WREXHAM'S and Clwyd South's Conservative MPs voted against an amendment to the UK Government's Trade Bill intended to protect the NHS and publicly funded health and care services from any form of control from outside the UK.

MP for Wrexham Sarah Atherton, an ex-nurse, and MP for Clwyd South Simon Baynes were among 340, including Delyn MP Rob Roberts, to vote against the amendment designed to protect the NHS in any future post-Brexit trade deal.

The amendment, which was put forward by Green Party MP Caroline Lucas and supported by Labour leader Keir Starmer and a number of other senior Labour MPs, was voted down by a margin of 340 to 241 thanks to the Tories’ overwhelming parliamentary majority.

The amendment to the bill, if passed, would have protected the following:

  • Ensuring the ability to provide a “comprehensive and publicly funded health service free at the point of delivery” was not compromised by any future trade deal
  • Protecting hard-working NHS staff from having their wages or rights slashed by any future trade deal
  • Protecting the quality and saftey of health and care services

It also leaves the NHS on the table in any future trade deal and marketisation, and means the NHS could be exposed to the Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) system, which allows a company to sue a Government for threatening their profits by imposing barriers to trade.

However, the Conservative Party says the Trade Bill is a continuity Bill, and it cannot be used to implement new free trade agreements with countries such as the US.

Rather, the Trade Bill is designed to enable the free trade agreements that the EU had signed with third countries before the UK exited to be transitioned. The NHS is already protected by specific carve outs, exceptions and reservations in these trade agreements.

Simon Baynes MP said: "I know that my Ministerial colleagues have no intention of lowering standards in transitioned trade agreements – the very purpose of these agreements is to replicate as close as possible the effects of existing commitments in EU agreements. Indeed, I can reassure you that none of the 20 continuity agreements signed have resulted in standards being lowered.

“In future trade agreements the Government has made a clear and absolute commitment that the NHS will not be on the table. Indeed, I note Ministers have made clear they will ensure rigorous protections are included for the NHS in all trade agreements to which the UK is party, whether transitioned from an EU context or as a result of future negotiations.

“Rigorous checks and balances on the Government’s power to negotiate and ratify new agreements also already exist, including through the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010. 

“Moreover, trade agreements cannot by themselves make changes to our domestic law. Any legislative changes required as a result of trade agreements would be subject to the separate scrutiny and approval of Parliament in the usual ways.”

Sarah Atherton MP said: "It has been made clear on numerous occasions that the NHS is not on the table in any free trade agreement to which the UK is involved in.

"I will continue to respect the manifesto upon which I was elected, which clearly stated that “when we are negotiating trade deals, the NHS will not be on the table. The price the NHS pays for drugs will not be on the table. The services the NHS provides will not be on the table".”