Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership — House of Commons, 2015-12-10
Topic: Health
Robert Edward Jenrick (Conservative, Centre-right): I will come on to that now, because there are a few specific points I want to make, some of which have already been raised by other Members. One is about healthcare. This has been a political football on both sides of the House for far too long. As my hon. Friend the Member for Aberconwy said, the Health Committee wrote to the negotiators and received an incredibly comprehensive reply, which I would recommend to any Member. I have sent it to every constituent who has written to me about TTIP. I am not a friend of the EU—I am a Eurosceptic—so it is unusual for me to say that this is one of the most straightforward, comprehensive, honest answers I have ever seen from a European bureaucrat. I say this to other Members: "Please, if you haven’t read this, read it and send it to your constituents, because it does more to debunk the myths than anything else I have seen on this debate." I will not rehash it, but I think it is incumbent on every Member of this House to read it and to appreciate how comprehensive it is and that it demolishes all those myths and scaremongering Overall, suppliers are already able to offer hospital services and health-related professional services through a commercial presence in the United Kingdom. The important thing for everyone who engages in the provision of health services and healthcare through companies in this country is that they have to comply with UK standards and regulations in the same way as British healthcare providers do. Those standards will remain under the sovereignty of this country and this Parliament, regardless of TTIP I appreciate that there is genuine concern about ISDS, but again I think it is fairly ill informed. I was a lawyer and the first case I worked on as a trainee solicitor many years ago was for a small British investor that had used a bilateral investment treaty very similar to this one to invest in eastern Europe. This perfectly legitimate UK company had seen its licence revoked illegitimately by that Government, and this small investor was able to use that treaty to get its money back and win justice. This is not about large corporations exploiting the system; it is about all investors around the world, including our own businesses being able to hold other Governments to account and ensure that they do not make arbitrary and poor decisions that negatively affect British companies. As we have heard, ISDS is not a novelty. This is not some new threat that has recently emerged. These clauses have been put into most trade deals for years and years. I have heard the familiar examples of odd cases and inactions around the world, but these clauses have not had the effect that has been described in the media. As we have heard, 3,400 of these clauses have been inserted into trade deals globally. The EU and its members have 1,400 such clauses in various trade deals, and the UK has 94 in our existing bilateral treaties. We have twice been challenged and we have never lost a case under an ISDS What we have done, however—this is an important point that has not been made—is successfully bring claims against other countries. We have had slightly more success in that regard because the point of an ISDS is to underline the value of the total agreement and make sure no individual investor or business can be disadvantaged by another Government or union of Governments breaking the obligations they have entered into and negatively affecting our own businesses and investors, large and small It has been said that these treaties have primarily been used in developing countries, such as in the case I just mentioned, where potentially the legal system was not as good as ours or that of the United States, but of course although the US does have a very good legal system, it is a very expensive legal system where cases can take a long time. I actually think that this would be a very useful device for our small and medium-sized companies Similarly, there are states in the EU—some southern European countries, for instance—where American investors I have met and spoken to over the years would be very reluctant to sail into if they had to rely entirely on taking matters to the legal processes of those states to challenge the bona fide of local officials in respect of whether they were complying with the agreement. On both sides of the Atlantic, although there would be very few cases, I think they would generally be beneficial I was going to talk about transparency, but nobody could have put that point better than my hon. Friend the Member for Aberconwy, and of course a degree of secrecy and confidentiality is important, because the US has very good negotiators in trade talks, and we want our negotiators in the EU, which is in a difficult position being a union of 28 nation states and Governments, to be in the best possible position in these talks, and not simply give everything away. This is one of the more transparent trade deals we have seen, and certainly one of the most transparent the EU has done, and the commissioners are trying to be as forthcoming as possible This free trade deal is, as we have heard from at least some Members, a huge opportunity. The United States is not a threat to us; it is the UK’s single biggest export destination. Some 17% of our exports go there, and it is important for a whole range of our sectors, such as aerospace, as we have heard about, the creative industries, and the luxury goods industry. The UK is a world leader in that, and America is home to more affluent households with disposable incomes of more than $300,000 than any other country. It is a huge market, therefore Only last Friday I visited a business in my constituency that is trying to put hearing loops into the New York metro, but is having to spend thousands of pounds to meet the various and complex regulatory burdens involved.