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Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Bill

My Lords, I am most grateful to the Minister for saying that these people will, at least, receive free both primary and secondary care. I hope that that will include free prescriptions, since that is an essential element of the care that a general practitioner gives to a patient. He signs a prescription; they take it along to a chemist and, if they have no money, then they must of a class that would be exempted. That would be a useful concession, because one item which they currently have to buy out of their non-existent money is medication. It is a serious matter if you cannot even buy aspirin to take care of yourself and your family. With great respect to the Minister, she has not really addressed the nub of the problems which we all know exist with the voucher scheme. We ought to have known better than to reintroduce it after our prior experience of it. We have heard from the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, and the NGOs who are doubtless advising the department that it is a mistake. However, I can see that we will get no further on Report with cancelling the voucher scheme. I shall have to withdraw my amendment and hope to come back to it at some later stage, if we can exert the kind of pressure which the NGOs believe should be brought to bear on the Government on that issue. Meanwhile, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment No. 40, as an amendment to Amendment No. 39, by leave, withdrawn. Amendment No. 39 agreed to.