Labour Drops "NHS Is Not For Sale" Wording For Manifesto

The Labour Party's decision not to include the statement “the NHS is not for sale” in its election manifesto, despite the line being in a pre-manifesto offer, has prompted concern on the left.

The manifesto, which party leader Keir Starmer will unveil at a press conference in Manchester on Thursday, omits to say that “the NHS is not for sale” – a phrase included in Labour’s National Policy Forum (NPF) paper last year.

The NPF document said: “Under Labour, the NHS is not for sale. Labour will always protect our NHS as a publicly funded service, free at the point of use, and will secure healthcare for all.”

PoliticsHome understands that the Labour manifesto will instead state that “the NHS will be publicly funded and publicly owned”.

A Labour source told PoliticsHome: “With Labour, the NHS is not for sale. Or to put it another way, the NHS will always be publicly owned and publicly funded with Labour.” 

Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, has publicly said in the past that “the NHS is not for sale”.

However, the decision to omit prompted a concern to be raised in the 'Clause V' manifesto meeting last week and has been received badly from parts of the Labour left. 

Mark Ladbrooke, chair of Labour-affiliated group the Socialist Health Association, told PoliticsHome: “It’s a worrying sign.”

“One of the problems with the way sometimes the NHS is described is that people say the NHS is a system funded by the taxpayer and free at the point of use. But they're not saying who’s actually providing the healthcare and the service,” the SHA chair said.

“This is part of that trend. It doesn’t say whether the NHS is actually providing the service or simply commissioning the service.”

A Momentum spokesperson said: “Like the public, the