Dear

As you know, Clive Effords Private Members Bill will be debated in the House of
Commons on 21st November.
It was only published two weeks before the debate, giving little time to work out what it
really says.
But having read it a few times, it is clear to me that it is in need of many amendments - as
well as clarification about the Bills strange manoeuvrings around EU competition law, NHS
contracts and non-NHS contracts.
Clarifications
1) Please will you ask Clive Efford to explain his reasons for simultaneously removing the
NHS from EU competition law, by repealing S 75 of the 2012 Health & Social Care Act.
(Part 3, Section 10); and restoring it to EU competition law, by categorising the NHS as
a Service of General Economic Interest? (Part 1, Section 1, Subsection 2 (b))
2)
Please will you ask Clive Efford why the Bill wants to change the definition of an
NHS contract so that it allows private providers (a person who is not a health service
body) to enter into NHS contracts? (Part 1 Section 6, where the Efford Bill alters Section
9 of the National Health Service Act 2006.)
3)
Please will you ask why the Bill wants to allow commissioners and providers to be
able to enter contracts for the provision of goods or services for the purpose of the
health service, without them being NHS contracts? (Part 1, Section 6, Subsections 19 &
20)
4) And will you also ask if this is in order to allow United Health (or another health
maintenance organisation) to take all the contracts for the privatised Commissioning
Support Units in 2016, in joint venture contracts with the CSUs, without falling foul of the
EU competition law ban on monopoly provision? By virtue of the fact that these would
be non-NHS contracts as permitted in Part 1, Section 6, Subsections 19 & 20.

Amendments
The Efford Bill needs amending so that it:

brings back the Sec of States duty to provide a comprehensive, universal, equitable
health service

categorises the NHS as a non-commercial, non-marketised public service, which,

together with the repeal of S75 of the Health and Social Care Act 2012, would free it from
EU competition law and privatisation and protect it from TTIP
removes the Sec of States power to overrule decisions by NHS commissioners or

providers on the grounds that theyre anti-competitive

replaces the 49% cap on the amount of private income that Trusts & Foundation

Trusts can earn, that the Efford Bill would remove

I look forward to your contribution to the debate on the Efford Bill, hope you will call for the
above clarifications and amendments, and that you will not vote for it without these
clarifications and amendments - or, even better, those amendments called for by Professor
Allysson Pollock in her response to the Efford Bill http://www.nhsbill2015.org/wpcontent/uploads/2014/11/Response-to-the-Efford-Bill-12-Nov-14.pdf
Kind regards