because the evidence is clear: our NHS
and public health services are up for sale. But you and your
fellow Conservative leaders do not want the public to know that
will be the price of a US trade deal.
President Donald Trump and his
administration have made no secret of the fact that they intend
to use a future trade deal with the UK to drive up the cost at
which the NHS buys drugs.
In February this year, the Office
of the US Trade Representative published its negotiating
objectives for a US-UK trade deal. In the section on ‘Procedural
Fairness for Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices’, they call for
“full market access for US products”.
President Trump has previously
accused foreign governments of extorting
“unreasonably low prices” from US pharmaceutical firms, and has
directed his senior trade negotiator to make the issue “a top
priority with every trading partner”.
In addition, the US Health and
Human Services Secretary, Alex Azar, has
said the US needs to get foreign countries to pay more for
prescription drugs through trade agreements. The White House has
called for a global crackdown on ‘foreign freeloading’ on drug
prices.
Following the three hour session in
the fourth round of the secret talks, the British official
leading the discussions concluded: “We have reached a point (for
Patents in Pharmaceuticals / Health) where... we are awaiting the
clearance to negotiate and exchange
text to really take significant further
steps.”
By their own admission, UK
government officials are poised to draft a trade agreement that
could lead to a massive increase in the cost of pharmaceuticals
to the NHS.
In addition, there is mounting
concern that the NHS could be opened up to irreversible
privatisation as a result of the UK-US trade talks.
The Health and Social Care Act 2012
expanded the delivery of NHS services through the private sector,
with an increase in the number of contracts awarded to private
healthcare providers. Despite your claim there would be ‘no
privatisation’ of the NHS,
privatisation has in fact doubled
during the last decade of Conservative rule, and two thirds of
NHS contracts since 2015 have gone to the private
sector.
The increased privatisation of NHS
services delivery will be permanently locked in through the
inclusion of health services in a UK-US trade deal.
Throughout the six rounds of secret
meetings to date, US officials have repeatedly emphasised that
all service sectors are on the table for
negotiation.
During the third round, for
instance, the record shows that the US is pressing for an
approach that makes “total market access the baseline assumption
of the trade negotiations and requires countries to identify
exclusions, not the other way around”.
In other words, if we don’t say
it’s not for sale, it’s for sale. While the US side has issued a
blanket ban on any mention of climate change or greenhouse gases
in a future UK-US trade agreement, UK negotiators have at no
point suggested that they wish to
exclude the healthcare sector from the
talks.
To assure the British public that
the NHS will not be up for sale in any future trade agreement, I
call on you as a matter of urgency to confirm that you
will:
End NHS privatisation so that all
services are delivered in-house and subsidiary companies are
brought back in-house;
Repeal the Health and Social Care
Act, reinstating the responsibility of the Secretary of State to
provide a comprehensive and universal health service;
Discontinue UK-US trade talks until
President Trump has amended the US negotiating objectives
to:
a) Exclude any reference to pharmaceuticals;
b) Accept the role of the National
Institute for Health and Care Excellence
to set the threshold for the cost-effectiveness of drugs for the
NHS;
c) Explicitly rule out US companies
gaining access to UK public services
through investor-state dispute settlement mechanisms beyond the
reach of UK domestic courts.
With polling day fast approaching,
full transparency about the threat to the future of our NHS is
vital.
The public need to know that all
aspects of our health service are genuinely off the table in any
UK-US trade talks, and that no part of the NHS or our health
system will be up for sale.
I look forward to receiving your
clarification.
Yours sincerely,
Leader of the Labour Party
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