Prescriptions for Welsh patients will be completely free by 2007

Health Minister Brian Gibbons said the move was the next step towards free prescriptions by the end of the current assembly term in 2007.

Opposition members said the assembly government had made a mistake by lowering charges across the board instead of prioritising those who were most ill.

Plaid Cymru's health spokesman Rhodri Glyn Thomas believed people with chronic illnesses have been let down by the way the scheme had been phased in.

He said the most ill patients should have been given free prescriptions ahead of all other patients.

'Bizarre'

For the Liberal Democrats, Kirsty Williams accused the assembly government of taking a "topsy-turvy approach" to prescription charges - first raising charges then lowering them.

Ms Williams, the AM for Brecon and Radnorshire said if Labour had gone ahead with a plan to give free prescriptions to high blood pressure patients in 2003, they would be more than £200 better off.

Conservative assembly health spokesman Jonathan Morgan supported the reduction, but criticised the move towards free prescriptions to everyone regardless of income.

Mr Morgan said it was "rather bizarre" to spend more than £30m on free prescriptions.