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Health Bill

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his reply. I appreciate his efforts to set out the Government’s thinking in this area. I am disappointed that he is not persuaded by my argument. The noble Lord is right that, in many cases, over-the-counter medicines form a relatively small element of a typical pharmacy’s turnover, but they can make a critical difference to the viability of a business. That is the concern of many pharmacies. He is right that accessibility is important, as, indeed, is affordability, but OTC medicines are commonly thought of as a distress purchase. They are not, in general, price sensitive. I do not feel that the Minister dealt properly with one or two of the points that I tried to make; notably, that it is improperly intrusive for the NHS to seek to manipulate prices of goods in a private market, outside its own jurisdiction. I am not sure how this process will be made sufficiently fair and transparent to avoid lengthy and costly challenges. Equally, I do not think that the Minister convinced me on the difficulty of monitoring retail prices against the terms of a winning bid. I see huge scope for problems in trying to do that fairly. Nor did I feel that he dealt satisfactory with the weak position of the smaller supplier relative to the much stronger commercial muscle enjoyed by supermarket chains. So I am still not convinced and I am still concerned. However, I do not think that much purpose would be served by dividing the House on such an issue. If the Government are firm in their view, perhaps they will agree after a suitable period to review how the clause is implemented in practice. I shall not suggest to the Minister what that interval should be—he might think a couple of years. At that stage, consultation with interested parties would show whether there are problems of the kind that I have envisaged. Will the Minister agree to look at this idea before Third Reading and write to me about it?