Devolution and drugs: The case for Welsh autonomy

The regulation of drug prices is an excellent example of the type of tensions that are emerging in the UK's new system of multi-level governance. Both the benefits and regulatory burden of the Pharmaceutical Price Regulation Scheme (PPRS) are regionally concentrated. However, those regional concentrations are not coterminous. The PPRS as an industrial policy supports jobs primarily in the south east and east of England. However, Wales (along with Scotland and Northern Ireland) bears a relatively greater share of the regulatory burden of the PPRS by virtue of prescribing more medicines. The potential for Welsh autonomy in this area is considered in terms of economic, administrative and political constraints.