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20 Jan 2003 : Column 120—continued
9.15 pm
Dr. Brian Iddon (Bolton, South-East): I want to make a few new points.
The pharmaceutical industry has been accused of being behind the directives and promoting them for its own benefit. I do not believe that. The pharmaceutical industry was born from natural products. Many of the drugs that we use nowadays are derived from plants, roots, berries and tree bark. Salicylic acid, for example, comes from the bark of the willow tree, and then turns into acetyl-salicylic acid or aspirin. Many of our modern drugs follow similar pathways.
I should like to tell the House a funny story about a late friend of mine, Dr. Michael Scrowston, who used to lecture in my subject at the university of Hull. Over many, many years, he collected a large number of beautiful plants from all over the world, potted them and nurtured them in his greenhouse. He gave lectures on how the modern drugs industry was derived from the plants described in little books such as the one I have in my hand. On one occasion, he set out a wonderful display of plants on the lecture bench in front of him; there were beautiful flowers such as the autumn crocus and some extremely rare plants. When he had finished his lecture, the lady from the Women's Institute who had invited him said, "Dr. Scrowston, how wonderful of you to bring all those amazing plants for the raffle", and he lost the lot.
I do not want the Government to underestimate the public reaction that always occurs when new legislation is introduced in this policy area. If the public were not fully behind the natural health products industry, how could it have achieved such growth? The hon. Member for Bosworth (Mr. Tredinnick) has just referred to ML" 249. When it was under discussion a few years ago, there was a march from Hyde park and a rally in Trafalgar square. I still cannot believe that the hon. Gentleman and I stood on the plinth of Nelson's column talking to a large gathering about ML" 249. Probably, nobody had ever heard of it, apart from the people in
Trafalgar square on that day. Thousands of people came from all over the country because they were annoyed about a European directive that has long since passed into law.As my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Wyre (Mr. Dawson) has pointed out, more than 20 Members, including him, have presented petitions to Parliament expressing concern about the directives relating to the UK health products industry that we are debating. Altogether, there are more than 1 million signatures and the petition is one of the largest presented to Parliament in modern times. Just before Christmas, I presented six boxes, which alone contained 350,000 signatures. Those petitions are still coming in and they show that people in every corner of the country—in all our counties and nations—are extremely concerned about what is going on. The Government should not lose sight of that fact.
As of today, 165 hon. Members have signed my early-day motion 278 on the food supplements directive and 164 Members have signed early-day motion 279 on the traditional herbal medicinal products directive. That, too, demonstrates the concern expressed to us by our constituents.
Mrs. Annette L. Brooke (Mid-Dorset and North Poole): Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Dr. Iddon: I have little time, so the hon. Lady will forgive me. If my constituents cannot purchase health products from a local shop, they will not blame the European Parliament but the Government. They may be tempted to purchase such products on the internet or from mail order catalogues that may not be manufactured to the standards that they have come to expect. My hon. Friend the Member for Chorley (Mr. Hoyle) tells me that he has seen health products on sale at car boot sales. Not much regulation there.
Many people, myself included, like to keep as far away from our doctors—with the greatest respect to the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris)—as possible and self-medicate minor ailments. If popular over-the-counter products are removed by legislation, there is a slight possibility that general practitioners and even hospitals will be under greater pressure.
The food supplements directive is almost set in stone. It appeared in the Official Journal of the European Commission in July 2002 and must be implemented by our Government in July this year. I am glad that the Government have stressed safety as the important factor. Government representatives have worked hard on putting their arguments across in the Council of Ministers and its working parties, where people from less liberal regimes on the continent are pressing for topping up the nutritional requirement a little.
The European Union Scientific Committee on Food has already published a list of recommended daily doses to be enshrined in the final directive. My hon. Friend the Minister referred to the ad hoc committee on vitamins and minerals that was established following the vitamin B6 fiasco which has now become part of the Food Standards Agency. In May, it will report its own recommended levels. I have already indicated the disparity that might exist, particularly in respect of
vitamin B6. The European recommended level is 25 mg but people in this country are taking 100 mg and up to 200 mg per day—most of them without any adverse effects. In any event, if they exhibit peripheral neuropathy, it is reversible if they lower the dose or stop taking B6.We can all adhere to the safety requirements that are enshrined in the directive on herbal remedies but it requires manufacturers to adopt pharmaceutical processes that will add costs, because it requires each batch of herbal remedy to be tested. Industry estimates may be over the top but I have been given a figure of £2,000 per batch. Smaller organisations prepare about 10 batches of the same product every week, so a lot of money would be added to the cost of producing a particular product. Some companies handle 100 products, so that requirement could soon mount up to £200,000 of extra costs for a small or medium-sized enterprise.
This afternoon, some of us put that concern to the Minister in the other place with responsibilities for the herbal remedies directive. He assured us that he does not want any small or medium-sized enterprises going out of business as a result of imposing such regulations on the industry. I am sure that manufacturers will be pleased with that news, as we were.
However, there are other costs. The cost of registering the product may also be about £2,000 per product. The industry has set a figure of £15,000 on the cost of preparing the dossier on each product because specialist advice will have to be taken. I accept that those ballpark figures are over the top, but nevertheless, if they are imposed on small and medium-sized enterprises, they may be the straw that breaks the camel's back.
We do not want those small and medium-sized enterprises to go out of business. We want to preserve the competition that exists in the industry. We do not want the large concerns—Holland and Barrett has been mentioned, but there are many others—to begin to attain monopoly positions. I, too, am concerned about the extra costs that both directives, particularly the herbal remedies directive, will impose on the industry.
I will vote for the Government amendment because, as my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, South has suggested, it clearly enshrines words that tell us that the Government are still manoeuvring on both directives, particularly on the herbal remedies directive. I wish the Government a fair wind in achieving what the British people expect them to achieve, so that our consumers do not suffer from a reduction in the wonderful choice that they already have in health product shops.
9.26 pm
Mr. David Amess (Southend, West): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox) on his speech. He echoed many of my concerns on these issues, but I particularly want to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bosworth (Mr. Tredinnick), because there is no doubt at all that, although people might smile gently as he gets to his feet, he has done all constituents and hon. Members a great service in bringing this very important subject to our attention.
The Minister has popped out of the Chamber briefly, so I hope that the Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr. Lammy), will
pass on my remarks. In her speech, she sought to charm and reassure the House. There is no doubt at all that she succeeded in charming the House, but I have to tell her that she did not reassure hon. Members.I should also like the Under-Secretary to pass on to the Minister the fact that I had not realised until now that she was a highly accomplished joke teller. In fact, so good were her jokes that I shall include them in after-dinner speeches in the future. She told the House that the Government are not about the nanny state. Well, I had to scrape myself up off the floor. For goodness' sake, if the Government are not about the nanny state, they are not about anything. They interfere in anything and everything. That is why the country is such a mess, and the sooner my colleagues get their act together and replace them with a good Conservative Government, the better for all of us. The Minister then had the nerve to talk about the Government's creativity. We all applaud their creativity in reannouncing things time after time and in duping the general public, but she certainly did not reassure the House.
Unless the food supplements directive is changed, it will result in the loss of up to 300 currently available safe nutrients. That is certainly causing great distress to my constituents. Unless the traditional herbal medicinal products directive is changed, it will result in the loss from the United Kingdom market of a wide range of safe and popular herbal remedies, as the hon. Members for Bolton, South-East (Dr. Iddon) and for Nottingham, South (Alan Simpson) said. That is a very serious matter, and many of our constituents our worried that a large number of products that are mixtures of nutrients, vitamins and herbs could be lost.
I would like a derogation from the food supplements directive so that the United Kingdom may continue to allow products to be sold, provided that it is satisfied that they are safe and appropriately labelled, even if they fall outside the technical restrictions of the directive. Furthermore, there should be added to the list of 300 permitted nutrients and nutrient sources those that are currently missing but that are accepted as safe by the UK authorities prior to the deadline of July 2005.
On the first of the directives, my hon. Friend the Member for Bosworth has blown the Government's position out of the water, following his conversation with one of our representatives in the European Parliament. I would like active lobbying by the Government to ensure that maximum permitted levels for nutrients are set at acceptable levels, not the restrictive ones preferred by France and Germany.
On the traditional herbal medicinal products directive, I would like a derogation from the directive to allow the United Kingdom to introduce national rules to permit the continued sale of products that are safe and appropriately labelled, but which may otherwise lie outside its restrictive scope. Furthermore, the completely arbitrary period for which a product must have been on the European Union market before being allowed registration should be abolished. Finally, I want an end to attempts by the Medicines Control Agency to regulate herbal remedies as though they were pharmaceutical drugs, thus reducing compliance costs.
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