Our challenge is to grasp that this new generation of free trade treaties is that mainly they are not about trade – many of our member’s jobs rely on trade – we are not anti-trade… they are about de-regulation.
We welcome the commitment in the NPF Report to ensure the exclusion of the NHS from TTIP and conference – we call on Cameron to use his veto to defend our NHS from irreversible privatisation.
 He won’t – TTIP is the Health and Social Care Act on steroids and will finish his wholesale sell off of our NHS.
 There needs to be a wider definition of public services that includes public transport and public utilities that were formally in the public sector.
 We certainly need a robust rejection of the Investor State Dispute Settlement – ISDS.
ISDS – secret courts outside the control of our national judiciary handing down decisions on our national legislation for the benefit of multinational capital.
 Alarmist rhetoric? Here a few examples:
Australia being sued by Philp Morris after introducing plain paper packaging for cigarettes
Slovakia – sued by multi-national insurers after taking back into the public sector its previously privatised public insurance scheme
 El Salvador – sued by a multinational gold miner for trying to protect the purity of its drinking water.
Imagine our NHS sold off – cancer care, safeguarding children, A&E – sold off irreversibly – it’s future in the hands of these secret courts.
 But good news for the Vegetarian Society.
On food standards the US want us to allow their unlabelled hormone enriched beef, chlorinated poultry and GM cereals and salmon onto our dinner plates.
 On labour rights the US has not and will not sign up to ILO core conventions …and right wing Republican senators have said they will block the inclusion of Euro-style rights on worker consultation and health and safety.
 And finally, on the promise of jobs even the most ardent promoters of TTIP admit the estimates are speculative.
 The NPF Report is a start but there is more, much more to be done to address our concerns – concerns that led the recent TUC Congress to unanimously oppose TTIP.
Gail Cartmail debating TTIP on BBC Radio 4. 1:10 into the programme
