Department of Trade and Industry

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend, but in some ways people are unpredictable in what they determine to be an acceptable risk and what they will not accept. I agree that some of those instructions make one’s hair stand on end—I do not have enough to stand on end—and that if people read them, they would be confused or terrified about the possible side effects. The person whom one has trusted—the intermediary—is the doctor, or perhaps even the chemist, if one gets the drugs from a pharmacy. I am not inviting the Minister to wear his doctor’s or pharmacist’s cloak whenever he goes out, but there must be some trust between the Government and the public in communicating risk whenever it might occur.