GORDON Prentice today told a North West meeting of the Multiple Sclerosis Society that he expected powerful new drugs to be made available to sufferers.

The Pendle Labour back bencher is convinced that the National Institute for Clinical Excellence will authorise the use of Beta Interferon and other drugs to ease the pain and progress of the disease.

He told the Lancashire, Greater Manchester and South Cumbria region of the MS Society, whose Pendle branch he chairs, "there was absolutely no possibility" of the present situation where some people got the drug and others didn't from the NHS continuing.

Mr Prentice, secretary of the parliamentary all-party group on MS, said the prescription on the NHS of these drugs was vital.

He said: "MS very often strikes people out of the blue in the prime of life. "Doctors are working as hard as they can to develop drugs to control and eventually cure this disabling disease.

"These new drugs cost money but that is why we have a nationwide system of social insurance -- to protect all of us from what may be around the corner.

"There are almost 60million of us in the UK but only 85,000 with MS."

The National Institute is deciding who should get this expensive drug and under what circumstances to end the current "post code lottery" where some suffered get the drug and some don't according to where they live.