§ Mr. Haynesasked the Secretary of State for Social Services (1) if he has any plans to curb the practice of transfer pricing of pharmaceuticals;
(2) whether the independent consultants examining pharmaceutical industry profits were employed specifically after the comments made by the Committee of Public Accounts on the difficulties of eliciting the true nature of the profits the pharmaceutical industry makes from the National Health Service;
(3) if he will make the report of the independent consultants on the pharmaceutical industry profits generally available for inspection;
(4) if he will name the independent consultants who examined the pharmaceutical industry prices and profits in its dealings with the National Health Service.
§ Mr. Kenneth ClarkeThe Department's accounting officer informed the Committee of Public Accounts on 26 January 1983 (that is before the Committee reported) that independent consultants were to be engaged to advise on transfer pricing. A study was carried out by Binder Hamlyn between April 1983 and February 1984 and this has helped us to review our procedures for assessing the reasonableness of costs and profits included in transfer prices of pharmaceuticals. We do not propose to publish the report. We are currently considering whether to commission follow-up studies.