Re Nils Pratley’s column (AstraZeneca’s £450m Speke U-turn looks terrible for a pro-growth government, 3 February), when I was minister of health from 1974 to 1976 under Barbara Castle as secretary of state, I was the sponsoring minister for the pharmaceutical industry, a responsibility I took very seriously. Despite a very heavy national workload, I travelled to Brazil and Russia to promote the industry, and had as an adviser a former chief executive of a pharmaceutical company.
Losing AstraZeneca’s £450m investment in Liverpool would have been impossible in this ministerial structure that was very close to the industry. The present ministerial decision-making structure is clearly incoherent.
David Owen
London
