Thursday 23 January 2014

US healthcare companies circling the NHS are now “on notice”, says TUC


Speaking after meeting EU Trade Commissioner Karel de Gucht about the forthcoming Transatlantic Trade & Investment Partnership (TTIP) in Davos today (Thursday), TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady said:
“US healthcare companies should know that they have been put on notice. They should not expect the forthcoming EU-US trade deal to protect them from a future British government restoring NHS services currently run by private firms to the public sector.
“The EU Trade Commissioner has assured me that the consultation exercise on foreign investors’ rights will now – as a result of union pressure – include the option of dumping the deeply undemocratic Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) mechanism. I left him in no doubt that unions and their campaign partners will be demanding its removal from the TTIP.
“We must ensure that future governments are not bound to pay unlimited compensation to companies seeking to make a killing from the implementation of the Health and Social Care Act. Democratically elected governments must be free to do what voters decide, and not be frightened off by the prospect of secretive litigation.”

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