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Showing 27 of 2,354,908 contributions. Latest 30 days: 0. Coverage: 12 May 1999 — 25 Mar 2026.

Mr McAllion: Lab Committee

Retail Pharmacies<br />(Office of Fair Trading Report)

I can think of monopolies, or near-monopolies, in all sectors of the economy, with huge multinationals and national chains predominating and small retail outlets getting knocked out of the picture. If we listened to you, why would not that happen in this case?

The Convener: Lab Committee

The first point of the suggested action proposes that we should ask for clarification on the areas of legislation that relate to the sale of lighter fuel, so there is a focus on lighter fuel in our suggested action. When we ask the minister to comment on the proposal that the ...

Mr McAllion: Lab Committee

Retail Pharmacies (Report)

I, too, have been lobbied, but not on a train.There are local pharmacies in cities, so the issue is important not just for rural areas but for the survival of many local pharmacies in towns. They, too, are concerned.The clerk's note says that it is for Scottish ministers to de...

Mr McAllion: Lab Committee

Retail Pharmacies (Report)

We cannot just let the matter slip through. We need a briefing about the full implications of such a statutory instrument so that we know what we are voting on. Would it be possible for us to block such a statutory instrument?

Mr John McAllion (Dundee East) (Lab): Lab Committee

Retail Pharmacies

I will try to make Bill Butler even happier by pushing the issue further.The control of entry regulations were introduced in 1987 as a means of planning the provision of pharmaceutical services to make them match the needs of defined communities. The OFT report recommends scra...

Mr McAllion: Lab Committee

Retail Pharmacies

Is that the planned approach or the free market approach?

Mr McAllion: Lab Committee

Retail Pharmacies

If there is a third way, it would be worse than the free market approach.

Mr McAllion: Lab Committee

Retail Pharmacies

It has been a long time since that happened.

Mr John McAllion (Dundee East) (Lab): Lab Committee

Retail Pharmacies<br />(Office of Fair Trading Report)

You admitted that your director general and the DTI have driven the deregulation agenda. In Scotland since 1999, successive ministers with responsibility for health have made it clear that they want to rid the NHS of the market mechanism and to dismantle completely the interna...

Mr McAllion: Lab Committee

Retail Pharmacies<br />(Office of Fair Trading Report)

When you met Scottish ministers, was it made clear to you that the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Executive had rejected market models for the delivery of NHS services?

Mr McAllion: Lab Committee

Retail Pharmacies<br />(Office of Fair Trading Report)

It sounds as if it is. This afternoon, you have talked consistently about customers, markets and deregulation. It sounds as though you are pursuing completely the opposite agenda to that which the Parliament is pursuing. Indeed, if we took you at your word and said that the se...

Mr McAllion: Lab Committee

Retail Pharmacies<br />(Office of Fair Trading Report)

You are now agreeing with us. You are now saying that the sector is not appropriate for market deregulation, which your report calls for.

Mr McAllion: Lab Committee

Retail Pharmacies<br />(Office of Fair Trading Report)

We, as a Scottish committee, have a problem because in an earlier answer to Bill Butler one of you accepted that your conclusions and recommendations were a judgment call based on little Scottish evidence. The Scottish NHS is distinctive—it has distinctive policies—but you are...

Mr McAllion: Lab Committee

Retail Pharmacies<br />(Office of Fair Trading Report)

So is the New Economics Foundation's report.

Mr McAllion: Lab Committee

Retail Pharmacies<br />(Office of Fair Trading Report)

What was your evidence base in Scotland? It was minimal. Why should Scotland follow a model that is based on what is going on south of the border?

Mr McAllion: Lab Committee

Retail Pharmacies<br />(Office of Fair Trading Report)

You are saying that Scotland is calling out for deregulation and the introduction of the market.

Mr McAllion: Lab Committee

Retail Pharmacies<br />(Office of Fair Trading Report)

That is what your report calls for.

Mr McAllion: Lab Committee

Retail Pharmacies<br />(Office of Fair Trading Report)

So there is no support for the conclusions at which you have arrived.

Mr McAllion: Lab Committee

Retail Pharmacies<br />(Office of Fair Trading Report)

Was that use of the Barnett formula?

The Convener: Lab Committee

The clerk has just suggested that perhaps we should ask the environment committee to take that step, as otherwise we would begin to deal with the substance of the petition, which is not our role. The Transport and the Environment Committee might take offence if we wrote direct...

The Convener: Lab Committee

Current Petitions

Petition PE435 from Mr Peter Stephen is on guidance on green-belt development. Mr Stephen asked the Parliament to investigate Executive policy on green-belt development by considering whether the policy is sufficiently firm and whether local authorities uphold it. Mr Stephen w...

The Convener: Lab Committee

That was the next point. We accept that we will add information about tourist information services.The final recommendation is that we ask the Executive for details of the rationale behind its decision not to implement in Scotland an initiative similar to the phoenix fund in E...

The Convener: Lab Committee

Thank you very much. That is compelling evidence. You are welcome to stay and listen to the debate about what should be done with the petition.It is suggested that, following the debate in the Parliament and the replies that were given by the minister, Hugh Henry, in that deba...

The Convener: Lab Committee

We can write to Shell UK and to the retail consortium to ask them to respond to the points that are made in the petition.

The Convener: Lab Committee

We can add that as a separate point in our letter asking for the Executive's views. We can seek the retail sector's views.

The Convener: Lab Committee

We are already asking the Executive about its plans for education and publicity, so we will ask the retail trade as well.

Mr McAllion: Lab Committee

Housing Stock Transfer

I want to pursue the rent guarantee in more detail. Transferring tenants have a rent guarantee, until 2000, of retail price index plus 1.5 per cent. Any tenant who was allocated a tenancy after the transfer date in 1995 has no guarantee.

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Committee

Health and Community Care Committee, 11 Mar 2003

11 Mar 2003 · S1 · Health and Community Care Committee

Item of business

Retail Pharmacies<br />(Office of Fair Trading Report)

McAllion, Mr John Lab Dundee East Watch on SPTV

I can think of monopolies, or near-monopolies, in all sectors of the economy, with huge multinationals and national chains predominating and small retail outlets getting knocked out of the picture. If we listened to you, why would not that happen in this case?

In the same item of business

The Convener: LD

Agenda item 3 is the Office of Fair Trading report, "The control of entry and retail pharmacy services in the UK". I welcome Mr Charles Whitworth and Dr Mart...

Dr Martin Graham (Office of Fair Trading):

We are here today to be grilled by the committee on the OFT report, "The control of entry and retail pharmacy services in the UK". The report is an investiga...

Mr Charles Whitworth (Office of Fair Trading):

The series of investigations was instituted in 2001.

Sorry, it was in 2001.The report deals with the United Kingdom as a whole, but we looked at England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland separately, because...

The Convener: LD

I am sorry, Dr Graham. I must stop you for a moment. We seem to be experiencing some difficulty with your microphone. I ask you to move one seat along and to...

The control of entry regulations were introduced in 1987, essentially as a stop-gap measure to control mushrooming costs at a time when too many small and co...

Mr Whitworth:

This report is meant primarily for Government, rather than for the industry or pharmacy professionals. I am sure that MSPs are well aware that pharmacy matte...

The Convener: LD

You have anticipated my first question, which relates to where the power to make such decisions lies, and have made it clear that that power lies ultimately ...

Examining regulatory issues is a new task for the Office of Fair Trading and is part of the market studies initiative that began in October 2001. In general,...

Mr Whitworth:

The report will help with health outcomes, because we envisage that more innovation will be developed in a more liberalised or deregulated set-up. We see no ...

The Convener: LD

Do you agree that the report was not the product of a groundswell of discontent among patients and consumers about how the system works? To paraphrase your w...

Mr Whitworth:

I can only repeat what my colleague Martin Graham said. The study was started on the office's initiative because the regulations are major and have a signifi...

It might be significant that the regulations were not introduced in 1987 with any great desire to serve consumers, patients or people's health better. They w...

Margaret Jamieson (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (Lab): Lab

Will you describe your definition of the market? Are you talking about the totality of the individuals who frequent community pharmacies, or about people who...

Mr Whitworth:

The services that community pharmacies deliver probably fall into three major areas of interest. Through the prescription dispensing service, medicines that ...

Margaret Jamieson: Lab

Is that the figure for a typical pharmacy in the United Kingdom? Do you have different figures for the devolved areas?

Mr Whitworth:

We did not find that there were significant differences in the ways in which community pharmacists do business throughout the UK; the situation is similar in...

Margaret Jamieson: Lab

You said that you are aware of "The Right Medicine: A Strategy for Pharmaceutical Care in Scotland" and that you considered it in producing the OFT report. H...

Mr Whitworth:

The aspects of pharmaceutical services in "The Right Medicine", which is the Scottish pharmacy policy document, are all matters that are being driven forward...

Shona Robison (North-East Scotland) (SNP): SNP

In response to a question from Margaret Smith you said that the proposed changes would be helpful for health outcomes. How did you come to that conclusion? W...

Mr Whitworth:

The inquiry was UK wide, so we spent time in all the parts of the UK. Our primary point of reference was the UK-wide consumer survey—in which Scotland was fu...

Shona Robison: SNP

How many pharmacies did you visit in Scotland to take views?

Mr Whitworth:

We had two separate meetings with pharmacy groups in Scotland. We also conducted a pharmacy survey, which a number of Scottish pharmacists completed. We had ...

Shona Robison: SNP

Did you visit any pharmacies to see the work that they were doing?

Mr Whitworth:

We visited pharmacies in England.

Shona Robison: SNP

But none in Scotland.

Mr Whitworth:

We did not visit pharmacies in Scotland, but we met pharmacists.

Shona Robison: SNP

So the views that you got from pharmacies were from the survey alone, as far as pharmacists in Scotland are concerned.

Mr Whitworth:

No. As I said, we had meetings with two professional groups of pharmacists. We had a two-hour meeting with the contractors group here in Edinburgh last Augus...

It is also worth pointing out that the study was launched with a fair degree of publicity back in October 2001. There has been no shortage of pharmacists' vi...