Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an assessment of the potential impact of new research into the hepatotoxicity risk posed by kava on The Kava-kava in Food (England) Regulations 2002.

The Kava-kava in Food (England) Regulations 2002 prohibits any food consisting of or containing kava-kava from being imported or placed on the market. This regulation is in place to protect public health.

Since the introduction of this legislation, any additional scientific evidence that has been provided to the Food Standards Agency (FSA) has not been sufficient to support any amendments to the controls in place.

If additional data on the safety of kava-kava were to be submitted, appropriate evaluations, such as a risk assessment, will be considered by the FSA. The outputs of a risk assessment could then be used to provide advice to Ministers, to amend or repeal the legislation.

New scientific evidence on the hepatotoxic risk of kava-kava would be reviewed by the FSA.

Without additional evidence that indicates a safe level of human consumption for kava-kava, the FSA considers there is insufficient toxicological data available to initiate an assessment.

While there is no specific provision in the regulation that sets out the procedure for revoking the controls, as safety concerns provide the basis for the ban, an assessment of newly available data on the safety of kava-kava for human consumption would be the first step.

If the independent Committee on the Toxicity of Chemicals in Food, Consumer Products and the Environment is satisfied that there is a safe level of human consumption, this would inform advice to Ministers to amend or repeal the legislation.

Any future evaluation of the Kava-kava in Food (England) Regulations 2002, would need to be considered and carried out in tandem with the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency as The Medicines for Human Use (Kava-kava) (Prohibition) Order 2002 is applicable.