Scottish Socialist Party MSP Colin Fox said the estimated £45 million that would be lost through introducing free prescriptions would be offset by up to £20m of savings, mostly as a result of fewer people needing hospital treatment.

The Lothians list MSP was today formally unveiling his Bill to abolish prescription charges, following the example of the Welsh Assembly, which voted to scrap the charges last year.

Mr Fox said: "Prescription charges are a lie to the promise the health service gave in the 1940s that it would provide universal healthcare free at the point of need.

"It’s not free and 75,000 people in Scotland have gone without the medicines they needed because they did not have the £6.40 per item for the prescription."

Mr Fox branded the current charges a tax on the sick. But he said an analysis of the financial impact of abolishing the charges, carried out by parliament officials, had shown large savings could be made through lifting the cash barrier to people getting medicine.

Scrap Prescription Charges website

SSP Research, Policy & Media Unit Press Release

SSP MSP Carolyn Leckie jailed for nuclear protest

Scottish Socialist Party MSP for Central Region Carolyn Leckie has been jailed for seven days for non payment of a fine after being arrested at Faslane nuclear submarine base. Carolyn appeared at East Kilbride District Court on Thursday and after making it clear that she would not pay the fine in protest at the continuing presence of weapons of mass destruction in Scotland. Carolyn had said previously; "I won't be paying the fine, to do so would be an indication that I had done something wrong. "I was protesting against Britain's weapons of mass destruction, I regard that as a duty not a crime."

Carolyn faces the possibility of losing her ability to practise as a midwife after the Nursing and Midwifery Council wrote to her advising that she was being investigated for "misconduct" in relation to the court case.

Fellow SSP MSP Frances Curran has also been arrested at Faslane and said this afternoon; "The Scottish Socialist Party is proud that we have representatives who are prepared to take a stand on issues of principle. "Carolyn is a woman in public life with principles who is prepared to risk her livelihood in order to take a stand against nuclear weapons. "I am outraged that Carolyn has been jailed for taking a stand in the best democratic traditions. "Carolyn has been criminalised for dissent and that is an outrage."