§ Mr. RostTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will list the research projects and amount of funding by the Medical Research Council for each of the past five years, identifying those which relate to natural medicine.
Mr. Jackson[holding answer 17 July 1990]: Details of all the research projects supported by the Medical Research Council are listed in its handbook, published annually, copies of which have been placed in the Library of the House. Total expenditure by the council on research projects in the period 1985–86 to 1988–89 was:
£ million 1985–86 117.9 1986–87 123.5 1987–88 132.7 1988–89 146.2 An expenditure figure for 1989–90 will be available at the end of July. The council takes natural medicine to mean homeopathy. It has not supported any research relating to homeopathy in the last five years. In the general area of complementary medicine, the council has recently funded the trial of chiropractic treatment of low back pain. It is always willing to consider soundly based proposals in competition with other applications.