THERE has been one piece of major news this week, which seems to have been missed by many people. On Monday night, Tory MPs voted to have no Parliamentary oversight over post-Brexit trade deals, including that with the USA and voted not to exclude the NHS from these deals.

It seems only yesterday that people were standing outside their houses clapping for the NHS on Thursday evenings and everybody was saying just how much they loved the NHS and the work that was being done to combat Covid-19.

And yet now, we see just how much danger there is that large chunks of the NHS will be sold off to American pharmaceutical companies. A December 2019 poll conducted by Gallup found that 25 per cent of Americans say that either they or a family member have delayed medical treatment for a serious illness due to the costs of care, and an additional eight per cent report delaying medical treatment for less serious illnesses. A Gallup poll for the previous month found that 13 per cent of Americans said they knew someone who had died after they couldn’t afford health care. Is that what we want here?

Peter Sagar, Newcastle.