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Health Bill

My Lords, at first sight I too found this an attractive amendment. One of the problems that we have encountered over many years in the National Health Service is that patients have had little information or understanding of the cost of many of the procedures to which they are subjected, not least in relation to the cost of drugs that they receive. At the same time I share some of the anxieties expressed by my noble friend Lady Finlay about the amendment. It seems to me that the Minister might consider the possibility that at the right moment a limited pilot study of the effects of something similar might be well worth carrying out in order to inform the public and to inform government policy at some time in the future.