FOOD SUPPLEMENTS DIRECTIVE (No. 2)

That this House congratulates Consumers for Health Choice on its sustained campaign over many years to defend the access of Harlow consumers and consumers across the UK to safe and popular higher potency vitamin and mineral food supplements; understands that the European Commission may in 2011 take forward the process of setting maximum permitted levels for nutrients in supplements under the provisions of Article 5 of the Food Supplements Directive; observes that a restrictive interpretation of this legislation could threaten the continued availability of a wide range of safe dietary supplements, lead to the closure of 700 independent health food retailers and the loss of 4,000 UK jobs; encourages Ministers to do all they can to defend safe and legal products currently on the UK market by engaging robustly with Commissioners and EU officials and by building alliances with other member state governments; reinforces its implacable opposition to the setting of unnecessary restrictive maximum permitted levels for nutrients in such supplements; and reaffirms its view that the rights of consumers to access safe products of their choice should not be sacrificed on the alter of market harmonisation.