With permission, Madam Speaker, I wish to make a statement setting out the way ahead for the investigation and prosecution of serious and complex fraud.

This issue has now been the subject of two official reports: the Graham report, received in March 1994; and the report by a committee chaired by Mr. Rex Davie, formerly of the Cabinet Office, delivered to me at the beginning of February. The Graham report was published last year. I have today placed copies of the Davie report in the Library.

The key issue focused upon by the Davie Committee was whether to develop and build on the existing structures, or whether to merge them into one organisation and, if so, whether that organisation should be based upon the Serious Fraud Office or the fraud divisions of the Crown Prosecution Service. The clear advice of the Davie committee is that the existing structures should be retained and that the role of the police in SFO cases should be clarified. The Davie report makes that principal recommendation against a merger, and nine subsidiary recommendations. I accept them all.

The report emphasises the fact that fraud covers a wide spectrum, from the highly sophisticated banking and commercial frauds involved, for example, in the collapse of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International or the Guinness cases, to relatively straightforward deception. That broad range requires an effective, proportionate and flexible response. For the heaviest cases, the Davie report endorses the regime based upon Lord Roskill's report in 1986, which brings together the investigation and prosecution of fraud by a multi-disciplinary team of lawyers, accountants, both in-house and from the private sector, and the police, working at all stages under the aegis of a specialist prosecuting authority—the Serious Fraud Office. But intermediate cases can properly be handled by traditional police methods leading to prosecution by the less resource-intensive fraud divisions of the Crown Prosecution Service, and a substantial number of lesser cases should also continue to be prosecuted locally in each Crown Prosecution Service area.

I should emphasise that, despite the often misguided criticism to which the prosecuting agencies have been subject, the Serious Fraud Office and the fraud divisions of the CPS have made real advances since they were set up in the 1980s. In its seven years of existence to date, the Serious Fraud Office has brought to trial 141 major cases involving 309 defendants, of whom 191 have been convicted. More significantly, in over 75 per cent. of the cases brought to trial by the SFO, at least one person has been convicted, usually the principal defendant.

The Serious Fraud Office has a current case load of some 50 cases of which, on average, 20 have been brought to trial each year. At the intermediate level, the police in London and throughout England and Wales consult closely with the fraud divisions of the Crown Prosecution Service, London or provincial, in significant fraud cases prior to charge; and between them the two divisions have currently just under 100 cases being tried or awaiting trial in the Crown court. Each fraud division comprises a team of 15 lawyers, supported by in-house accountants, together with a very substantial input from independent counsel, usually brought in at an early stage of any case going forward to prosecution. This system is less resource-intensive than the Serious Fraud Office but nevertheless provides a specialised service on a multi-disciplinary basis. Each CPS area also handles a number of fraud cases locally, again working in close co-operation with the police and counsel.

At whichever level cases are handled, high levels of expertise, experience and attention to detail are essential. The primary conclusion of the Davie report was that the broad structure of each organisation should remain unaltered. Its subsidiary but nonetheless important recommendations are as follows. It provided a revised set of criteria for determining whether cases should be handled by the Serious Fraud Office or the Crown Prosecution Service. Those criteria, which the report concludes should lead to a heavier case load for, and some enlargement of, the Serious Fraud Office, should be published. The allocation of resources as between the two prosecuting authorities in relation to their case load should be kept under review and the Serious Fraud Office should continue to adopt a flexible approach when deciding precisely how their cases should be handled.

The role of the Joint Vetting Committee, established following the Graham report to consider the allocation of cases, which do not fall clearly to the Serious Fraud Office or the fraud divisions, should be strengthened to allow consideration of policy issues and the Association of Chief Police Officers should be fully represented on the Joint Vetting Committee when policy issues are discussed. The role of the police in Serious Fraud Office cases needs to be clarified, perhaps in a memorandum of understanding.

Finally, there should be closer co-ordination between the two prosecuting agencies to encourage a pooling of expertise, a common approach to policy issues, and improved arrangements for the interchange of staff to broaden their experience and provide for enhanced career development.

The Director of Public Prosecutions, the Director of the Serious Fraud Office and I all welcome the constructive measures suggested in the two reports. They bring to an end what has been a period of uncertainty for both organisations and provide a sound blueprint for future improvements. There can be no room for complacency, but it can be said with confidence that, without the present structures and organisation, many of the heaviest cases successfully brought to trial and conviction would never have been tried at all. Once the constructive recommendations of these two reports are in place, the ability of both organisations to perform their heavy tasks will be significantly enhanced. The Government are wholly committed to the effective and efficient prosecution of fraud at all levels. I commend the proposals to the House.

I welcome the Davie report and the Attorney-General's conclusions. While I would not necessarily have devised the Serious Fraud Office and maintained a fraud division of the Crown Prosecution Service at the same time, a shotgun marriage now is not the best way to proceed.

There is no single measure of the effectiveness of a prosecuting authority and we are not in the business of knocking either the SFO or the CPS for knocking's sake. Does the Attorney-General accept from my experience that both the SFO and the fraud division of the CPS handle complex and difficult cases, and that the number of convictions is not necessarily a yardstick by which to judge their effectiveness?

As regards the Attorney-General's responsibility, will he satisfy himself that both authorities make the widest use of counsel of experience, including those usually defending, and instruct them to consider the further lightening of indictments, what can be done to limit the breadth of evidence, and concentrate on prosecuting the prime wrongdoers rather than trying to catch every tiddler, thereby simplifying the difficult and onerous task of jurors?

As enormous costs are frequently at stake, will the Attorney-General convey to the Lord Chancellor the need to ensure the strongest pool of competent judges to try those cases, and perhaps to signify their qualities properly? That perhaps is often the heart of the matter.

Will the Attorney-General reconsider his remarks about the need to clarify the role of the police in the SFO—a masterly understatement, if ever there was one? I have read the Davie report, which speaks of a much more serious position. It refers to "confusion and uncertainty" in direction of investigations, says that

"relations work in the majority of cases"

end mentions

"the need to resolve current tensions."

It is a masterly understatement to speak of clarifying.

Does the Attorney-General share the anxiety of some commentators that for a time there were few, if any, references from the London police forces to the SFO? The Graham report notes:

"The recent trend of provincial forces collectively to refer more cases than the two London forces is contrary to the expectation that the more likely place of incidence of serious fraud is in London."

Has that now changed? Will he personally ensure the greatest participation by the police in the SFO? Is it good use of scarce talent for the police to serve in the SFO at a very high level for a relatively short time and transfer to more mundane duties, including traffic, very soon after?

Will the Attorney-General make a further report to Parliament on what will be achieved by better co-ordination between the SFO and the fraud division in allocating cases? The report refers to "confusing overlap". Perhaps we might know, as a significant increase in the work of the SFO appears to be intended, what proportion that is likely to be. Will he also ensure that the alarming finding that there is little contact on professional questions between the CPS and the SFO becomes a matter of history?

The use of new methods of recording evidence and new technology has helped juries in their difficult task in some recent complex cases. Will the Attorney-General ensure that resources are not denied to the SFO to make the task of juries easier?

First, may I thank the right hon. and learned Gentlemen warmly for his welcome, and his recognition of the value of the Serious Fraud Office and the fraud divisions of the Crown Prosecution Service? He and I are in entire agreement about that important matter and we share the opinion that Davie has correctly identified the way ahead.

I accept that both organisations have a complex and difficult role. No one should underestimate the strain on everyone involved—the investigating police and accountants, counsel who presents the case and, indeed, the judge—of those heavy cases.

The right hon. and learned Member for Aberavon (Mr. Morris) is right that one must seek experienced counsel to present those cases, that the indictments should not be overweighted by an excessive number of charges, that they should be well focused on the principal suspects and the principal aspects of the case, and that they should not be diverted on to minor and subsidiary matters.

I agree that the selection of the judge is of huge importance. The House should pay respect to the enormous burden on the judge in trying a long case of that nature. There are two key factors in those cases; clear, comprehensive and comprehensible presentation by the prosecution and a clear absorption by the judge, who must keep the case steady, prevent it from being unduly interrupted by unnecessary technicality and then present the case clearly and fairly to the jury in his summing-up. It is a heavy task, for which we owe a deep debt of gratitude to the judges who work so hard to carry it out.

An important argument in the Davie report is that the role of the police needs to be clarified in the SFO, so that the police who work there, who have an immensely important role to play—I say that with great emphasis—have a line of accountability that they fully understand and which enables the Director of the Serious Fraud Office, with his heavy duties, to have clear control and direction of cases under his command.

For a time, there was a reduction in the number of cases coming forward in London. There has been a pick-up. The exact reasons for it are difficult to deduce, although it may be something to do with the recession.

It has been suggested that the police should spend longer periods in the Serious Fraud Office. I have taken a close interest in that matter for about 14 years, since I was first parliamentary private secretary to Sir Michael Havers, long before those offices were set up.

It is specialisation, it is the fact that one knows the game of fraud as well as or better than the fraudsters, that makes an excellent investigator and prosecutor. That applies to the police, and they must be given an opportunity to build up that long-term expertise.

In answer to the final questions of the right hon. and learned Member for Aberavon, yes, we shall maintain a close watch on the way in which those matters develop. I am sure that the subject will come up in questions, rightly, from time to time. The shift to the Serious Fraud Office must be considered case by case. We are not dealing with supermarket products here; we are dealing with decisions carefully tailored to heavy cases.

The lack of contact in the past between the SFO and the fraud divisions of the CPS is something that I wish to be changed. Before the report was produced, I had the opportunity to visit and talk personally to the great majority of the lawyers and accountants who deal with those prosecutions. They are anxious for closer contact. They seek an enhanced career structure. I am determined that we shall give it to them.

Technology is of great importance. In a recent case, the judge praised the way in which 17,000 documents were kept on computer and might be brought instantly to the attention of the jury, greatly enhancing the management of the case.

I warmly welcome my right hon. Friend's statement. Does he agree that, with the increased prevalence of technology, especially throughout the banking and financial services world, the opportunities for fraud are greatly increased? Does not that demonstrate that the only effective way to discourage those people is to create the certainty that they will be detected and successfully prosecuted? He is right to draw attention to the importance of skills.

I make a plea that the skills in the police are not undervalued by the police themselves, and that there is a proper career structure for police officers working in the Serious Fraud Office, so that their expertise and experience is not wasted by their being returned to other duties.

I agree strongly with what my hon. Friend has said. He is a former police officer, and I know, from my several visits to the SFO and the CPS fraud divisions, the huge role that the police do and should play in those matters. They deserve clear lines of accountability and a proper career structure, so that they can play a maximum part in those heavy and important cases and thereby help to show the fraudster that crime does not pay and that it does lead to the condign punishment that it deserves.

I am willing to give a cautious welcome to the statement that has been made. I think that the decision to build on the existing structures is the right one, but does the Attorney-General accept that there remains a good deal of uncertainty and disquiet in the public's mind about the process? Can he confirm that the existing structures must be built on and developed, as he said, so that the public confidence that we need can be established? The jury is still out on the SFO. Although today's announcement will go a long way to dispelling public disquiet, work still needs to be done.

Do any of the Davie recommendations deal with the Attorney-General's role in monitoring the process in future? That was mentioned earlier and it is an essential part of building the confidence in the system which the public are entitled to feel about it. The right hon. and learned Gentleman is right that we owe a debt of gratitude to judges who conduct such cases. Are they sufficiently trained, however, to digest and break down the evidence that is put before lay members of the jury, so that those juries can make sensible decisions? Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman have urgent discussions with the Lord Chancellor to satisfy himself that judges receive the training that is adequate for the task?

The hon. Gentleman makes a number of good points with which I agree. I am grateful for his welcome of the conclusions of the Davie report. He is right to agree that we should build on the existing structures.

The hon. Gentleman may say that the jury is out on the SFO or the fraud divisions of the CPS, but they deal with heavy cases. If any of them go wrong it generates a huge amount of publicity. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would agree that to achieve a conviction in 75 per cent. of SFO cases, usually of the principal defendant, is no mean achievement. A certain number of interested people like to run down the prosecuting authorities, perhaps in the hope that they will be less effective in turning their gaze in certain directions.

As for my role, I can tell the House that I and my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General, who has 30 years of prosecuting experience, including such heavy cases, take a close interest in the operation of both organisations, with the assistance of the Directors of the SFO and of Public Prosecutions and we will continue to do so.

The hon. Gentleman is right to emphasise not only the burden on judges, but the importance of training. I shall keep in close touch with my noble Friend the Lord Chancellor on such matters.

Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that the SFO has now acquired unique specialist skills and experience? Many cases, such BCCI, Barlow Clowes and Guinness, would not have come to trial without that knowledge and its ability to get behind the defences of some of the most sophisticated criminals in the country.

Does my right hon. and learned Friend also agree that the other area in which the SFO has scored recently is in the presentation of cases? At Oxford recently, Judge May stressed that the way in which 17,000 court documents could be presented by the SFO using computer screens was a fantastic aid to the jury and saved a lot of court time. Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that, having achieved all those improvements and having that knowledge, it is more likely in the future that criminals will be detected and successfully prosecuted by the SFO than before? Is not that a tribute to its work?

My hon. Friend makes a number of good points. It is typical of us in Britain that we often run ourselves down when the rest of the world is praising us. The members of the SFO and the CPS are in great demand overseas, as are their directors, because the rest of the world wants to know how to organise its serious fraud prosecution and prosecution processes generally. My hon. Friend is absolutely correct that, going back to the early 1980s, fraud cases took enormously longer to prosecute. I remember one of the Lloyd's cases, known as the Gang of Four case, which took about seven years to come to trial and which did not lead to a conviction. The speed and efficiency with which that sort of matter is now investigated, in tandem with the Department of Trade and Industry, is a sea change from those days. It is a remarkable thing to be able to draw up any one of 17,000 documents, as required, with proper indexing, word recognition and so on. That is the way ahead; my hon. Friend is right to point to it.

Is the Attorney-General aware that, by making a narrow statement on the Davie committee report, he has missed a great opportunity to remove from the public's mind the idea that there are two standards of justice in Britain? It seems extremely odd that he has not used this opportunity to explain why some of those millionaire crooks, like Levitt, the Maxwell brothers and others, can get legal aid while they hand around at court. Some of those cases take a month of Sundays, but the people involved manage to live off the public purse and finish up with a few hours' community service.

Why has the right hon. and learned Gentleman not used today as a chance to explain how the prosecution of such cases will be sped up even more? He should have said that the SFO will explain how the treatment of those in the City, who are making money hand over fist at Baring Brothers and the like, and who have not been brought to justice, will compare to the justice meted out to the little old lady who takes a tin of pilchards from Marks and Spencer and gets locked up within a month?

I am not going down the road of commenting on individual cases, particularly any that may be currently before the courts. I invite the hon. Gentleman to take an unusual course and to praise what everyone else in the House has been right to see merit in. The steps that we are taking and the steps that we have taken through the SFO and the fraud divisions of the CPS have done and are doing exactly what he wants. It is ensuring that a high standard of justice will bring the spotlight, indeed the searchlight, to bear on the activities of fraudsters and will bring them to justice far more effectively than before.

The public could be forgiven if they thought that all fraud cases are either handled according to a conspiracy theory, which seems to be the theory of the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner), or the cock-up theory, which is often presented to the public by the press. Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that it is rather encouraging that, of the cases that the SFO brings to court, it gains convictions in three quarters of them, frequently of the principal fraudsters? That is particularly meritorious in the light of the complexities of the matter. Does my right hon. and learned Friend consider that what he has announced today will further strengthen the idea in the public mind that fraudsters will be caught up with and properly dealt with by the competent authorities?

I agree with my hon. Friend. One can make all sorts of interesting stories in the press. The really interesting story today is that one does not lightly get away with serious fraud. If a case does not lead to prosecution for any reason, even a humanitarian one, where the case is stopped because the defendant is thought to be at danger of his life, as happened in one important case, that is described by some newspapers as a fiasco. That is simply not true. I am not so complacent as to say that there are not lessons to be learned from some past cases—there are—but my hon. Friend is right to draw attention to the high conviction rate that has rightly been achieved as a result of attention to detail and the focusing of expertise.

There is a clear need to be tough on serious fraud, but it is not clear whether the cautious Davie report goes far towards doing that. There is also a need to be tough on the causes of serious fraud. Does the Davie report touch those areas by starting to deal with the problems of our rip-off society? Does it offer any suggestions that other Ministers should be involved because of concerns about the way in which the Government have led society in the past 15 years?

I would not describe this as a cautious report. A report that has the courage to say, in the face of often immoderate criticism, that it is not necessary to pull everything up by the roots, is a brave report and right.

As for standards in society, the message that I am delivering loudly and clearly is, "If you think you can get away with fraud, you are wrong. We will not put up with it in today's society." We are putting in place highly effective measures to bring wrongdoers to justice.

I join in the general welcome given to my right hon. and learned Friend's statement. Does he agree that the cause of crime is criminals and the cause of fraud is fraudsters, whatever the Opposition may think? Does not bringing fraudsters to justice in serious fraud cases usually involve a difficult and complex undertaking, which must be supported by a prosecuting team with the right level of specialist skills and experience?

Should not we view the performance of the SFO against that background? Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that convictions at a strike rate of 75 per cent. of cases suggests that some worthwhile progress has been made? There is also good value for money because the SFO's budget is only about £20 million, which must be seen against the much greater cost of loss and damage caused by fraud. Should not we now give the SFO wide-ranging public support in the important task that it is undertaking?

My hon. Friend is right. He mentioned the cost of investigating and prosecuting serious fraud cases through the SFO as being just under £20 million a year. Professor Levi of Cardiff university, in a recent study, pointed out that that cost should be viewed against the direct loss involved in the SFO's current case load of some £6 billion. It is money properly focused on the worthwhile target of bringing guilty suspects to justice.

My right hon. and learned Friend is right to point out the relative success record of the SFO in its prosecutions. However, are not many of the cases so complex and complicated that it is increasingly unrealistic to expect the jury system and the individual members of a jury sufficiently to understand the details of the issues involved to have the confidence to convict? Will my right hon. and learned Friend consider introducing legislation that would allow many of those uniquely complicated cases to be transferred to decisions by judges, rather than by jury, and so enhance the SFO's future success rate?

My hon. Friend rightly makes an important point. It is one on which we focus careful attention from time to time. The point about serious fraud cases and, indeed, most fraud cases, is that while they are complex in execution, they tend to be quite simple in concept—really just hands in the till. The big task is to present the case clearly so that something that the fraudster hopes is buried in tonnes of paper or lost in the interstices of a computer is actually laid clearly before the court. The main burden falls on the prosecution and the judge, and if they can do an effective job juries seldom fail to understand the case in the end. I do not close my mind to my hon. Friend's point, but I think that I have put my finger on the key issue.

Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree with the Davie report that the key task for the SFO is consultation with senior police officers to ensure that the essential role of the police in large cases is properly defined?

Yes, I do. It is right that the report should not funk that important question. As the right hon. and learned Member for Aberavon (Mr. Morris) pointed out, in most cases the police work effectively with the SFO. However, there are tensions. It is difficult to work for one organisation when, in a sense, one's loyalty is owed to another. I look forward to tackling the problem with the SFO and CPS Directors and with the police commissioners, to help them to find a satisfactory resolution from the highest level downwards.

Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that it would be helpful to the public if they could understand more of the workings of the SFO, bearing in mind the fact that it employs highly skilled, highly efficient people to tackle very organised crime?

Yes, I agree. Indeed, the SFO holds an open invitation to any hon. Member to go and see how it carries out its work. It is fairly impressive to go through its floors, to meet the people who spend a major part of their careers focusing on such an important area and to see how computers can bring the documentation under control so that cases can be marshalled to ensure that something that is immensely complex to start with can be shown in its true light and, if it be the case, its true criminality.

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

It is important to put it on record that when I introduced the Bill last year I was completely overwhelmed by the response and the support that it received. I received great support from the media, national newspapers, women's magazines, the medical profession, eminent nutritionists such as Dr. Tom Sanders of King's college, the Advertising Standards Authority, the Royal Pharmaceutical Society and an active organisation called Diet Breakers founded by Mary Evans Young. Most important, I was also bowled over by the support that I received from thousands of women, and a few men, who have tried dieting, sometimes for years, and have either poured money down the drain and regained any weight lost after a couple of years or damaged their health, sometimes seriously.

It was the health hazards of dieting that first caught my interest as a Member of Parliament. A few years ago, two young girls and their mothers visited me at one of my weekly advice surgeries. Both girls, who were very young, were suffering from serious slimming illnesses. One of them had decided when she was 11 years old that she was too fat. She wanted to look like the skinny models on the catwalks and in girls' and women's magazines. She set about starving herself to fulfil her aim. She did so secretly, without her parents knowing.

For at least two years, her anxious parents fretted about her weight loss, listlessness and mood swings. Only when it was almost too late did they find out what the truth. They then sought help because she was suffering from severe anorexia nervosa. The girl, who is now almost 17 years old, is still ill. She does not have periods and doctors fear for her fertility. There have been many well-publicised extreme cases involving young women who have been slimming. Some have ended in death. I shall deal with slimming diseases in a moment.

Further investigation on my part led to the discovery that we have an epidemic of dieting in the United Kingdom and, indeed, in the western world. In this country, 90 per cent. of women diet at some time in their lives. At any given time, 50 per cent. of women are dieting, including girls as young as seven and eight and women as old as 75.

I also discovered that a multi-million pound diet industry operates in this country—it is worth about £1 billion a year. We spend about six times the gross national product of the Gambia on gimmicks such as patches, tablets and various courses and cures, trying more often than not to be unhealthily thin while many people in the developing world are dying because they do not have enough food and subsequently suffer starvation.

Sadly, many of the people who diet do not need to do so. The vast majority have absolutely no reason to diet. I teamed up with Diet Breakers and Mary Evans Young because I liked their positive approach to the subject. So much about dieting is shrouded in secrecy and misery and depends on people's insecurities. Diet Breakers was like a breath of fresh air. It opposes the diet industry by and large and opposes what it calls the tyranny of thinness which has gathered so much momentum in this country. Diet Breakers and Dr. Thomas Sanders of Kings college, who wrote the very good book "You Do Not Have To Diet", gave me considerable help when I was drawing up my Bill to regulate the industry. I would like to record my thanks to Mary Evans Young and Tom Sanders.

Mary Evans Young is bringing out a book that I hope will offer help to thousands of women who are going through the misery of dieting. "Diet Breaking: Having It All Without Having To Diet" is an excellent book. It is a fresh approach and full of common sense. Let us hope that many people read it and that the young, especially, have access so it.

My Bill would regulate the diet industry by requiring weight-loss centres to display prominently a health warning that rapid weight loss can be dangerous to health. All weight-loss companies would have to provide consumers with a card which clearly outlines the risk of any rapid weight loss. Anybody selling such products or running a clinic would also have to disclose any additional charges because too often the consumer buys a product and then discovers that extra charges are incurred when the diet programme is devised. There are many cons in the industry.

Most importantly, my Bill would also require that all weight-loss pills, potions and patches are brought under a medicines Act and, of course, that medicines such as amphetamines and amphetamine-type pills are not given to aid slimming. I very much welcome and congratulate the Minister on his press release on 29 March, which was presumably in response to concerns being expressed in the media, by organisations such as Diet Breakers and, indeed, by hon. Members. The Minister said that a move to ban the use of certain amphetamines and amphetamine-type drugs as aids to losing weight would be shortly under way.

The press release says:

"The Medicine Control Agency, an executive of the Department of Health, is to start consultations with a view to restricting the use of such drugs, under section 62 of the 1968 Medicines Act, under certain circumstances."

I know that the Minister has taken an interest in the matter. He clearly and rightly describes in his press release what is so wrong when he says that a number of doctors have set up slimming clinics to prescribe amphetamines, which are addictive drugs, as an aid to weight loss.

Such drugs have dramatic and devastating effects when they are dished out to some women. There have been reports, as the Minister said, of people being damaged mentally and physically by the drugs and of them leading to addiction and psychosis. There have also been reports of hair loss, palpitations and other side effects. I welcome the press release. The Minister has taken a positive move and I hope that that ban does not take too long to implement.

I should like to tell the House about some of the many hundreds of letters that I have received since I started looking into the industry and, in particular, into the use of drugs which are dished out like sweeties in some of the clinics to which the Minister referred. I shall not give the name of the person who wrote this letter, but it says:

"Dear Mrs. Mahon,

I have been meaning to write to you for some weeks following a report on the BBC news about your involvement in trying to have the slimming business regulated. The enclosed newspaper article can only describe to some extent my experiences in what I can only describe as a year of hell."

That person goes on to describe how she was horrified by the side effects of the pills, which appear, she said,

"to be generally well-known among the medical profession",

yet doctors still give them out.

An article from Woman's Journal which my correspondent enclosed talked about experiences similar to her husband's. Woman's Journal also outlines a couple of cases that I think are worth putting on the record. One concerns a woman who was brave enough to give her name—Susan Weeks, aged 34. She was a stone heavier than she would have liked to be. Five years ago, six weeks before her marriage, she decided to lose the extra stone before her wedding day. She saw an advertisement in the yellow pages for a local slimming clinic and she made an appointment. In her words:

"I only saw the doctor for a few minutes. He just asked me a few questions, weighed me and gave me two sorts of pills, plus a vitamin supplement and a diet sheet. On the day I married I was the thinnest I'd ever been. I also felt terrible—hypersensitive, panicky and weak. I put it down to stress, but I knew it was the pills and that diet. When I came back from the honeymoon—nearly back to my old weight and feeling really well—I saw the remaining pills and flushed them down the loo."

Other experiences did not end as positively as that.

A well-documented case, which the Daily Mail highlighted fairly well, was that of Christine Malik who died the day after taking pills prescribed to help her lose a few pounds before her holidays. Another woman was not even seen by a doctor before she was given diet pills, although they were a controlled drug described as amphetamine-like and chemically related to ecstasy. As a result, the clinic was searched and two arrests were made. That woman was given the pills although she was not even seen by a doctor. That is an example of the dangerous practice now taking place.

I also put on the record another case which came to me from Mary Evans Young of Diet Breakers as we were collecting evidence and information for the Bill. The case concerns a woman called Mandie who is 5 ft 10 in tall—she is quite a tall woman—and weighs 12 stone. She is 22 and works in a factory. She writes:

"My one wish is to be able to forget dieting and stop worrying about my body size. I have been dieting non-stop for as far back as I can remember. My mum has always dieted too, and so after 1 received a few jokes about my size at school, I decided I would follow suit.

I began to get paranoid and one of my earliest memories of how miserable worrying about my body size is quite funny. I was in the junior school (so I was younger than 11) and besotted with horses like many young girls at that age."

She was very much in love with horses. The letter continues:

"The walls of my room were covered in horse posters and religiously, every night before I got undressed, I would pull the top two pieces of Blue-Tak from the wall so that the horses' heads faced towards the wall and they couldn't see my body as I undressed! Then, before I got back into bed every poster was put back again. This ritual was repeated for years."

It is really, really sad that a young girl is so obsessed with how she looks and with her image that she resorts to that when she is less than seven years old.

The letter continues:

"Until recently, dieting had become just a part of my life. Every Monday I began a new diet. Although I was not huge I didn't like myself and my body because if you are told something often enough, you start to believe it. Anyway, I got more miserable and tried more and more diets. With each one I lost weight initially, but after sticking to it for a short while I put on everything I had lost plus some more. I hit rock bottom, became very depressed and would cry for no reason at all. Going out became really hard for me as I was ashamed of myself and couldn't bear to be seen in public. Eventually I got some counselling and as a result I have come to realise that my problems stemmed from the pressure on me to be slimmer than my healthy natural body size."

Mandie's experience is the experience of thousands who are daily bombarded with images of unhealthily thin models on the catwalks. Magazines are full of pictures of size 10 women, but we all come in different shapes and sizes; we are not all alike.

When I was young Marilyn Monroe was my role model, and I used to take bottles and bottles of stuff called Weight On in a desperate attempt to put on a few pounds. Later in life I developed gallstones, much to the surprise of my doctors, who said that sufferers were usually people older and fatter than myself. I am pretty sure that all that stuff that I poured into myself contributed to that illness.

So there was pressure even then, although it is far more intense now than when I was younger. A lack of self-esteem and a desire to look like those whom the image-makers portray as beauties makes many young girls dissatisfied with their bodies. And that now applies to boys, too, because sadly the fashion industry is targeting boys. All those advertisements showing boys in slim-fitting jeans are part of that process.

Diet Breakers undertook a survey to establish the patterns of dieting, and asked where the pressure to diet comes from. The survey, which was extremely interesting, covered 516 women, and 45 per cent. of them answered that the pressure came from the media and from the fashion and advertising industries, whereas only 15 per cent. said that it came from doctors.

When asked what part of their bodies they felt most negative about, 25 per cent. said stomach, 15 per cent. thighs and 15 per cent. bottoms. When my Bill of the same name was before the House last year the hon. Member for Mid-Staffordshire (Mr. Fabricant) said that the diet industry provided a useful back-up service for the overstretched national health service. The statistics that I have quoted show that argument to be flawed, although well before the survey, common sense also showed that it was flawed.

Those figures show why the diet industry's chief guru, Rosemary Conley, gives her books titles such as "The Hip and Thigh Diet" and "The Flat Stomach Diet". But Mrs. Conley's own health has not always been good. Like me, she has had gallstones, which is a common ailment among constant dieters.

The survey also asked for the reasons why people could not accept themselves as they were. Low self-esteem was mentioned by 32.5 per cent. of respondents. In other words, that multi-million pound industry is exploiting women's low self-esteem by promising them success, not only in losing weight but with the implied new life that is supposed to go with it.

The Diet Breakers survey also asked, "Did your mother diet?" The results show that dieting runs in families. That has been my experience too. People write to me about it, and one woman in particular sticks in my mind. She said that she had stopped going to Weight Watchers because she had had to rethink dramatically about dieting. She had been taking her 11-year-old daughter, who was very slender, with her to Weight Watchers, and had noticed that even she was becoming interested in losing pounds as a way of life. I found that quite frightening and very honest, and I was pleased that the woman joined Diet Breakers.

Sixty-four per cent. of the respondents aged up to 41 said that their mothers had dieted too, whereas 72 per cent. of respondents aged 60 and over said that their mothers did not diet. That too is an interesting statistic.

Dieting has become an unhealthy national epidemic. We have been encouraged to believe that a diet for losing weight is the same as a healthy diet, but the two are completely different. A healthy diet means being able to enjoy food without feeling guilty. Only then can people develop a well-balanced diet and a healthy lifestyle. Eating what one fancies and stopping when one is full is natural and healthy.

The diet industry, with its gadgets and gimmicks, its meal replacements and low-calorie dinners—we have all seen them—does not teach people to develop a healthy relationship with their bodies and their food. That is why the British Dietetic Association supports my Bill.

Another element of the diet industry rip-off is the so-called "meal replacement" such as biscuits, bars, milk shakes and "healthy" ready-made meals. Those products can cause people to lose weight too quickly, which means a loss of lean tissue and a lowering of the metabolic rate. They can cause people to have poor nutritional value, as most of the products are high in fat and sugar. All the biscuits and bars are low in protein, and we need protein to live for any length of time.

Many of the meal replacements are not significantly lower in calories than many snack foods. They also encourage unhealthy eating habits because of their emphasis on biscuits, sweets and high-fat snacks. They are also enormously expensive, and people are getting ripped off. They are much more expensive than buying fruit and vegetables and having a balanced and healthy diet.

We have also mentioned the diet pill part of the industry, and I am pleased to say that the Royal Pharmaceutical Society—the professional body of pharmacists—supports what I am trying to do. It says that the marketing of products and the claims made for them are a matter of concern. The society believes that the products should be subject to the controls of the marketing of medicinal products.

In addition, the society is concerned about the widespread and inappropriate use of appetite suppressants, and the extent to which these are supplied through slimming clinics to customers who may be unaware of the effects of the medicines. Another young woman who had taken slimming pills told Diet Breakers about what happened to her, and I received similar letters during my campaign.

The young girl said that the first diet pill that she took made her feel dizzy and unwell. She went back to the clinic, and was given a different bottle of pills. These made her hair grow thin and start to fall out. She was worried, stopped taking the pills and returned to the clinic, where it was suggested that she try a third type of diet pill. She took those and her hair regrew, but this time it was permanently grey. She was only 23 years old.

Some 5,000 children in this country are being treated for eating disorders on the NHS. Children as young as seven and eight are dieting and feeling that they are too fat. As legislators and people interested in health, we must teach children to be positive about their body image. The Department of Health is trying to promote healthy eating in its documents on health, and we must teach children that they can look attractive if they are a different shape from the person sitting next to them, or if they have more weight, are taller or have longer arms. Those differences do not mean that a person cannot be attractive and important.

The all-pervasive arm of the diet industry reaches out. The recent survey by Diet Breakers showed the effect that mothers had on their children, but there is also evidence to show that the attitude gets into the classroom. There are now sponsored slims being held in classrooms, and that is irresponsible. "Home Alone", a children's film recently shown on television, was sponsored by Diet Coke, but healthy children who are getting plenty of exercise and who have a healthy diet do not need Diet Coke. It is the subtle introduction to the diet mentality that is worrying. People are losing their right to be viewed and valued for who they are and for their personality.

On 6 May this year it is international No Dieting Day. I have to give it a plug before I finish my speech. It is important that people get together and support each other. No Dieting Day has now become international. We have contacts with people all over the world who have been on the treadmill of dieting and want to get off or celebrate the fact that they are off it.

People throw the accusation at us that serious slimming diseases such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia are complex and simply dieting does not bring them on. I have done some work on eating disorders. The Eating Disorders Association is made up mainly of parents or people who have suffered slimming illnesses. They all say that all serious slimming illnesses start with people dieting. There may be other causes, although I am not medically qualified to say yes or no. The Eating Disorders Association says:

"Exciting, new, and miraculous diets, promising weight loss with minimum effort or discomfort are featured every week in various women's magazines, followed by pictures and recipes for delightful, easy to bake treats. As a result, many women worry continually about what they can and cannot eat and it is not surprising that so many turn to dieting."

Most people with eating disorders start by dieting. They start by reading how they should look and how they should not look.

Rachel Bryant-Waugh, the principal clinical psychologist working on slimming diseases at the Hospital for Sick Children at Great Ormond street has written an excellent article which goes through the complexities of slimming diseases. I do not pretend that such illnesses are caused simply by dieting. She says:

"Predisposing background conditions include cultural factors such as the current obsession with slimness … and possibly factors related to family, school or work."

I pay tribute to a woman whose daughter killed herself recently. Her story was in the Mail on Sunday magazine. She wanted to speak out about her daughter Karen's suicide. It must have been incredibly difficult for her to speak out. Mrs. Ros Frewer told her story to the press because she wanted to warn other parents to watch out for such problems. The young woman had been starving herself. She was bulimic. She had seen a GP and a counsellor, but had kept the illness secret. She was a lovely girl with her whole future in front of her.

Mrs. Frewer said:

"It's clear that Karen desperately wanted to be thin. In fact, she was an attractive, fashion-conscious girl, who hovered between sizes 12 and 14—a long way from fat, but she couldn't see it."

The image makers got to her. She decided that she could not cope with how she was.

The British Dietetic Association, which supports moves legally to regulate the diet industry, says:

"Western society tends to see 'thin as good' encouraging many people, especially women to 'diet' unnecessarily."

It goes on to say how many women diet. It points out that

"only 16 per cent. are obese ie have a body mass index of 30 or more. This may be detrimental to their physical and psychological health".

It will be more detrimental to them if they do not go to a doctor and reduce their weight properly. It can positively harm them if they go on extreme diets or use patented slimming medicines or potions. Such medicines are ineffective with someone who has a genuine problem of obesity.

State registered dieticians are well-qualified people. They will tell you that it is a healthy diet that matters. It is not all these gimmicks and quacks.

I cannot sit down without paying tribute to the media. It is most unusual for Members—especially Opposition Members—to pay tribute to newspapers such as The Mail on Sunday, the Daily Mail,The Sun and the Daily Mirror. I must also pay tribute to The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, the Bolton Evening News, the Yorkshire Post and Central Television, Scottish Television and the Kilroy-Silk show. I apologise if I have left out anyone who has mounted a major campaign. In the past few years, all have responsibly looked into clinics and the Jack-the-lads who are peddling all sorts of rubbish and nonsense and highlighted some of the extreme end of the market. We should say congratulations.

Women's Realm, which has been responsible for selling some of the foods in the past, produced an excellent article not long ago, entitled, "Made ill by diet doctors." I have only received one bad report from a newspaper—Maggie Drummond in The Daily Telegraph suggested that I only had half a brain because I was taking this issue seriously. The fact that only one journalist failed to recognise that the issue is serious is not bad going and the press should be congratulated.

The proposals in the Bill are fairly modest. The Minister is going to tackle the most wicked side of the diet industry, but I want to go much further. I might introduce another Bill later this year, as I want to add the provision that anyone offering weight loss or spot reducing services and advertising them to the public should have to register annually with the Department of Health and submit the following information. Such services should be provided by trained and qualified personnel, who also provide counselling as well as weight loss services. Ingredients and nutritional information should be provided for any food, formula or drug products sold or provided as part of a weight-loss programme so that everyone can see what is in them.

If the service has been on offer for a year or more, a record should be kept of the number of clients in the previous year who successfully achieved weight loss according to the programme's goals. Information on the total number of clients served in the previous year should be provided and, in the case of diet clubs, a breakdown between new members and those rejoining because they have failed. We should also know how many clients have reported medical problems linked to the weight loss service.

Every person, firm or corporation registering pursuant to the legislation would be charged a fee so that the service would not cost the Department of Health anything. The Department should compile the information and make it available to the public in a report every year.

We are going for healthy eating and we recognise that what we eat when we are young often dictates our health in later life. A healthy diet is good preventive medicine and could save the national health service a lot of money. The Department of Health could periodically review the records of firms and corporations advertising weight-loss services, to verify the accuracy of the information submitted. Those aims are fairly moderate and could be worked into another Bill.

The Advertising Standards Authority has tightened its code of practice, which is very welcome, and I was interested to see recently that a company in Birmingham had been fined £15,000 for selling misleading slimming aids. Vitahealth Ltd., which supplies the aids by mail order, was charged with six offences under the Trade Descriptions Act 1968. I am pleased about the fine because there are no miracle pills or slimming cures—I will not go into the worst excesses now as I did so when I moved the Bill. They do not exist. Nothing replaces exercise and healthy eating. We should accept how we feel about ourselves. Fat, thin or indifferent, we all have something to offer.

The fourth international No Dieting Day on 6 May will give us a good opportunity to promote and celebrate good health and self-acceptance. People from Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the United States and Norway will participate. The other weekend, I took part in a radio phone-in to a live Australian chat show which was dealing with this matter, and the Australian health department is taking the matter extremely seriously. Common sense recognises that peddling ill health works to the cost of the health service.

We shall hold a press conference in the House of Commons on 3 May; I shall present a further early-day motion, which I hope will have all-party support; and a book by Mary Evans Young will be published on 20 April. So good things are happening. I hope that the Minister will act quickly against the peddlers of misery in slimming clinics. I commend the Second Reading of my Bill to the House.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Halifax (Mrs. Mahon) on introducing this important Bill. It deals with a matter that has always worried me, and I am delighted that the hon. Lady is acting while we have stood around waving our hands in anguish and concern.

The time has come to stop peddling quack remedies and to bring an end to the neurotic obsession with dieting, which began not in recent years but some 70 years ago. It gathered speed after the memorable phrase by the late Duchess of Windsor, who said that one could not be too rich or too thin. I do not mind being a little too rich, but she put on the map the idea that, if one wants to be successful and smart and to make one's way in the world and attract good-looking men, such as we have in the Chamber today, one must be extraordinarily pencil slim to the point that, ultimately, it is dangerous to one's health.

We must pay serious attention to this matter. I applaud the plea by Dr. Tom Sanders for more common sense about eating habits. He said that we should bring to an end the soothsayers of slimming pills and magic potions and return to a sensible approach to our lives.

I am sorry that I did not have a chance to meet the Diet Breakers organisation. From what I have heard and read, it sounds as though it is doing excellent work in breaking a myth. That myth has built a billion pound industry in this country alone. In America, which is the founder of many of our cultural developments, it is a $50 billion industry. That is an export to this country which I am happy to send back.

The Bill wisely does not try to tackle too much. If one goes for a limited area, one has a chance of getting it into operation. I congratulate the hon. Lady on suggesting that we should bring a little rationality into our lives and ensure that people understand the risks involved. I agree that risks must be properly advertised so that people understand that rapid weight loss can be dangerous to their health. Likewise, any book, recording or video that is promoted on that subject must carry a health warning, as customers should know not only the benefits but the risks. The customer is entitled to know the timetable of those diets. They appear to be never-ending.

The customer also needs to know the charges. If there is one industry in which an enormous scam is going on, it is the diet industry which is making a fortune having promoted itself through a host of media.

The Daily Mirror conducted some research about the clinics that promote those different drugs and diets. It sent out some researchers—I have to say, anonymously—to investigate what was on offer. The Daily Mirror described how a researcher, Kate,

"visited … the Kings Private Clinic in Paddington Street … she was charged £25 and given a six-week supply of ionamin. She wasn't told that the drug can cause nervousness, nausea and insomnia."

That is highly dangerous.

"At Dietmania in London's Harley Street, she was given a three-week supply of ionamin for £50 and told not to worry about side-effects.

Another researcher, Sue, visited the Swiss Cottage DIET Clinic in North London, where they gave her a one-week supply of duromine for £13, with a limited explanation of the side-effects.

At the Medical DIET Centre in Harley Street she was not given any drugs but was charged £50 for a consultation and single sheet of paper"—

talk about an easy way to make money.

The terrifying thing is that, as the Consumers Association, which has investigated the industry very carefully, says,

"Anyone can set up a clinic. And although you need to be registered to buy the drugs and prescribe them … there is concern that"

there are clinic doctors operating in the field who are not registered.

We must be sure that patients and people understand the harmful effects of those appetite suppressants, the diuretics and thyroid hormones. Some people definitely must not take those potions, especially people with heart diseases, high blood pressure, asthma, epilepsy or glaucoma and those who are pregnant.

All those are serious warnings that the industry has spun out of control. We should listen carefully to people who have studied the industry and who utter health warnings of their own. For instance, I draw the attention of the House to the words of Peter Bazalgette, the executive producer of the BBC's "Food and Drink" programme, who has studied the matter for a long time. He says:

"It's heartening to see scientific research mustered to join the attack on our appalling 'dieting' mania. The triple tyrannies of the diet, fashion and health industries have conspired to give us a wholly misleading idea of what a healthy weight is. In fact, we now know that the plump live longer than the very thin."

There is hope for us all.

I refer again to Professor Tom Sanders, because I think that he has managed to strike the key note on the topic. He is the professor of nutrition and dietetics at King's college, London. He said on one occasion:

"The health risks of obesity are often exaggerated compared with other lifestyle aspects such as smoking and drinking. It does increase the risk of diabetes and arthritis. But the health risks of plumpness are negligible: it may even offer advantages to women. The evidence against weight cycling isn't sufficiently compelling to deter the very obese or people with metabolic conditions such as diabetes from controlling their weight."

As time is getting short, I simply want to place on record the support that I give to the hon. Member for Halifax.

I have noticed the way in which our culture has spread dieting mania throughout the country, especially among the young. There is barely a teenage girl who has not said to me, "I am dieting." I have a lovely daughter of my own, aged 19. She watches her weight, but I would be extremely angry with her if I found her going down that obsessive road. It led one or two of her friends to suffer from anorexia, which is the curse of the modern age and, in a sense, of prosperity. One would never find people of the third world opting to diet in such an obsessive and extraordinary way.

We need to enhance education about healthy eating and healthy living habits. It is a curious paradox that today's teenagers are far larger than their parents. They are all giants. One need only visit any university to see that they are bigger people than those in older generations. That is why they should not try to judge their ideal weight according to standards set in the past. They all weigh in at a bigger, healthier weight than their predecessors. That is all the more reason why we should tell them to accept that weight and be proud of that. It will guarantee that they have healthy lives unless they wreck them by falling for the media hype of the diet industry, which, frankly, has conned thousands and thousands of women to profit the pockets of those who run that industry without offering any benefit to others.

I have one word of advice. Let us go back common sense. I believe in moderation, but a little bit of what you fancy does you good.

I came to the House this morning to support the Proceeds of Crime Bill. I am also interested in a number of other Bills before the House, should we discuss them today. When I noticed from the Order Paper that the second Bill set down for consideration was the Regulation of Diet Industry Bill, I saw red, because anything that starts with the word "regulation" has that effect on me.

When I got a copy of the Bill, which was introduced by the hon. Member for Halifax (Mrs. Mahon), I noticed that it was sponsored by a further 11 hon. Members, all of whom could be described as luminaries of the trendy left. I therefore began to smell an appalling rat.

When I looked at the names of the 11 sponsors, two things came to mind: first, they are all enthusiasts for the description of being politically correct and, secondly, not a single one of them is in the Chamber now to support the Bill. When I looked down the list of sponsors, I also thought that some of them were structurally challenged, but you would rule me out of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker, if I said who I meant, which would, indeed, be ungallant.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Halifax, however, because her speech was an extremely useful opportunity to air the subject of slimming and the dangers that can arise in far too many circumstances. In that sense, the debate is useful.

I approached the debate with some trepidation, because I have just come from the Members' Dining Room, having had a good lunch. I thought that I could get into immense trouble if I spoke, particularly when the menu in the Dining Room offers an array of hefty puddings, including syrup pudding, coconut sponge, bread and butter pudding, jam roll and chocolate sponge. A diet of such puddings would almost have the diametrically opposite effect of the general meaning of that word on those who consumed them.

I agree with the hon. Member for Halifax that it is far better to rely on fresh vegetables, salads, fruits, good red meat, good healthy eating and a lot of exercise. The House will not be surprised to learn that, with my French name, I adopt that approach.

I have considered the Bill in detail and I should like to draw the attention of the House to a number of its clauses and subsections. Clause 2(1)(a) requires that any person in the diet industry should

"ensure that at any premises where he carries on his business a notice is prominently displayed stating that rapid loss of weight is dangerous to health".

That is an extremely broad generalisation, because in a number of cases—only medically qualified people could state it case by case—it may be beneficial to lose a lot of weight. It would be rather dangerous to put up such broad-brush notices as that suggested by the subsection.

Clause 2(1)(b) also requires that a person engaged in the diet industry should

"cause any book, recording or video work which he produces to carry a notice stating that permanent loss of weight is unlikely and cannot be guaranteed".

That is a broad statement, which could not be said to be the case. It is wrong to produce a propaganda statement in such a generalised form.

After all, far too often a certain product is advertised on our television screens—time and again, it is thrust down the throats of the British public. It is presented by a young salesman with a winsome smile and using warm words. He even comes from a Tory family. The product he sells is very dubious. It includes advertising slogans such as being tough on crime and the causes of crime and other similar soundbites. Should we necessarily attach to the product the description that that is unlikely and cannot be guaranteed? With that product, I would certainly say that because of the Labour party's record over the last few decades. Therefore, we must be careful about obliging people to put a description on a particular product.

Clause 2(1)(c) requires that other notices should be displayed, for example, to outline clearly

"the benefits and risks of loss of weight"

or to provide

"an estimated or actual timetable for any diet which he"—

the practitioner—

"proposes that the customer should follow".

Surely much of that is common sense, so I wonder whether it should be included in a notice, a booklet or in straight medical advice, which we receive from our doctors if we are worried.

It is important that the House ensures that a Bill such as this draws a careful distinction between the overwhelming majority of responsible doctors and the minority of quack doctors. We must not throw out the baby with the bath water by tarring good, responsible doctors—of whom there is a vast number—with the same brush as those quack doctors who are guilty of disgraceful and unscrupulous behaviour.

Quack doctors are nothing new; we need only go back through the centuries to see the many quack remedies which existed and which, in fact, are an absolute disgrace. Queen Elizabeth I covered her face with a white material that had a lead base because it was deemed to make her beautiful. All the lead did was to corrode the body. Many of the ancient quack remedies were stuffed with lead components that had a disastrous corrosive effect. It was all done in the interests of so-called good appearance.

We do not have to go back through many decades to recall women squeezing themselves into corsets to produce a wasp waist, with all the damage that that did to internal organs. The wish to look good can be extremely dangerous, but to produce broad generalisations that will sweep up the good doctors as well as the quack doctors, to whom we are all opposed, is a bad idea.

The hon. Member for Halifax introduced a ten-minute Bill last year in which she gave examples of products. She said that for one cream it was claimed that

"all one has to do is to lie on one's back, rub the tummy and the fat will disappear."—[Official Report, 29 June 1994; Vol. 245, c. 816–17.]

She advised people not to try it as it did not work. That is likely to be true, because it seems to be far too easy. Some of the more generously proportioned hon. Members would immediately resort to it if it were that easy. We come back to the old adages such as, "There's one born every day" and "A fool and his money are soon parted".

We must proceed with caution on the Bill. After all, we already have remedies against quack medicines. A good example of that was given recently when the Under-Secretary of State for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, West (Mr. Sackville), proposed a ban on a number of products that make use of amphetamines as slimming aids. My hon. Friend is operating under section 62 of the Medicines Act 1968. His proposal is subject to consultation, but he has rightly drawn on the advice of highly qualified medical practitioners. He is exercising an Act that has already been passed by the House and that deals with products that are clearly demonstrably harmful.

As we go through the Bill, we immediately identify a considerable number of points on which we should act exceedingly cautiously. My hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Lady Olga Maitland) referred to her concern about her daughter having an obsession with slimming. I have a similar concern with my own daughters, but, so far, they seem to have exercised a remarkable amount of common sense.

We need common sense. We need to eat less and to do more exercise. A number of hon. Members can be seen teetering to and fro around the courtyard on their bicycles. How much better it would be if so many more of us in the population did likewise. We need to rely on legislation that provides conditions by which we can obtain the necessary ban on individual products.

If I were to give any advice to the House, I would say that if the Bill receives a Second Reading today after sufficient consideration by hon. Members, it will need careful consideration in Committee.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Mrs. Mahon) on her speech, on her extraordinary success in raising public concern about the issue, and on securing the debate today. The measure is remarkably practical. It seeks to impose some minimal standards of responsibility on an industry that, in part, flagrantly exploits the anxieties of vulnerable people.

The Bill's provisions cannot simply be parodied as busybody interference. As the hon. Member for Gravesham (Mr. Arnold) reminded us, it is extremely important to safeguard the Bill's proposals against misrepresentation. The Bill does not propose a new regulator—no Off-Fat is proposed—or any cumbersome bureaucracy. No one reading this short Bill could possibly argue that its propositions are unreasonable. On the contrary, its proposals are so obviously fair and sensible that the diet industry will have to demonstrate why on earth it is not prepared to adopt the proposed practices. An industry it certainly is, and one which grows fat on stimulating millions of fit and healthy people into believing that there is something wrong with the way that they are.

People come in all shapes and sizes, but the slimming industry wants to turn us all into Barbie dolls. Its targets, of course, are overwhelmingly women—and increasingly, young women. Estimates suggest that, at any time, about 50 per cent. of women are on a diet of some sort. As the incidence of unhealthy weight is about 16 per cent. of the population, it follows that about a third of all women are being induced to diet for no good reason. In doing so, they put about £1 billion a year into the pockets of the diet industry.

Many young girls are tortured by anxiety about their weight anyway. To some extent, that is a normal part of adolescence and growing up. But instead of encouraging girls to love their bodies, whatever their shape or size, the diet industry perniciously feeds on those anxieties, occasionally with tragic results. At present, 125,000 women suffer from bulimia, 70,000 suffer from anorexia nervosa, and the number is doubling every decade. Great Ormond Street hospital has seen a fourfold increase in the number of children treated at its eating disorder clinic.

There are two main strands of opposition to the Bill. The first is that we already have all the regulation that we need, primarily in the form of the Advertising Standards Authority. The other is that the diet industry is performing a valuable public service in tackling a plague of obesity, with its attendant health risks. Neither of those claims stands up. The Advertising Standards Authority monitors only advertisements, whereas the Bill refers to the conduct and practice of so-called dieting experts at their slimming centres and clinics. Nor could that authority deal with the numerous magazines whose editorial content is an endless assault on the normal shape of normal people.

Obesity certainly exists, but it is not cured by miracle diets. On the contrary, the evidence is that the preoccupation with unnatural slimness is itself the cause of a great deal of physical as well as psychological illness. It cannot be a coincidence that the number of people reported to have a serious eating disorder has grown so rapidly over the past 20 years. Of course, not everyone who starts dieting ends up with an eating disorder, but everyone with an eating disorder started by dieting.

There is all the difference in the world between public health policies which promote healthy eating and a diet industry which promotes an obsession with dieting. Yesterday I bought a batch of magazines from the corner newsagent, which were on sale to all and sundry. They promise, "You can be 14 lb lighter in four weeks" or "Lose a stone in a month" and offer "50 top tips for the new you". What can possibly be wrong with requiring the sellers of this stuff to warn readers of the risks attendant on such promises?

The diet industry thrives on its failure. American figures show that 97 per cent. of the people who diet put any lost weight back on and probably lose self-esteem in the process. The industry spends 13 per cent. of sales revenue on advertising, endlessly stimulating demand for a product that seldom works.

The Minister's announcement that the prescription of amphetamines for slimming is to be banned is very welcome, as is the promise of stiffer penalties for doctors who breach the rule. Norway, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United States have stricter regimes for regulation than we do.

There is clearly a strong measure of cross-party support for the Bill and a belief that action must be taken. I hope that, as an expression of that determination, the House will give this practical and important Bill a Second Reading.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Halifax (Mrs. Mahon) on introducing this important Bill, which certainly merits discussion.

I welcome something that we seldom hear from the hon. Lady, namely her praise for the Government's initiative on amphetamines. She also praised many parts of the media, which is something she also does but rarely. She included the Bolton Evening News, my excellent local newspaper, which did an enormous amount of work on this subject some months ago and came up with numerous examples of people who had been damaged by slimming mania and specifically by amphetamine or amphetamine-like substances.

The Government are concerned that industry, including that which claims to aid weight loss, is properly regulated. We are also concerned to ensure that consumers are not misled by inaccurate or misleading claims about products, that they have sufficient information to make an informed choice and that the products themselves are safe. Our philosophy is therefore very much in tune with the good intentions of the Bill in as much as both seek to protect the public.

I understand very well the concerns that have prompted the Bill, but I am confident that when I have explained the broader picture surrounding the whole issue hon. Members will question the necessity of the Bill's provisions.

Obesity among men and women is a serious and growing problem in this country. People's personal appearance is a matter for them, of course, and the Government would not seek to influence such choices, but when people's personal weight becomes a risk to their health more generally it becomes a matter of concern to the national health service. Obesity contributes to raised plasma cholesterol and raised blood pressure and is a risk factor for both coronary heart disease and stroke—two major causes of premature death in the UK—as well as for diabetes, gall-stones, as the hon. Member for Halifax mentioned, arthritis and a number of other less well known conditions.

For that reason, the problem of rising obesity as it is clinically defined has to be addressed, which is why a target for reducing the prevalence was included in the coronary heart disease and stoke section of the White Paper, "The Health of the Nation". At the time those targets were set, the figures showed that 8 per cent. of men and 12 per cent. of women were obese. The latest position, portrayed by the recent report from the Health Survey for England, showed that those figures have increased to 13 per cent. for men and 16 per cent. for women. Regardless of whether the two sets of figures are exactly comparable, they show a fairly alarming increase.

Perhaps it would be helpful at this stage if I defined exactly what we mean by obese, which was touched on by the hon. Member for Dulwich (Ms Jowell). It is a matter of having a body mass index of greater than 30. If I may explain further, body mass index is calculated by dividing an individual's weight, expressed in kilograms, by the square of his or her weight in metres.

Height in metres.

I am so sorry. I should have said height in metres. It was worth having a Whip within earshot.

Just to clarify matters for hon. Members who do not understand those European terms, obesity would therefore mean a woman of 5 ft 6 in having a weight of more then 13 stone or a man of 6 ft having a weight of more than 15½ stone. I will not try to define what my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Gravesham (Mr. Arnold) described as structurally challenged, but perhaps he will give us his own definition of what he may have meant.

I felt that it would be excessively cruel to ask which of the sponsors of the Bill could be referred to as fat, and "structurally challenged" seemed fashionably correct on the Labour Benches.

Well, now we know.

It is important to make the distinction between the term clinical obesity and people whom the Bill seeks to protect—victims who believe that they are overweight when very often they are not at all. I have already explained that there are good medical and health reasons for concern about being overweight. I should also point that the problem of increasing obesity is not confined to this country but is prevalent throughout the developed world. It is a serious problem with no easy solutions and for those reasons, as I have already mentioned, we must address it.

The nutrition task force was created to devise a strategy for achieving the diet and nutrition targets in "The Health of the Nation" White Paper, which included a target for obesity. It was proposed that, in the first instance, attention should be particularly directed towards the prevention of obesity. As overweight and obesity result from taking in more energy from food than that expended on physical activity, exercise is required to address the problem. The nutrition task force also agreed that action to achieve the targets should be considered jointly with the physical activity task force.

People could be forgiven for thinking that if the problem is caused by eating more than one needs for daily activity, the solution is simple—to eat less and to be active. We know, however, that it is not so easy as it sounds. One of the main contentions behind the Bill is that diets, in the sense of diets for weight loss, do not always work. Many diets help people to lose weight, but the problem lies in keeping the weight off in the long term. That is why the two task forces decided on a preventive approach both to help to prevent the population as a whole from getting fatter and to target help at those groups of the population most at risk from obesity.

As a first step, a symposium of experts was convened last year. Those attending were asked to suggest courses of action to prevent further rises in levels of obesity. The symposium considered trends in obesity in the United Kingdom, the factors controlling energy imbalance and the potential contribution that might be made by local authorities, schools, industry, the NHS and everyone else concerned. Consideration is currently being given to the future course of action to be taken within the task forces for improving dietary habits, together with the strategy of the task force on physical activity aimed at increasing levels of physical activity. One important point that we have identified is the need for more research into long-term solutions.

To turn to the central matter of the Bill, we must always make the important distinction between medically desirable weight, which forms the basis of Government advice, and cosmetically desirable weight. What is commonly portrayed as being cosmetically desirable is often thinner than what would be considered medically desirable. It is also true that the long-term efficacy of relatively short-term proprietary slimming products has rarely been demonstrated. Just as it is not healthy to be overweight, it is not healthy to be underweight. By not eating enough for the body's needs and becoming underweight, people may not be getting all the nutrients that they need from their food and they run the risk of suffering ill health as a result.

I agree with everything that the hon. Member for Halifax said about the pernicious influence of the fashion industry, especially through magazines and television. Obsession with weight has been a problem at various times in history, but it is probably much more of a problem in the age of the mass media, with the power of television and the power of attractive and cleverly presented magazines. I remember reading in the press of a recent survey which said that a certain percentage—it may have been 60 per cent.—of women reading a well-known mass weekly magazine became severely stressed after three minutes of looking at the various role models in front of them. Whether or not that is an exaggeration, there is no doubt that there is a powerful wave coming all the time, particularly at women, telling people that they need to be thinner. We must consider such attitudes dangerous.

My hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Lady Olga Maitland) mentioned putting an end to all this and to the various quack medicines and products. I am not sure that we shall be able to put an end to them. We are really asking people to change their attitudes to themselves. We are asking for a complete alteration in the way in which people look at themselves, in their relationships with others and in their self-esteem. That is a very tall order and I am afraid that it is a problem much wider than the provisions in the Bill.

It makes sense, therefore, for people to try to be sensible and to maintain a healthy weight in relation to their height. The best way to do that is simply by eating a healthier diet and by participating in some form of regular exercise. That message form the cornerstone of Government advice on the issue. However, those ideas, especially those concerning diet and exercise, are not welcome to a large part of the population, and although enormous activity has been generated over the past two or three years by our White Paper, "The Health of the Nation", in the end we still need an enormous shift in national attitudes to get people to realise that their health and how they look after their bodies is to some extent their own responsibility.

Even in terms of the Bill there needs to be a great change in the way in which people view themselves and their weight. The Bill's use of the term "diet" suggests that it should be interpreted as a food regimen for weight loss, but diet should really be considered as involving the way in which we eat in everyday life. Diet is not something that we go on or off, but a vital part of our whole lives.

It rather worries me that the Bill appears to be based on the premise that a large proportion of the people professionally involved in slimming, other than medically qualified practitioners, are various sorts of charlatan. Although we know that many people active in the slimming industry could be described in that way, we must be careful to distinguish between good and bad advice. The activities of many professionals well qualified to advise individuals on diet and nutrition would undoubtedly be restricted. Dieticians and nutritionists are obvious examples, but there are others who play a vital role—

May I point out to the Minister that the dieticians and the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain support the Bill? Most of the professionals involved with dieting support it.

I appreciate and welcome that fact in terms of the spirit of the Bill, but we must be careful when we talk about the slimming industry. I have had some experience of that this week following an announcement that I made about amphetamines.

We must be careful not to lump everybody into the same pot. Dieticians, nutritionists and others with a role to play in assisting people with dietary matters—such as pharmacists, nurses, midwives, health visitors, dentists, practitioners of other profession allied to medicine, or health promotion specialists—are all active in giving people the right advice about diet and exercise, and sometimes about weight loss. In order to help to achieve "The Health of the Nation" targets a project team from the nutrition task force has drawn up a core curriculum in nutrition for the education of health professionals, which was published last year.

The Bill does not refer to the activities of a group of people who, as many hon. Members have said, are especially culpable—doctors who set up private slimming clinics so that they can prescribe addictive amphetamine-type products to assist with weight loss. As the House knows, I have announced that we are considering a ban on amphetamine-type slimming pills under section 62 of the Medicines Act 1968, and intend to consult on the topic. We are considering action because we know that many qualified practitioners are prescribing inappropriately, although legally, slimming pills which were not designed for people who are, or who believe themselves to be, slightly overweight. The pills contain substances licensed for various purposes, including treating people with moderate or severe obesity, as defined earlier in my speech. In terms of the Bill and also the proposals which I announced this week, we must make sure that there is a distinction between people who are properly using certain substances to help people with a real clinical problem, and those people who are using it to make money and prescribing entirely inappropriately.

The Bill proposes that any book, recording or video produced would need to state that permanent weight loss is unlikely and cannot be guaranteed. I am sure that hon. Members will not need me to describe the regulatory machinery that such a provision would entail. The Act resulting from any such Bill would also oblige anyone giving advice to provide—

Order.

This debate relates to the dangers to health caused by the use of lindane, but it also concerns other pesticides in the organochloride and organophosphorus groups which are increasingly used in the home, agriculture and manufacturing. One example to which I shall refer at a later stage is permethrin, which was sprayed on 8 October 1991 in the Grays benefit office where my constituent Cassy Stanton worked. She was in the early stages of pregnancy. I shall return to her case in a moment.

As well as Cassy Stanton coming to my surgery, I was prompted to raise the issue of these chemicals by articles in the journal of the agricultural workers section of the Transport and General Workers Union, of which I am a sponsored Member of the House. I was also prompted by the effective and legitimate lobby by the Greenetwork, and influenced by a number of broadcasts, including Central Television's "Earth Dwellers Guide" which was presented by Philip Tibbenham on 21 August 1993, Channel 4's powerful "Dispatches" programme on 30 November 1994 and a number of small, but not unimportant, items broadcast on "Farming Today". These broadcasts, together with the contents of other programmes, have prompted me to raise the issue of lindane and similar pesticides in the House.

Since my debate appeared on the Order Paper, it has surprised but reassured me to realise that many hon. Members are worried about the matter. Many hon. Members from both sides of the House have approached me in the past few days. My hon. Friends the Members for Morley and Leeds, South (Mr. Gunnell), for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing), for Bristol, East (Ms Corston) and for Halifax (Mrs. Mahon) would have been here for the debate, but for overriding pressing commitments in their constituencies.

It is also significant that the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlile) has recently asked questions from the Liberal Benches about the matter. Last, but by no means least, the hon. Member for Holland with Boston (Sir R. Body) has consistently and vigorously drawn attention to his anxieties about the dangers arising from the widespread use of agricultural pesticides over a number of years.

My hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd, South-West (Mr. Jones) approached me last night and drew to my attention the fact that he had an Adjournment debate on the use of lindane on 28 February 1989. It followed the tabling of early-day motion 143, signed by 117 hon. Members. In that debate he was supported by the hon. Member for Norfolk, North-West (Mr. Bellingham) and my hon. Friend the Member for Pontefract and Castleford (Mr. Lofthouse). Significantly, on that occasion a reply was given by the Under-Secretary of State for Employment. I raise that point because responsibility for and interest in lindane ranges across Departments. In the past few days I have tabled questions to the Departments of Employment and of Health, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, the Department for Education and the Department of the Environment. Arguably, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster also has responsibility for lindane when he has his science hat on. That is important in view of my desire to persuade the Minister that the Government have not got to grips with properly examining in a range of programmes the extent of and dangers implicit in the use of Lindane and comparable chemicals.

Lindane is a potent insecticide and a dangerous organochloride. It is in the same family as DDT and has similar properties in as much as it is absorbed and accumulates in body fat and inevitably gets into the food chain. Such chemicals do not easily break down in the body. They are highly persistent.

As members of the public and as workers, we encounter Lindane in a number of forms. It can he odourless and colourless. It can be a solid, a white powder, a liquid or in the smoke-bomb fumigator variety. It is used in soil treatment against insect pests. It is used in the production of animal feeds. It is widely used in sugar beet production areas.

Lindane or similar chemicals are used in sheep dips, and workers are involved in what is described as bucket chemistry because they have to mix their own chemicals. The use which particularly caused me anxiety on watching the broadcast was in timber protection. Often, lofts are sprayed with lindane as a condition of mortgages. I point that out to the Minister and ask him to pause and consider that many of us simply do not know whether we are exposed to the chemical. We go into pubs, schools, homes or any other variety of buildings which might have been sprayed recently with lindane or comparable chemicals. We would not know that we were so exposed.

We absorb lindane by breathing the gas and vapours. It goes straight into the lungs and into the bloodstream. Fine dust can follow the same route. Larger particles are trapped in the nasal passages or the mucus escalator of the bronchial tubes. It is not necessary to have direct contact with the chemical. It can be swallowed because food and water can be contaminated directly by exposure to lindane. Lindane can be absorbed into the air. It mixes with food and water.

Lindane can also be absorbed by touching the product. I am particularly concerned about unskilled and untrained workers who have to handle the product in the timber industry or in the application of the pesticide to timbers in lofts.

One amazing fact is that, under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, the use of lindane in lofts where bats might reside is forbidden, because it might kill them, yet there is no similar embargo on its use where human beings congregate.

Lindane accumulates in body fat and can stay there a long time after exposure. While I acknowledge that, as is the case with many diseases, some people are more susceptible or sensitive to the effects of chemicals than others, and that some people suffer no ill-effects, nevertheless far too many people have experienced one or more of the following disorders following exposure to lindane.

One of the most serious is aplastic anaemia, which is a form of leukaemia and is a killer. There is substantial evidence to show that lindane also causes damage to the nervous system, and provokes headaches, convulsions and loss of limb movement, as well as mental illness, anxiety, depression, memory loss, vomiting, sore eyes, urticaria—raised red areas on the body—oedema, which is an abnormal accumulation of fluid in body tissues that causes swelling, diarrhoea, and loss of appetite. Lindane also probably contributes to anorexia and irritable bowel syndrome. It clearly aggravates respiratory diseases and can cause nasal inflammation, sores and breathing problems. Longterm tiredness, which is sometimes diagnosed as myalgic encephalomyelitis, is also attributed to lindane exposure. The final disease on that list is epilepsy.

The constituent to whom I referred earlier subsequently gave birth to a child who suffers from CHARGE, which is a particularly sad and painful handicap. In such children, only part of the retina functions and in some cases, there are problems with the iris. The children also suffer from heart defects and blockage of the nasal passages due to bone material or a membrane and their growth is retarded. In male infants, the genitals are not properly formed and do not develop. They also suffer from ear abnormalities.

The Department of Health has been furnished with a considerable body of evidence and I believe that it shows that CHARGE is, at least in part, caused by the exposure of the mother between 35 and 45 days from conception to lindane or other chemicals of the same family, such as permethrin.

Lindane has been banned or is severely restricted in some countries, including New Zealand, Sweden and Finland. Forty years ago, doctors in the United States drew attention to the association of lindane with the bone marrow disease aplastic anaemia, in which the bone marrow stops producing blood cells that fight infection and the platelets that stop bleeding. As I said, that can be a fatal condition. Subsequently, the United States, which has vigorous environmental laws and agencies, banned the use of lindane as a wood preservative and pesticide for domestic use.

The hon. Member for Holland with Boston has also drawn attention to the link between breast cancer and lindane and I think that the evidence is compelling. Sixty-five per cent. of the milk that we buy contains small quantities of lindane and it has even shown up in human breast milk. British and American scientists now point to lindane as a factor in the high incidence of breast cancer in the United Kingdom. When lindane was banned in Israel in 1978 it was reported that the death rate from breast cancer among women under 35 fell by a third. I do not believe that that is a coincidence.

In Britain, however, we are told by the various agencies—and hitherto by Ministers—that the amount of lindane in our food is within acceptable safety guidelines. Experts who were interviewed for the "Dispatches" programme believe that even the minutest amounts of lindane are unsafe in the human body and that, ingested over long periods, the pesticide has a cumulative and extremely damaging effect on the body. Part of that programme focused on the county of Lincolnshire, which includes the constituency of the hon. Member for Holland with Boston and has one of the highest rates of the disease in the country. It is also an area where lindane is widely used for sugar beet production, which dominates that county.

On wood treatment—which was the subject of the earlier Adjournment debate in 1989—the Minister must bear in mind the fact that many contractors do not advise or counsel their customers to vacate treated rooms for up to 48 hours. That is the industry's guideline on the appropriate period for a room treated with lindane to be in quarantine. I think that 48 hours is woefully inadequate, but ample evidence shows that, for a variety of reasons, be they selfish and commercial or sheer ignorance, contractors do not advise their customers about the prudence of vacating rooms treated with the product even for that period.

The London Hazard Centre believes that rooms should be vacated for not days but weeks, and the Building Research Establishment has shown that lindane can build up in the air for a month or more after treatment. Many public and commercial buildings, to which we are all exposed, are treated, but no warnings are given about whether we should enter. Clearly, pregnant women are particularly, although not exclusively, vulnerable and, where lindane has been applied or sprayed, warnings should be given by regulation. The Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 1988 are being flouted and ignored on a widespread scale. Many contractors, employers and customers are not advised of the hazards and risks, or the need for protective clothing when lindane is being applied.

The veterinary medicine directorate and the pesticides safety directorate, which are supposed to advise and counsel the Government, are letting us down. I do not doubt the Government's good will in this matter. However, they should pause, take a step back and set up an inquiry that is independent of their existing advisers. Although those two directorates are not puppets of Government, they have been extremely weak, if not craven, inasmuch as they probably must follow the wider Government policy of not sending "the wrong signals to industry". The problem is that they are, to a large extent, both licensing and surveillance authorities so they have a vested interest in not proving that they have previously made a mistake in authorising licensing of an unsafe product.

The United Kingdom does not appear to have a duty of care with regard to regulations covering pharmaceutical and chemical products, as exists under common and civil law. We have no freedom of information Act, so companies can claim commercial confidentiality and refuse to release their research data. That is unacceptable. We need full disclosure of research data from producers and marketers of such products. Another problem is inappropriate and inadequately applied regulations. Testing by the producers of those products provides for safety clearance to start at the point of a product first being sold. Surveillance and evaluation frequently stop thereafter, whereas monitoring and examination should continue throughout the period of public use.

Extensive public concern exists about lindane and similar chemicals used in agriculture, manufacturing and the home. People have no confidence in the existing regulatory procedure. Public confidence is extremely important, so I hope that the Minister will make a name for himself and make one of the briefest speeches in an Adjournment debate by simply saying that he will examine not only the matter that I have raised but the evidence from all interested parties and individuals. He should examine evidence particularly from those who, although they may have suffered illness or even death, are not included in the statistics because many producers and manufacturers of those products have settled with them out of court. As a consequence of those settlements, cases of death and serious illness are not being fully examined or reported to Government.

A line should be drawn, and the Government should give some expedition to independent re-examination of the matter.

I cannot help feeling and anticipating, although I hope that it will not be the case, that the Minister will use more or less the same brief as his colleague, the Under-Secretary of State for Employment, the hon. Member for Teignbridge (Mr. Nicholls), used in 1989. If he does, may I draw attention to the fact that on that occasion the Employment Under-Secretary said:

"Discussions about"

those chemicals

"are taking place within the European Community, and the Government"—

that is the United Kingdom Government—

"have proposed across the board controls on the use of wood preservatives throughout the European Community."—[Official Report, 28 February 1989; Vol. 148, c. 258.]

What has happened to that initiative? Years have passed, and now is the time for a line to be drawn. Now is the time for the Minister to make a name for himself in Brussels, and to say that the United Kingdom will not tolerate this any longer. It is time for him to say that we shall severely restrict the use of lindane and comparable chemicals and ban its use in the home, as have Finland and Sweden.

This is not another "food scare". It is not a party issue, as I have demonstrated. It is a matter that causes widespread anxiety throughout the communities in the United Kingdom. I should like the Minister to respond accordingly.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Thurrock (Mr. Mackinlay) on obtaining the debate, and on his courageous attempt to spell out ME in full. After two and a half years, I continue to have difficulty.

The hon. Member for Thurrock is right that there is widespread anxiety about pesticides and about many medicines and other substances, but I have to tell him one or two things in opening.

First, we have probably the best regulatory system in the world. When the hon. Gentleman says that there is no confidence in it, I reply that, if there is no confidence in the system, it is because certain people who have an interest in shaking confidence in it, through often ill-researched and fairly irresponsible television programmes and so on, have gone out of their way to do so. The members of the committees that regulate medicines, pesticides and similar matters include some of the leading experts in the world, with enormous international and national reputations to maintain. I defy the hon. Gentleman to give me evidence that there is any covering up of facts.

Secondly, if some of the material that I shall give the hon. Gentleman today is the same as that which has been used before, it is because the facts have not changed. I can only state the facts as we understand them.

Lindane, sometimes known as gamma HCH, is an organochlorine pesticide, as the hon. Gentleman knows, which has been used to treat animals with external parasites. It continues to have an important role in killing pests on crops and treating wood to prevent pest infestation.

The media have stated, and it has been stated elsewhere, that in some countries lindane has been banned. I understand that it has even been claimed that the United Kingdom is the only country that continues to use it. That is absolutely not so. Figures from every country in the world are not available, but in most developed countries, including the UK, lindane continues to be accepted for limited use, as an agricultural pesticide and for wood treatment.

Lindane has been withdrawn from use as a pesticide in seven countries—Indonesia, Kuwait, Morocco, New Zealand and St. Lucia and two European countries, Sweden and Finland. The House will note that the list does not include Israel. That is because lindane continues to be accepted for use there, and the high levels of lindane reported to be found in Israeli food were due to its use as a cattle louse treatment whereby it was directly applied to the cattle. That use has, indeed, ceased.

Such use is not permitted in the United Kingdom. The use of lindane as a veterinary medicine was licensed under the Medicines Act 1968 by Ministers acting on the advice of the Veterinary Products Committee. Licences for sheep dips were revoked in 1984, and the last licence for other veterinary uses lapsed in 1991.

In this country, the advertisement, sale, supply, storage, and use of pesticides is subject to the Control of Pesticides Regulations 1986. Ministers approve pesticides under those regulations and those approvals set out the crops on which the pesticide may be used and the conditions of use. The statutory conditions of use are displayed on the label on the pesticide packaging. The agricultural inspectorate of the Health and Safety Executive monitors the application of those regulations and can prosecute those who fail to comply. The penalty on conviction in a magistrates court is a fine of up to £5,000 or an unlimited fine on conviction in a Crown court.

Further control is exercised through the Pesticides (Maximum Residue Levels in Crops, Food and Feeding Stuffs) Regulations 1994. Anyone putting into circulation any product listed in the regulations which contains pesticide residues above the limits specified in those regulations can, on conviction, be fined on the same basis as the fines set for a conviction under the control of pesticides regulations. Both those controls are intended to protect the health of people using pesticides or who are exposed to them in any other way.

In the United Kingdom, the Government are advised on pesticide approvals and revocations by the Advisory Committee on Pesticides, a statutory body consisting of independent medical and scientific experts representing all the relevant specialisms related to human toxicology, environmental safety, agricultural, horticultural and other uses of pesticides. They have the necessary qualifications and experience to understand the research and interpret its findings on the safety and efficacy of pesticide use. Ministers must take the advice of that committee before they approve or revoke the use of any pesticide. I assure the House that the Government pay careful attention to the committee's advice and have always acted on it.

Before any new pesticide is approved or when the approval for any existing pesticide is reviewed, the potential exposure of the users and people eating food that might contain residues is carefully assessed. Approval is not given if those exposures are likely to cause harmful health effects. As well as the evidence of exposure and of food residues that companies must provide when seeking approval of their products, the Government have established a residues monitoring system under which food is regularly surveyed. Similar considerations apply before the statutory Veterinary Products Committee advises Ministers as to whether a product should be licensed.

Of course, as I have explained, lindane is no longer licensed for use in this country as a veterinary medicine. The evidence is that lindane residues in cows milk, which are primarily due to traces of lindane in their feeds, are falling. Indeed, when found, they are around the limit of detection. Such levels are well below the internationally agreed acceptable daily intake, a level that would not be expected to cause harm to health even over a lifetime of exposure.

While the effect on human health is of paramount importance when considering the approval of a product for use, other considerations must be taken into account as well. The fact that it is withdrawn in one country may have no bearing on its use in others. Countries have different pest problems, different climates and different environmental and agricultural considerations. A product appropriate for one country may simply have no use in another. Breast cancer rates alone, in countries in which lindane is no longer used, give no indication of whether or not there might be a causal relationship.

Some concern of late, mentioned in the programme "Dispatches" and elsewhere—the hon. Member also referred to it—has arisen because more women without a family history of breast cancer are developing the disease.

The Government are concerned about the high incidence of breast cancer and that is why we have established the breast screening programme and made the reduction in mortality from breast cancer a major target of our "Health of the Nation" initiative. Certainly a family history is one of the known risk factors, but there are others, for example, late childbearing, not having children, early menarche, late menopause, obesity and repeated exposure to ionising radiation. The reason for its high incidence in developed countries, however, remains unknown. There is a wide geographical variation in both incidence and mortality and the populations with the highest risk of developing breast cancer are those in western Europe and North America.

Much has been made of the high rates of breast cancer in Israel in the early 1970s and of the dramatic increase in breast cancer mortality rates from 1976 onwards. If lindane had a causal relationship with breast cancer, however, mortality rates would be expected to remain high for several years after the withdrawal of its use. That is because breast cancer takes several years to develop.

What actually happened in Israel is a rather different story. First, the so-called dramatic decrease in mortality rates for breast cancer began shortly before the drop in pesticide exposure. The Israeli researchers, Westin and Richter, noted that phenomenon. Lindane was withdrawn from use as a louse treatment in 1978. Secondly, and more tellingly, it was only the deaths from breast cancer that declined at that time, not the incidence. There is no evidence of a sharp decrease in the number of women in Israel who developed the disease; on the contrary, in the 25 to 34 age group, the relatively small number of cases stayed much the same, but in the age group 35 to 44, there was a steady rise in breast cancer incidence in the period 1976 to 1986.

In most developed countries, including Israel, the statistics follow a familiar pattern—an increasing number of women developing this dreadful disease, but also a decrease in the number of deaths. The most likely reason for the rise in incidence and drop in death rates is the improvement in treatment and public awareness—for example, earlier detection.

I emphasis that if there were any reason to think that the use of lindane or, indeed, any other manufactured product was the cause of such a widespread and serious disease, we would have no hesitation in withdrawing it. But there are, unfortunately, only a very few cancers where we can say with any certainty that they have a particular extraneous cause.

Unfortunately, in the time available I cannot deal with all the points raised about lindane. I want to reiterate that in this country we have an excellent system for approving pesticides and for licensing veterinary medicines. Under both systems, the Government are advised by independent statutory committees which, I have to tell the hon. Gentleman, are respected around the world as being the best. We listen to those expert committees and if they tell us that a product is likely to harm people, we do not let it get on to the market.

Lindane has been carefully considered, certain uses have been reviewed and the agricultural pesticide use is presently under review. We can rest assured—