Natures abhors a vacuum, Mr Bone; it looks as though it falls to me to fill it, albeit briefly. I apologise that I cannot stay for the end of the debate, but I have been encouraged to speak by the excellent contributions that we have had so far, led nobly by my hon. Friend the Member for Bosworth (David Tredinnick), who has an unparalleled reputation for knowledge in this area. I am sure that we all commend him for that.
There is no reason at all why the European Union should interfere in this issue. Why should not the United Kingdom be able to decide for itself whether it wants to regulate herbal medicines? This is another area in which the European Union is unnecessarily interfering in our daily lives and, of course, affecting millions of people. We have already heard that more than 3 million people access Chinese herbal medicine in any two-year period
and that 25 million of our citizens buy herbal products over the counter in any two years, so this is a matter of huge interest.
The problem is quite technical, but I think that we could easily overcome it, as indeed the Government said that they would. The European Union has given this country a way around the European Union regulations, and the Government took up the challenge. In February 2011, two months before European directive 2004/24/EC took effect, the then Secretary of State for Health said:
“This Government wish to ensure that the public can continue to have access”
to unlicensed manufactured herbal medicines. That was the clear will of Her Majesty’s Government. The Secretary of State continued:
“In order to achieve this, while at the same time complying with EU law, some form of statutory regulation will be necessary and I have therefore decided to ask the Health Professions Council to establish a statutory register for practitioners supplying unlicensed herbal medicines.”—[Official Report, 16 February 2011; Vol. 523, c. 84WS.]
As the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey) said, millions of people throughout the country—practitioners and users—took great comfort from those words and the clarity of direction laid out by Her Majesty’s Government.
Sadly, although the Government promised that the register would be introduced by the end of 2012, we are now well into 2013 and there no sign of it. Presumably, the Secretary of State made his clear statement on the advice of officials in his Department. If it is the officials who are now telling the Government that they cannot have the statutory register, we need to hear from the Minister today that that is the case and the reasons for that about-turn, because millions of people in this country, including many of our constituents, took great comfort from those words in 2011.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Bosworth said, it appears that the Department has been thrown into a state of paralysis by the judgment on Poland. Poland was clearly caught out trying to break the rules and, under EU regulations, the Commission took Poland to the Luxembourg Court, which duly found against Poland. The Polish case is not a parallel to the United Kingdom situation. It may be a judgment on the same part of the EU legislation, but Poland was trying to abuse article 5.1; the United Kingdom Government said that they wanted to comply with article 5.1, by coming up with the statutory register. If Her Majesty’s Government believe that that judgment on Poland is the cause of their paralysis, the Minister needs to say so today and explain why that judgment is holding up the United Kingdom setting up a statutory register.
An EU directive has come in; that was in April 2011. The Government said that they would have a statutory register by the end of 2012, to ameliorate the worst effects of the directive, yet more than two years on, the herbal medicine industry, which Her Majesty’s Government said that they wanted to protect, remains exposed to that EU directive. That is simply an unacceptable situation. There will be, in all our constituencies, small and medium-sized herbal practitioners that are finding their livelihoods affected by an EU directive that the Government promised they would ameliorate—two years on, they have failed to do so. The Minister needs to explain to the House today why we are in this sorry state and what he will do to sort it out as quickly as possible.
10.28 am