§ Mr. Wardellasked the Secretary of State for Wales what measures he takes to encourage, promote and fund play in Wales.
396WScotland if all the drugs contained in the lists provided to him by the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, East were dispensed at the prices on that list rather than at prices for the equivalent brand name preparations actually prescribed or at the drug tariff prices, for the latest available year.
§ Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg[pursuant to his reply, 21 March 1983, c. 349–50]: The difference between (a) the cost of the drugs listed as dispensed in branded or generic form in the year ended 30 June 1982, the latest dispensing data available, but at March 1983 branded or drug tariff prices and (b) the cost of the same drugs if all had been dispensed in the generic form at the prices listed, is £81 million for England, Scotland and Wales but this does not, of course, represent a realistic estimate of savings from a policy of generic substitution: the prices at (b) are based on a special promotion of short duration; it is uncertain for how much longer the artificially low prices in the generic market as a whole can be sustained: the figure takes no account of prescribers' resistance to generic substitution; nor of the adjustment of other prices in consequence of reduced revenue from branded products displaced by generics.