Clause 1. — (Avoidance of Conditions for Maintaining Resale Prices.)

Part of Orders of the Day — Resale Prices Bill – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 24 March 1964.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Miss Jennie Lee Miss Jennie Lee , Cannock 12:00, 24 March 1964

I do not mean to stray any further, Sir Samuel. I was about to say that among the things which have been neglected in those vast housing areas are places where families can take doctors' prescriptions.

I come down on the side of the lesser evil, that we must sustain the small shop. The number of prescribing chemists is already diminishing, and if we do not buttress the prescription service with the sale of other goods, families will have to travel further than ever, and the evils which already spring from our badly-balanced communities, especially many of those great new communities where there are not enough proper social amenities, will be worsened.

I do not see how we can ask mothers and old persons to travel further than they are now travelling in order to get to chemists' shops. That is one of the factors which will decide some of us, unless the Minister astonishes us with a brilliant solution to the problem.