Newcastle North MP, Catherine McKinnell, has today backed a Private Member’s Bill in the House of Commons that will repeal the Coalition’s competition rules that are driving NHS privatisation at the expense of patient care.
Introduced by Labour MP Clive Efford, the National Health Service (Amended Duties and Powers) Bill would set tough controls on privatisation, scrap competition frameworks and make sure local patients are always put first.
The current Government has forced hospitals to open themselves up to a privatisation agenda, which prioritises spending on competition lawyers and tendering exercises, instead of on frontline patient care.
The Bill backed by Catherine today would rewrite the rules that force market tendering of services, by scrapping the ‘Section 75 regulations’, and ensure the NHS returns to a system based on collaboration and integration. It would also restore the legal duty of the Secretary of State for Health to provide National Health Services, and remove the role of Monitor as an economic regulator enforcing competition in the NHS.
Critically, the Bill specifically protects the NHS from the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) – a new trade deal under negotiation between the EU and US – which threatens to allow private companies to use the courts to force the wholesale privatisation of our health service.
MPs voted to give the Bill a Second Reading in the Commons today (21st November), by 241 votes to 18.
Catherine said:
‘The future of our NHS is one of the single most important issues for the overwhelming majority of my constituents – and hundreds have been in touch with me asking me to back this Bill.
‘Many people across Newcastle North are appalled by the Coalition’s approach to the NHS – letting private companies cherry-pick the most profitable NHS services, regardless of patient need, and spending more money on economic regulators and competition lawyers.
‘It’s time to focus on what matters to most people – prioritising patient care, not profits – and that’s why I was delighted to back this Bill today.’