Natural Medicines (Hansard, 5 March 1991)

§ 7. Mr. Colvin
To ask the Secretary of State for Health when his medicines review committee will report on the natural medicines licence fee system; and what increase in fees he proposes in the meantime.

§ Mr. Dorrell
The Medicines Control Agency is undertaking a full review of the licensing fee structure and will be issuing a consultation document shortly. We are not proposing an interim increase in fees.

§ Mr. Colvin
Will my hon. Friend acknowledge that the manufacturers of natural medicines tend to be small businesses with a large number of medicines to license? High fees, and the high costs involved in obtaining licences, could drive the smaller manufacturers out of business, cutting consumer choice and possibly pushing up the cost of natural medicines. I am sure that that is not my hon. Friend's intention, but can he give the House a guarantee that the new system will not have that undesirable result?

§ Mr. Dorrell
My hon. Friend is right that it is no part of our intention to drive the small companies providing such remedies out of business. As he will know, the points that he made have been put during the review to which I referred and they will, of course, be taken into account when the report is published.

§ Mr. Corbett
Will the Minister reconsider the answer that he has just given and acknowledge that an increasing number of people choose to use natural alternative medicines? It would do the health service and all who make that choice no service at all to ladle unwarranted extra costs on to those who provide the alternative medicines.

§ Mr. Dorrell
It is precisely because I accept the force of the consumer choice argument that the hon. Gentleman advances— slightly improbably— that I told my hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Waterside (Mr. Colvin) that we were receptive to what he was saying.

§ Mr. Anthony Coombs
Is my hon. Friend aware that some manufacturers of herbal and homeopathic products, such as Weleda, make no fewer than 2,000 such products, and that to impose on them a flat-rate licence system, rather than one based on turnover, would place burdens on them that could drive some products from the market?

§ Mr. Dorrell
We recognise the force of that argument and it is being taken into account in the review, which will shortly lead to a report.