Pharmacists say price free-for-all will put them out of business

Pharmacists who run chemist shops will warn ministers this week that they risk going out of business if the government allows a free- for-all on the price of over-the-counter medicines such as cough medicine and pain-killers.

The community pharmacy action group leaders will meet Baroness Jay, the health minister, in the Lords on Friday to urge the Government to accept last-minute amendments to the Competition Bill during its final stages in the upper chamber.

They fear the Bill would allow chain stores to undercut small chemists in towns and villages by abolishing the guaranteed minimum price for non- prescription items. They are arguing they need their guaranteed profit margins to stay in business.

They have hired a professional Westminster lobby company, Lawson, Lucas, Mendelsohn, to build their campaign to have non-prescription items excluded. Twelve thousand pharmacists will be urged next week to lobby their MPs.

John Redwood, the Tory spokesman on trade and industry, is threatening to lead a mass rally to Parliament to protest against the threat to small businesses.

Asda supermarkets, whose former chairman, Archie Norman, is a Tory MP and a key figure in Tory Central Office, challenged retail price maintenance on vitamins but was forced to back down when the store tried to offer substantial price cuts to customers.

Mr Redwood is also raising the anxieties of pubs and brewers over a section of the Bill which could question the links between brewers and tied houses as anti-competitive.