Pfizer takeover needs a proper investigation

AS the Mail has consistently argued, the attempted takeover of AstraZeneca by the US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer is an issue of profound importance for British jobs, science and industry.

Regrettably, however, anybody hoping that Westminster’s business select committee would rise to the challenge and mount a forensic inquisition of Pfizer executives yesterday will have been bitterly disappointed. The MPs – who had promised to demand ‘cast iron’ guarantees – managed a few clichéd soundbites about Pfizer being a ‘praying mantis’ and a ‘shark that needs feeding’. But the committee – led by an ex-librarian and sorely lacking business experience – failed to extract answers to any of the key questions.

Pfizer confirmed jobs would be lost in the UK, but refused to say how many. MPs’ gentle inquiries about how many billions Pfizer might save in tax by redomiciling itself in the UK – surely the

real reason it is interested in Astra – were nonchalantly dismissed.

On the crucial issue of whether Pfizer’s commitment to protect research and development in the UK for five years was legally binding, MPs were told they would mostly have to take it on trust.

Pfizer’s US executives – who are used to ferocious cross-examination by Congress back home – doubtless could not believe their good fortune.

This was another deeply unimpressive display from Britain’s political class, whose response to a deal that threatens one of the few remaining jewels in Britain’s manufacturing crown has been feeble from Day One.

Already, Astra says the threat of a takeover is having a destabilising effect, and in the long term it could delay the production of life-saving cancer drugs.

If – as yesterday so dismally proved – Westminster l acks t he willpower, expertise and rigour to establish if this deal is in the national interest, it should order an independent inquiry that can.