It is a pleasure to start this, the second and concluding session in Committee. We have reached Clause 6, which relates to the provision of information. In the 2006 Act as it stands, there is a wide-ranging requirement to provide information under the statutory scheme for medicinal products. However, in the Bill the Government have resolved to go rather wider in the scope of the information-gathering power. We will come on to some of the reasons why I think that process of gathering information more rigorously is necessary and why I support it.
Happily, we are in this Bill discussing legislation that is, in principle, supported by the industry—it recognises the importance of securing a good relationship between the Government and the industry in determining the right pricing structure. This is particularly true because, in the past, under the voluntary scheme and statutory scheme, the information-gathering capacity was built into the schemes themselves.
In addition, there is the issue of gathering information relating to the reimbursement of pharmacies under what I think is known as scheme W. I completely understand why it is necessary. I remember that, back in about 2006—I am not sure which of our noble friends, if I may be so bold, was in ministerial office at
that time—the issue that arose with pharmacies was the lack of contemporaneous data that enabled the gap between the wholesale purchasing and the reimbursement price on dispensed drugs to be determined accurately. At that time, I was the shadow spokesman, and whistleblowers came to me to tell me that the pharmacy industry was taking anything up to £500 million a year more, by way of its margin over its purchasing of drugs, than was allowed for in the global sum negotiated with the department. That was investigated by the National Audit Office and the whole system was tightened up.
We are, however, still not where we should be. On Monday, we debated the idea that if one ends up hearing about purchasing only from large organisations, one will get it wrong because one might leave out the fact that small pharmacies cannot necessarily purchase at quite so fine a price. However, unless I am very much mistaken, and contrary to that, if you gather information only from small pharmacies—even if they have a collective purchasing operation—and leave out the very biggest pharmacy chains, the chances are that you may be overestimating the wholesale price. Of course, there are some integrated operations, and getting that information from an integrated supply chain is extremely difficult.
The starting proposition for this debate is that there is a need to broaden the information-gathering power. Amendment 34, in my name, is consequential, but Amendment 32 is about what happens once one goes down the route of gathering quite so much information, potentially. I do not seek to amend the purposes that are set out, as the Committee will see, in Clause 6(3).
In Clause 6, there is a long list of the reasons why the Secretary of State might wish to gather information and the purposes required for that. It is potentially necessary for the information to be gathered. As a consequence, I do not wish to change all that list but at the moment, compared to most of the analogous information-gathering requirements for government laid upon industry, there is no safeguarding process. There is no process which, in itself, requires the Government to be much clearer about the information they require, the purposes for which they require it, the character of the use to which it will be put or, since there is a power to share information, with whom that information will be shared. Amendment 32 sets out to do this.
Under the voluntary or statutory schemes, there can be a scheme for gathering information that does not necessarily require information notices. Amendment 32 essentially says that in any circumstances where the Secretary of State does not receive the information the Government are looking for under a scheme, including presumably scheme W and others, there should be a power for the Secretary of State to issue an “information notice”. But where a notice is to be issued to somebody, it would then have to say some very specific things: what is required, in what form, by when, for what purpose, with whom it will be shared and about giving a right of appeal. There may inevitably be circumstances where there is a belief on the part of industry that the information being sought is not required—that the Government are unnecessarily hoovering it up, as it were. It may have a particular set of reasons of its own to try to resist this.
This amendment would give industry an opportunity to seek appeal if the Government are being disproportionate. Of course, it would have a right to judicial review but it would be much easier if this were governed under statute by way of simple appeal to the General Regulatory Chamber, as happens in a number of other areas where there is a requirement to gather information from people. I hope that the Minister will be sympathetic to an understanding that, notwithstanding the general support of industry, concerns have been properly raised about the scope and extent of the information-gathering power the Government propose in the Bill. I hope he will recognise that the amendment would reassure the industry that it would be properly informed about what information is required, and would have some recourse if it objects to that information being taken. I beg to move.