Shadow Secretary For International Trade Reveals Details Of Trump's NHS Deal

4 November 2019, 20:12 | Updated: 4 November 2019, 20:14

The Shadow Secretary of State for International Trade reveals the trade deal the US wants with the NHS, despite President Trump telling LBC his government has no desire to interfere with the UK health service.

Gardiner said the "problem at the heart of the NHS" is the Health and Social Care Act as "it puts competition rather than cooperation at the heart of the service."

The Labour MP said in front of him was a copy of the US trade representative's negotiations - "they make it quite clear that our NHS is in their sights in terms of those trade agreements in a number of ways."

He continued: "So in the first instance, they've said that they would want to stop NICE, our National Institute for Clinical Excellence, being able to say that some drugs are not cost effective.

"And they would want to be able to have what they call full market access for all American drugs. And that would mean that we could not rule out drugs on the basis of cost effectiveness."

"The other thing that they've said is that they would want intellectual property rights reflecting a standard similar to that found in US law.

President Trump said he had no interest interfering in the NHS. Picture: PA

"That of course means that instead of us being able to use generic drugs, which are much much cheaper when the IP rights have expired, what would happen is we might be bound in for 20 years rather than eight years to using the much more expensive drugs that they want us to purchase."

Iain Dale pointed out that the government said they wouldn't allow any of this.

"it's very difficult in a trade agreement not to be offering something in return for what you want," said Gardiner and despite President Trump telling Nigel Farage he had no interest in the UK health service last week, Gardiner stated that "what I have in front of me is actually the negotiating objective of the United States."

Iain understood why Gardiner would raise this issue in the Labour campaign but challenged that NHS chief Chris Hopson "warned all political parties not to use the NHS as a political weapon in the election campaign - because that's kind of precisely what you're doing at the moment, isn't it?"

The Labour MP said he agreed with Chris Hopson and said "we shouldn't be trying to use it as a political football."