EXCLUSION OF CHANNEL ISLANDS FROM REQUIREMENT TO COMPLY WITH EU DIRECTIVES

That this House notes that whilst the United Kingdom's responsible specialist manufacturers of food supplements and herbal remedies struggle to comply with a growing weight of regulation governing the composition, presentation and marketing of their products, a number of competing businesses now market direct to United Kingdom mainland consumers from the Channel Islands; observes that because of the special constitutional status of the Channel Islands such businesses can avoid compliance with UK national and European Union legislation on medicines, food supplements and health claims; further notes with concern that imports of such products from the Channel Islands now represent nearly 20 per cent. of the UK market, exposing consumers to medical claims in Channel Islands distributed marketing material and giving access to products containing ingredients which have been banned from sale in the UK mainland; further observes that the scale of this operation now undermines the competitiveness of responsible UK businesses; and calls upon the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, trading standards officers and Ministers urgently to develop and implement a strategy to address this unfair and illegal competition in order to protect consumers and reponsible businesses.