LONDON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 07th November, 2019) A leaked government memo telling Conservative candidates to refrain from signing pledges on protecting the National Health Service (NHS) from privatization and trade pacts is consistent with previous government efforts to privatize its elements, John Puntis, co-chair of Keep Our NHS Public, told Sputnik on Wednesday.
"It should be an embarrassment for them. It's consistent with their recent behaviour in terms of the amendment to the Queen's speech about protecting the NHS in trade deals. The Tories obviously voted against that," he said.
Puntis argued there was a contradiction between what the government professed in public and the policies it was actually seeking to implement, a point that was likely to leave the Tories vulnerable when it came to the contentious issue of a post-Brexit trade deal potentially exposing the health service to foreign companies.
"I think the official line is that they don't want to privatise the NHS but most people see there's been an increasing role for private companies within the NHS. There's recently been talk of legislation to limit the amount of compulsory outsourcing of a lot of contracts and that's been portrayed as an effort to contain privatisation whilst at the same time some other big privatisation deals have gone ahead," he said.
Concerns were raised when US President Donald Trump claimed during a state visit to the UK in July that the NHS would be the subject of future trade talks between London and Washington, saying "when you're dealing in trade, everything's on the table. So NHS or anything else." He later appeared to back down on such remarks, claiming last week that the US was not interested in the UK's health service.
Puntis said that Trump's apparently inconsistent comments were alarming, considering that US business interests were already involved in outsourced elements of the UK's health care system, a point that the UK government may already be seeking to negotiate on in future trade deals.
"The reality is American companies have already got bits of the NHS, so to keep it out of trade deals there would have to be legislation to stop that from happening. So it's no good saying 'we're going to keep it off the table' when there's no action to ensure that happens," he pointed out.
The 11-page briefing note advises Tory candidates not to sign assurances that may otherwise commit politicians to safeguarding the health service from trade deals involving further privatization. The brief cites a "recommended response" for candidates asked to provide written assurances on such matters, stating that to do so would "provide credence to factually incorrect smears" given that the "NHS is not for sale and no trade agreement will change this fact."
The leaked memo goes on to provide "additional political points" to Tory candidates such as stressing the prime minister has "told the US President and Vice President that 'when we do a free trade deal, we must make sure the NHS is not on the table' and 'we will do everything to increase free trade, but the NHS is not on the table as far as our negotiations go'."
Yet the shadow secretary of state for international trade, Barry Gardiner, said on Monday that he had possession of a "summary" of US trade representative's objectives which "make it quite clear that our NHS is in their sights in terms of those trade agreements in a number of ways," particularly in relation to full market access for US drugs and intellectual property rights reflecting a standard similar to that found in US law.
