§ 43. Colonel Beamishasked the President of the Board of Trade how many commodities and groups of commodities produced in the United Kingdom are listed in the wholesale price index, published monthly in the Board of Trade Journal; what has been the average percentage increase in price, counting 30th June, 1949, as 100; and what has been the rise in the price index of drugs and pharmaceutical preparations.
§ Mr. ErrollIndex numbers for 114 commodities and groups of commodities produced in the United Kingdom are listed in the latest monthly article on wholesale prices in the Board of Trade Journal. The price index for all manufactured products—other than fuel, food and tobacco—was 41.6 per cent. higher for January, 1958, than at 30th June, 1949. The index for drugs and pharmaceuticals has risen by 6.6 per cent. over the same period.
§ Colonel BeamishDoes my hon. Friend appreciate that had the pharmaceutical industry not been so strikingly successful in keeping down wholesale prices in the last decade the annual drug bill would be many millions of pounds higher?
§ 44. Colonel Beamishasked the President of the Board of Trade if he will publish, in the OFFICIAL REPORT, a table showing the annual value of exports of proprietary pharmaceutical preparations since 1948.
§ Mr. ErrollPrecise statistics are not available, but I would refer my hon. and gallant Friend to the Trade and Navigation Accounts which give the statistics for the total of all drugs, medicines and medicinal preparations, and for the total of those classified as "proprietary medicines, not elsewhere specified", which are thought to include the bulk of proprietary preparations.