SCRAP Prescription Charges
The weblog of the Scottish Campaign to Remove All Prescription Charges. Keeping you updated on all the news about Colin Fox MSP's bill to the Scottish Parliament.
Monday, January 09, 2006
Committee backs Fox bill to scrap prescription charges
Sunday Herald
THE abolition of prescription charges in Scotland will move a step closer this week when an influential group of MSPs backs the measure.
The Scottish parliament’s health committee has endorsed plans to scrap the £6.50 charge that critics say is a tax on the poor.
Ministers have so far opposed the move but the cross-party support will put pressure on the Executive to adopt a policy costed at £40 million.
The committee report, expected within days, follows scrutiny of Scottish Socialist Party leader Colin Fox’s bill to end prescription charges.
He argued that the £6.50 charge penalised people on low incomes and those with conditions such as asthma, and cited research showing that 75,000 Scots go without medicines because they can’t afford them.
Prescription charges are to be abolished in Wales from 2007.
But opponents argue that the bill fails to target scarce resources at Scotland’s needy and is expensive. They say that vulnerable groups, such as pensioners and children, already receive free drugs, a flexibility that the bill’s supporters fail to recognise.
Now the health committee, after evidence from health professionals and other interest groups, has backed the “general principles” of Fox’s bill.
The nine-member group voted to back the move by a narrow majority. It is understood Labour members, with the exception of one rebel, were unmoved. One committee source said: “There was a debate on whether to delay supporting the bill, or to push ahead. The people who argued for pushing ahead were in the majority.”
Their endorsement will put pressure on the Executive to respond to a bill that ministers privately concede is popular.
