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20 Jan 2003 : Column 112—continued
Dr. Fox : Those were Conservative amendments.
Dr. Harris: I shall put on record that I accept that the hon. Member for Woodspring claims that they were Conservative amendments, but the Conservative party—and its colleagues, such as they are—does not have a majority in the European Parliament and requires the support of other groups to pass such amendments. There is a greater spirit of co-operation, and more recognition of the need to form such coalitions, in the European Parliament than we have here. Amendments tabled to clarify the border between food and herbs and to ensure that the directive does not apply to food supplements or cosmetics were also successful.
It was regrettable, however, that there was no success in amending some other parts of the directive, and those areas give rise to some concern. First, it needs to be clearly established that combinations will be allowed under the directive, and I hope that the Minister will clarify that point. During an earlier debate of a European Standing Committee, it was not entirely clear that the Government had been reassured on that position. Indeed, it was not clear that the Government even supported the concerns raised by, among others, the hon. Member for Bosworth (Mr. Tredinnick) about whether such combinations would be permitted. It would be useful if the Minister could put his views on that matter clearly on the record.
It is also regrettable that there is inequality between the amount of traditional use allowed in other parts of the world—where there has been traditional use for longer—and in the European Union, and that we require the passage of a measure through the Council of Ministers even to make progress to 10 years rather than 15 years of European use. An early review will be required to see how the measures are working, but it is not clear that that is to be delivered. It is, therefore, reasonable to suggest that we expect a lot of the Government in regard to the traditional herbal medicinal products directive, which has not yet been published and is therefore not yet in force. The Government claim to seek flexibility on the years of European use necessary, and I would be grateful if the Minister would clarify exactly what his aspirations are in that respect, and what level he would consider unsatisfactory.
The Government also claim to be trying to reduce the regulatory impact burden on smaller producers of these products, but more substance needs to be put on the bones of that claim. Otherwise, people whose business depends on such action may not believe them. Like the Consumers Association—I, too, shall quote selectively from its briefing—we recognise that
- "there are positive benefits . . . from both of these EU directives"—
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Michael Lord): Order. Before I call the next speaker, I must tell the House that a number of hon. Members are clearly seeking to catch my eye, but there is a limited amount of time left. It would, therefore, be helpful if Members could make their remarks as brief as they feel is reasonable.
8.44 pm
Alan Simpson (Nottingham, South): If any Members in the House tonight were medical students in China, they would be given a simple message in the first lecture of the first part of their course: food is our first and strongest medicine. It has the power to cure us and make us well, but it also has the power to kill us. The importance of that in medicine lies in understanding the significance of thresholds and appropriate intakes. Even in this country, a large number of members of the medical profession will happily repeat part of that message. They will tell people that if they were to drink even water in sufficient quantities, it could kill them. For me, the sad thing is that that common ground between our conventional medicine and the traditional medicines of our own country and of the east seems to end there.
Our medical culture is dominated by a view of medicine written largely by the pharmaceutical companies. As such, we have a medicalised model that addresses, by and large, not health, but ill health. We have a culture that is resistant to the idea of people taking responsibility for their health. No matter how much we say that we want people to be responsible for their health, we increasingly throw up all sorts of obstacles in their path to doing so.
In some ways, tonight's debate has managed to capture the contradictions of where we are, although it is further complicated by a number of disparate and different interests, which we are trying to encompass in one discussion. We are dealing with two directives involving some common ground, but lots of differences of interest. Also, two Ministries are involved as are, at European level, two different views as to the place of nutritional supplements and traditional herbal remedies in the pattern of health culture.
In addition, there are two clear political tendencies with interests in the debate. One, which seems to exert a disproportionate influence in the European Union, is pro-standardisation and pro-regulation while the tendency in our country is much more pro-choice and pro-information. I can understand that the negotiations involve genuine differences of view that have to be argued and fought out between those different perceptions.
As if that were not complicated enough, there are two clearly different sets of lobbying interests—the pharmaceutical industries and some large herbal product suppliers and, on the other side of the equation, members of the public who just want more extensive choices that they are empowered and trusted to make. We have to try to navigate our way between those sets of competing interests.
For Ministers, the final complication is that, within our advisory system, different views are taken by the Food Standards Agency and the Medicines Control Agency. Members should remember that throughout our debates on nutritional supplements, the MCA has consistently sought to medicalise the health model that applies to traditional herbal remedies and food supplements. We need to try to hold off those interests as separate from and in competition with those being put to us by members of the public and our constituents.
Let me make it clear that it would be crass for the House not to support the Government amendment. A good amendment has been tabled and, even as a sceptic, I think it incumbent on us to support and understand its importance, because it reflects the negotiating position that the Government seek to occupy. In particular, it is worth supporting because, as I must say for the record, the robust negotiations involving Lord Hunt have presented a formidable challenge to many of the inclinations that people wanted to be written into the first draft of the directive.
It is important for us to recognise the lobbying and negotiating role played by the Food Standards Agency. A former Minister in this House, the noble Lord Rooker, had the sense to kick some of our earlier debates into touch. He put together a Joint Committee, which is due to report to the Government and to the House this spring. It would be naive and politically dishonest of us to try to pre-empt that. It may turn out that it puts forward a strong position, and most of us who support nutritional supplements and public choice may find it an ally in our negotiations, not a limitation.
I want to focus on my concerns, which I hope the Minister will heed. The food supplements directive raises issues about potency that we must address. The wording that has so far been used stresses the notion of safe levels. It is important for us to recognise that what some other European countries mean by that is minimum levels. The references to vitamins C and B6 show how problematic that could be. The idea of a safe level of 25 mg of vitamin B6 would be a sad joke to the thousands of British women who regularly take vitamin B6 to maintain their well-being as part of their informed health choice.
The Minister referred to the adverse effects of an intake of large amounts of vitamin B6—four times the current safe level recommended by the EU, or even eight or 10 times that level. There is no medical evidence to support that claim. People in the Department advise the Minister on the basis of one study alone, the Dalton and Dalton study. It is worth going through that study if one wants to read a piece of hocus-pocus research. The authors have persistently refused to allow their peers to review the data on which they based their recommendations. It is astonishing that researchers have made such far-reaching claims but have refused to let their peers examine the basis on which they were made. I understand that there is one study that may offer a crumb of comfort to them, but as it was a study on dogs rather than people, I suggest that any investigation of its significance should be carried out with caution.
The Medicines Control Agency has attempted to bounce successive Governments into a medicalised view of regulating these supplements, because it suits its needs and those of the pharmaceutical industry, which would make an awful lot of money out of the process if
it were able to capture that market. It would give the agency monopoly control, and it would allow the industry to charge monopoly prices. The vast majority of women who campaigned in opposition to the initial proposals to set ludicrously low limits on the availability of vitamin B6 knew what game they were playing and what was at stake.Whatever figure we choose to put on it, there is a problem with having a limited number of nutrients allowed to be registered under the directive. I think that it would be crass of us to say that some of the nutrients that are currently available in the UK would not automatically be covered by the new directive. To go down that path would be to take a serious step backwards, with no medical evidence on which to base our contention.
I also caution the Minister and other colleagues about going down that path, because it does not make any sense, even in pragmatic terms. In today's globalised information market, if we set foolish, prohibitive and restrictive rules, consumers who have looked into this issue and made their own health choices will go through other channels. They will use mail order or the internet to do so. A more open and regulated market will always be better than the present market, which is prescriptive and pushes more people into making choices outside a formal market framework.
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