My Lords, I am sure noble Lords remember that when they first entered your Lordships’ House, they would occasionally find it hard to remember how to get from A to B. There have been times during this debate, echoing the words of my noble friend Lord Lansley, when I thought perhaps I had wandered into the wrong Committee Room by mistake, because a lot of what we have discussed—in what has been a most stimulating debate—did not seem to relate to the purpose of the Bill, which is the rollover of continuity trade agreements. Leaving that to one side, I turn first to the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Bassam of Brighton, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, which would mean that the Clause 2 power could not be used to implement agreements that restrict the delivery of public services through public monopolies, exclusive rights or nationalisation.
As noble Lords know, we need the powers in the Bill to ensure continuity of trading relationships with existing partners. To date—I say yet again—we have signed 20 agreements with 48 countries, accounting, I am pleased to say, for £110 billion of trade in 2018 numbers. I can confirm that none of these signed agreements have impacted our ability to deliver public services effectively. We have always protected our right to choose how we deliver public services in trade agreements and will continue to do so. No trade agreement has ever affected our ability to keep public services public and that will not change. I am happy to give the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, a complete reassurance on that. I also reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, that we will not do anything that impugns the democratic control of these matters.
Noble Lords will observe from our record of signed agreements that the continuity programme is seeking to preserve current trading relationships, not alter the way in which our public services are designed or delivered. If this is not an unparliamentary term, I think it is a red herring to suggest otherwise.
Amendment 51, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, the noble Lords, Lord Patel and Lord Fox, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, seeks to stipulate that regulations can be made using Clause 2 of the Trade Bill only if the agreement does not undermine the way in which the NHS is delivered as a public good, universal and free at the point of service.
No one listening to the debate could be in any doubt of the important place that the NHS has in the nation’s heart. I am pleased to put on record that I and the Government share the sentiment behind the noble Baroness’s amendment. We have been consistently clear about our commitment to the guiding principles of the NHS: that it is universal and free at the point of need. I tell the Committee the same thing that my colleague, the Minister for Trade Policy, told the other place, that
“the NHS is not and never will be for sale to the private sector, whether overseas or domestic.”—[Official Report, Commons, Trade Bill Committee, 25/6/20; col. 315.]
The Government will ensure that no trade agreements will affect our ability to keep public services public.
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I was interested to hear the noble Lord, Lord Patel, refer to various private contractors and how they are used by the NHS, but I was encouraged by the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, acknowledging that these contractors can play a valuable role, at times, in patient care. Any decisions about the use of commercial companies in the NHS are for the NHS, and the NHS alone, to take in the interests of the NHS and patients. That in no way amounts to a privatisation of the NHS in any form. I can say categorically to the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, that no FTA is a back-door route to the privatisation of the NHS. No FTA can trade away National Health Service data. These points are therefore not relevant to what we are debating today.
I understand noble Lords’ concerns over the NHS and its place in our trade agreements. The Government were elected on a manifesto that contained the promise that the NHS will not be on the table when we are negotiating trade deals. As I have said, the NHS will remain a universal service, free at the point of use. The NHS is always protected through a range of exceptions, exclusions and reservations in trade agreements. Although our ambitious programme of new trade agreements is not in scope of this Bill, of course, as my noble friend Lord Lansley has emphasised, the Government will ensure that the very same protections are included which safeguard the National Health Service.
Our negotiating objectives for FTAs with the USA, Australia and New Zealand confirm that we will not be negotiating any agreement which threatens the NHS. For example, in the US mandate, we have said we will protect the right to regulate services, including the NHS; and we will continue to ensure that decisions on how we run public services are made by the Government, not by trading partners.
We have heard various noble Lords express concerns about what the United States might wish to do. The noble Lord, Lord Bassam, said that privatising the NHS is a negotiating objective of the United States. If it is, I wish it good luck with that, because it will not succeed. It is not in our negotiating mandate. Of course, in a negotiation, other partners are free to express whatever aspirations they may have, but there is a world of difference between the other party expressing what it might want and what it might get. I echo the words of my noble friend Lady Noakes: there is some scaremongering going on here. We have heard noble Lords frequently quote what goes on in the health
services of the United States, which of course are so different from ours. They quote what the United States might wish to do with our National Health Service but I say plainly: it ain’t going to happen, because our mandate specifically excludes it.
I turn to Amendment 75. When we are negotiating trade deals, the price that the NHS pays for medicines will not be on the table. The sustainability of the NHS is an absolute priority for the Government and we are clear that, in any negotiations on future trade agreements, we could not—and will not—agree to any proposals on medicines pricing or access that would put NHS finances at risk or reduce clinician and patient choice.
A number of noble Lords have raised the topic of generic medicines. That is an important topic but, in order to ensure that noble Lords get a full answer, I will write to them on it, if I may.
The UK has a world-leading intellectual property regime, which achieves an effective balance between rewarding research and innovation and reflecting wider public interests, such as ensuring access to medicines. I will answer a question that the noble Lord, Lord Fox, asked: the UK remains committed to the Doha declaration on public health, the TRIPS Agreement and the agreed flexibilities that support access to medicines, particularly during public health emergencies in developing countries and the least developed countries. We will ensure that our future trade deals respect and do not contravene the Doha declaration. This commitment has been included in all our negotiating objectives with FTA partners. If the noble Lord, Lord Fox, feels that I have not fully answered him on that point, I would of course be happy to discuss it further outside this session.
Intellectual property rights exist to provide incentives to create and commercialise new inventions, such as life-changing vaccines. Thank goodness that our pharmaceutical companies, which have often been referred to as creatures of evil during this debate, are doing their work on developing life-changing vaccines. The UK believes that a robust and fair intellectual property system is a key part of the innovation framework that allows economies to grow while enabling society to benefit from knowledge and ideas.
We have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, and the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, that the ISDS may prevent renationalisation of the privatised parts of the National Health Service. We will come to this in much more detail in a later group but, for now, I just say that the Government are clear that investment protections and ISDS will never force the privatisation of public services or jeopardise essential NHS provisions. ISDS claims can only lead to compensation when the tribunal finds that treaty commitments or obligations have been breached. It cannot force a state to change its law. Therefore, to be absolutely clear, ISDS will not oblige the Government to open the NHS to further competition, and overseas companies will not be able to take legal action to force us to do so. Of course, the Bill cannot be used to implement an FTA with the US, but, in a US FTA, ISDS will not force privatisation of the NHS.
The noble Lord, Lord Bassam, and the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, asked about parliamentary scrutiny, and I am sure we will be spending a long time on that in a future session. However, the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, made a point about Parliament having an appropriate role in the scrutiny of trade agreements. With all humility, I wish to correct the noble Lord: Parliament does have the statutory power to block the ratification of trade agreements under the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010. Specifically, in the case of the other place, it can prevent the ratification of a treaty indefinitely.
I come to my conclusion and reiterate that the sustainability of the NHS is an absolute priority for the Government. That is why we are clear that, in any negotiations on future trade agreements, we could not, would not and will not agree to any proposals on medicines pricing or access that would put NHS finances at risk or reduce clinician and patient choice. These are red lines for us, and I absolutely reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, on this point. I therefore ask that the amendments in this group be withdrawn.