Bill Wiggin and Jesse Norman both joined a majority of MP’s that voted against an amendment to the Government’s Trade Bill which intended to protect the NHS and publicly funded health and care services from being controlled from outside the UK.
The amendment was put forward by Caroline Lucas, a Green Party MP, and further supported by Labour leader Keir Starmer, but was voted against by the parliamentary majority of the Conservatives, with the final count 340 to 251.
In addition to protecting the NHS from foreign control, the amendment also contained numerous other measures to protect the NHS, including:
- 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 safety of health and care services
- Regulating the control and pricing of medicines
- Protecting patient data from being sold off
- Protecting the NHS from so-called investor-state dispute settlements (ISDS) – clauses which allow foreign investors to sue national governments for any measures which harm their profits.
