The Bill had an unopposed second reading. But by the time it went into Committee, a month later, the government objected to every part of it.

Mr James Couchman (Conservative, Gillingham) tabled a series of amendments which he himself acknowledged "could be called wrecking amendments". He proposed to delete 8 of the bill's 9 clauses (sparing only the clause which contained the bill's title) and insert two new clauses providing for absolutely minimal disclosure.

Mr Couchman declared that he was a paid adviser to the American pharmaceutical company, Pfizer. But the wrecking amendments had been drafted by the government - not the industry. This was clear from a remarkable overlap between Mr Couchman's amendments and the minister's. (Mr Sackville tabled just one amendment. This defined terms used only in Mr Couchman's amendments, revealing that the two sets of amendments had been drafted together.)

It later became clear that Mr Couchman had also been supplied with speaking notes written by civil servants.

The amendments did not succeed. Most of the time the Minister was alone in opposing the Bill and Mr Sackville was defeated 12-1 and 11-2 on the votes. (The only Conservative MP who voted with the minister later told the Commons he did so because he "felt sorry for him".)

But at the Bill's Report stage on April 30 more than a hundred amendments were put down - nearly all by Conservative MPs opposed to the Bill. The same MPs also made extended speeches on a modest two-clause bill which came up earlier in the day, deliberately reducing the time left for the Medicines Bill. There was no chance that the amendments could all be debated in the remaining time, and Bill was 'talked out'.

The minister justified his opposition to the Bill on the grounds of its supposed costs. The Medicines Control Agency is funded entirely by licence fees from pharmaceutical firms. The government refused to cover any costs arising from the Bill, and said these would have to be met by putting up the licence fee. The industry bitterly opposed this, claiming that British companies would then face higher costs than their European competitors. The Bill's supporters believed that costs would have been minimal, and would also have been faced by other European companies operating in the UK. Moreover, new EC licensing rules mean that disclosure will increasingly be required in future.

Mr William Waldegrave reportedly pressed for a more positive response to the Bill - but was overruled by the Department of Health.

The government's position may have reflected negotiations with the industry on two quite separate issues. In the face of severe industry opposition, ministers were planning to extend the 'limited list' policy under which only specified medicines can be prescribed on the NHS. Separate negotiations with the industry were also taking place over the price the NHS would pay for drugs.

Ministers apparently decided to sacrifice the Bill to appease the industry on these completely unrelated issues.

A few days later an industry spokesman told the Financial Times (May 10) that there was "quite a lot of good will" between the two sides.

Information about medicines will not be covered by the new law on access to health and safety information announced in the recent White Paper. Instead, the Department of Health claims to be trying to agree a voluntary code of practice on disclosure with the drugs industry.

The weakness of this approach has been underlined by the steps taken by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food to release comparable information about pesticide safety. Pesticide disclosure regulations were introduced in 1986 and further regulations, to allow retrospective access, are soon to be brought in. Earlier this year MAFF rejected the idea of a code of practice saying "Ministers require statutory powers to release information to the public. A voluntary agreement could not be expected to receive the full co-operation of data owners/providers" [the pesticide companies].