David Cameron moves to head off TTIP rebellion

Downing Street has agreed to sign up to a cross-party move to exclude the NHS from the terms of a controversial EU-US trade deal over TTIP.

The move is aimed at heading off a possible Commons defeat for David Cameron.

Tory rebels were threatening to join forces with Labour and the SNP to force through an amendment to the Queen's Speech to safeguard the health service.

But Downing Street has denied them the chance by saying they will back it.

A Number 10 spokesman said: "As we've said all along, there is no threat to the NHS from TTIP. So if this amendment is selected, we'll accept it."

The Vote Leave campaign immediately branded the move a "humiliating climb down".

Conservative MP and Leave campaigner Steve Baker MP said: "The government has today admitted that the EU is a threat to our NHS. The only way we can protect the NHS from TTIP is if we Vote Leave on 23 June."

The amendment - signed by 25 Tory MPs - expresses regret that the government has not brought forward a bill to protect the NHS from the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) deal, currently being negotiated between the EU and the US.

Although it would have been a purely symbolic vote, no government has suffered a defeat on a Queen's Speech, which sets out its legislative programme for the year ahead, since 1924.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who has long opposed TTIP, had said he would back the Conservative rebels.

It is understood the SNP and other minority parties were also likely to support the amendment.

'Completely protected'

Sources in the Vote Leave campaign predicted the government would face defeat unless it backed down.

The BBC's assistant political editor, Norman Smith, said such a result would have been a humiliation for Mr Cameron after he was also forced to back down over reforms to disability benefits in the Budget.

Conservative former minister Peter Lilley, who supported the amendment, said that although he supports free trade, TTIP would introduce "special courts which are not necessary for free trade, will give American multinationals the right to sue our government (but not vice versa) and could put our NHS at risk".