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Miss Melanie Johnson (Welwyn Hatfield): I have a registered interest with a pharmaceutical company in my constituency. I am concerned about the lack of a satisfactory appeal mechanism to an independent body under SI 267. Companies could be in the invidious position of committing a criminal offence, on the judgment of the MCA, without being able to appeal to a higher court. I should like my right hon. Friend the Minister to address that.
Dr. Iddon: I fully endorse that point, which I was going to make in my next few sentences.
If all the proposed regulations are accepted, the health food industry will be far more complicated to run. Many small firms will not be able to afford the costs involved. The MCA is a quango. As my hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Miss Johnson) has just said, there is no right of appeal against its decisions. That is an important point that needs to be emphasised.
The 1997 Labour party manifesto made a commitment
On consultation, the document says on page 9:
Vitamins, minerals, dietary supplements and herbal products are clearly not foodstuffs or medicines, but as I have tried to show, two Departments--MAFF and the Department of Health--have tried to regulate them. We are in a regulatory mess. Indeed, that is why the debate is being held.
What should the Government do? Clearly, there is a need to do something. The two Departments that I have mentioned have rejected the "do nothing" and "do minimum" options. The Government could try to make the existing regulatory frameworks work, as they appear to be doing, but they are clearly having great difficulty. I agree with the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond) that a third way is needed. I suggested that at the recent annual Health Food Manufacturers Association conference in London. The Government should consider establishing a separate regulatory framework to cover the substances in question. The principles of safety, quality and efficacy, based on bibliographic evidence and traditional usage, should be the key drivers for the regulations, as they always have been.
There is nothing new about this idea. Canada and Australia have tried it already. Following a letter from the Canadian Health Minister, dated 13 November 1997, the Canadian House of Commons Standing Committee on Natural Health Products published a document entitled "Natural Health Products; A New Vision" in November last year. It contains 53 recommendations. Health Canada was recommended to set out an appropriate definition of natural health products in conjunction with a new separate natural health product expert advisory committee. The relevant food and drugs legislation would then be amended accordingly. There were also recommendations to create a new regulatory authority for such products, to build appeal mechanisms into the processes, to seek advice from those involved in the production of natural health products and, importantly, to promote research on their efficacy and safety.
Dr. Peter Brand (Isle of Wight):
I congratulate the hon. Member for South Derbyshire (Mr. Todd) on allowing us all to appear so liberal this morning--even if only with a small "l". Citizens of this country can expect the Government to protect them in two ways: from being poisoned and from being ripped off. We are talking about substances which, in high concentrations, may well be poisonous, and substances for which claims are made that would make the average snake oil salesman blush. It may be that those claims are not made by the manufacturers, but they somehow find their way into advertising.
I am concerned that large sums of money are being spent by vulnerable people who are hoping to improve their lives. We must strike a balance, and I like the third way that seems to be breaking out all over the place--it is obviously catching.
The important issue is who decides what should be referred to the MCA. It is wrong that the agency has the power to trawl around to see what else might be within its remit. It is important that the shady line between what is a drug and what is food be addressed. I was disappointed that the draft Food Standards Agency
legislation does not address the issue of who determines what should be treated as a pharmaceutically active and dangerous drug, and what is a food. Physiological functionality includes everything that we breathe, do and take in.
I made myself extremely unpopular in my party by supporting the Government's line on B6--and then they caved in. B6 was an extremely good example; in itself, B6 can be a beneficial substance, but taken in high doses, it can be harmful. I thought that the compromise of allowing it to be freely on sale at a reasonable, rather than high, dose was a good safety measure--rather like selling aspirins only in packages of 30.
Dr. Iddon:
At three times the cost.
Dr. Brand:
That is not a debate for this morning.
The same issue can arise in terms of herbal remedies. As a GP, I am much more relaxed with people using herbal remedies. It is cheaper to use the natural product, and it is extremely difficult to take a pharmaceutically active substance in high enough doses to do oneself much harm. I am worried about the relentless drive to try to identify the active ingredient in whatever herbal tea we might be drinking, so that it can be concentrated and flogged off at a high price.
I am surprised that we have not had more support from hon. Members concerned about the debate on herbal cannabis and cannabinoids, as there is a similarity. It is dangerous to say that we need to identify every active ingredient in everything. That means we deny people a substance which may have some benefits--even if it is only as a placebo.
I urge the Government to set up a mechanism where we can identify what needs to be considered by the MCA. The FSA should have a responsibility in this area, and we need to work much more closely with the Advertising Standards Authority, which has a major responsibility in sorting out what is and is not a reasonable claim.
It is perfectly proper for any food or substance to be able to claim that it may be good for your health in general. "A Mars a day" helps whatever it is you want to do--that is a perfectly reasonable claim. It can be believed or not, and most people are not fooled. However, I would be extremely worried if it were claimed that a Mars could cure colitis, or stop cancer. There is a problem about claims being made for substances, as vulnerable people may be taken in. They may not help themselves by spending money that they do not have, and by taking substances in high doses--or to the exclusion of a more balanced diet--which may be harmful.
Mr. David Tredinnick (Bosworth):
I congratulate the hon. Member for South Derbyshire (Mr. Todd) on obtaining this debate. He mentioned the B6 saga last year,
If Uncle Joe Stalin had been going through his red box in the Kremlin and this proposal had come up, he would have said, "I like it very much. It is good. It is disempowering the people. It is giving one of my Government agencies the opportunity to be judge, jury and de facto executioner." Does that really fit in with the Government's philosophy? It is bad luck for the Government that they have chosen 1 April to implement the measure--April fool's day. It is hardly a good omen.
"to monitor the scale and quality of regulatory activity".
As a result, the deregulation unit in the Cabinet Office, established by the previous Administration, became the better regulations task force. One of its first jobs was to produce a very important document, which many hon. Members may not have seen, called "The Better Regulations Guide and Regulatory Impact Assessment", which was published in July last year.
"Above all, allow enough time".
It goes on:
"Lack of time is one of the most frequent complaints about Government consultation. Eight weeks should generally be the minimum period."
On page 34, it says:
"Always consider the option of 'do nothing' or 'do minimum' as it may not be possible for Government to improve matters, or the costs of doing so may outweigh the benefits".
I have written to Lord Haskins, chairman of the better regulation task force, suggesting that some Departments are not taking much notice of the good advice given in the Government's booklet.
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