Introducing his revised NHS bill, Lord Owen calls today for transparency from Prime Minister David Cameron over the secret mandate for the EU-US Trade Negotiations which he hopes to boost at the G8 Summit in five weeks time in Northern Ireland.
Sources close to the mandate negotiations say that unlike the CETA (the Canadian EU trade negotiations) that there is at present no plan to exclude arrangements for health care and protection and in particular for the NHS in its different forms in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Because of the intense secrecy surrounding the proceedings it has been so far impossible to obtain any assurances on this crucial issue. The British press so far only cover the trade aspects.
The Prime Minister writing in the Wall Street Journal on Monday made no mention of health nor the alarming prospect of investment protection being extended to the whole raft of private health contracts in the UK that American health care companies and consultancies expect to be awarded to them in the next few years.
Such protection could have the effect of health contracts
being virtually retained in perpetuity with no democratic right for an incoming
government to discontinue the contracts once their term had expired without
being able to prove gross negligence and risking very heavy compensation
payments. Ominously, the Prime Minister suggested that “everything must be on the table” in the negotiations.
The Prime Minister in his WSJ article actually had the gall to lecture about ‘transparency’,
saying ‘It is to the shame of the whole world that a lack of transparency’ over
the illicit diamond trade had such effects. What about the appalling effects of
the lack of transparency on our NHS? There is a conspiracy of silence about
this matter and about the extent to which EU legislation is challenging the
philosophy and principles of the NHS that cannot be allowed to continue.
It is why I have today presented a short Bill for the reinstatement of the
English NHS. Amongst other important matters, Clause 9 follows the spirit of
section six of the European Assembly Elections Act 1978 which provides that any
increase in the powers of the European Parliament can only be ratified or
agreed to by UK Ministers in
Brussels if
there has been prior approval by an Act of Parliament. The Clause would make it
impossible for example in the pending US-EU Trade Negotiations for any
provisions to be agreed by UK Ministers affecting NHS provision without the UK Parliament or the relevant
devolved legislature giving its approval prior to any agreement on or Treaty
signature.
This Clause will be a matter on which candidates from all parties in the June
2014 European Elections will be asked for their views, including UKIP.
A fuller account of the changes to the Reinstatement bill can be read here, and the revised bill itself, with explanatory notes, can be read here.