Labour ‘bullying’ Boots over morning-after pill

LABOUR MPs and contraception cam- paigners were last night accused of bullying Boots again over the cost of the morning after pill.

MPs say the high street chain is not upholding the ‘reproductive rights’ of women by failing to supply the pills for £15.99, as promised.

They are still selling for £26.75 in all but 69 of its 2,500 branches.

Boots says it has been hit by a manufacturing ‘ batch failure’, but more than 130 MPs yesterday wrote to Boots UK’s managing director Elizabeth Fagan to demand the £15.99 version is rolled out immediately.

Clare Murphy of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service said: ‘There can be absolutely no excuse for their pathetically slow pace of progress, other than the fact that they simply do not want to provide women with an affordable product.’ Labour’s public health spokesman Sharon Hodgson, who organised the letter, said it is ‘dismaying that Boots have not fulfilled the promise’.

But Clara Campbell of the Life charity said: ‘ This has now become part of an established pattern of bullying by the abortion industry and it political allies.’

A spokesman for Boots UK said the firm ‘remains committed’ to increasing the accessibility of emergency contraception.