Delyn's Conservative MP 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.

Rob Roberts MP was among 340 - including Wrexham MP Sarah Atherton - 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, something health leaders have voraciously warned against.

It also 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.