Douglas Carswell

How EU membership killed off UK clinical trials

How are we Better Off Outers to make our case? How do we show those undecided voters that Britain would do better if we left the European Union?

It won't be easy.

Brussels trade rules might be holding us back from dealing with the world. But it is hard to show something that's not happening. EU regulation might be stifling innovation. But how do you point to something that isn't there?

What benefits there are to being inside the EU - the grants and handouts - are tangible. The costs and lost opportunities are often dispersed and hidden.

Then along comes the EU Clinical Trials Directive.

Back in 2000, Britain lead the way in medical research. Six percent of all clinical trials world wide took place here.

This was good news for UK universities, hospitals and scientists. It was also great for those patients who benefited from pioneering treatment, too.

But the EU Clinical Trials Directive, whose regulations came into effect in 2004, put an end to much of this vital medical research.

Thanks to the Euro regulations, by 2006 a mere 2 percent of all patients entering into clinical trials were in the UK. By 2010 it was down to 1.4 percent. Medical innovation did not stop. Like HSBC is about to do, it merely moved to another non-EU jurisdiction.

Between 2007 and 2011, the number of clinical trials in the UK fell by 22 percent. According to Cancer Research UK, those cancer clinical trials that still take place in Britain take 65 percent longer to set up. Britain dropped from being the third most important place in the world for clinical trials, to an also ran. Beneath a blizzard of red tape, we slipped into mediocrity.

"But" defenders of the Euro system will say "those old EU rules are about to be replaced by bright new regulations which won't stifle clinical research".

Perhaps. But why must it take a decade of disastrous over regulation to get the rules changed? Why, for a decade, did all those trials not happen, those patients go untreated and those jobs and innovation have to move away?

If those that made the rules were meaningfully accountable to those affected by the rules, we could get it right right away.

If Britain was to determine our own rules for clinical trials we might become a world leader once again.  And what applies to clinical trials applies to almost every area of public policy.

If Britain was free to decide policy for ourselves, then from trade to technology, energy to the environment, we could innovate and adapt. 

Free from the corporatist clutches of Brussels, Britain would thrive and prosper because we would be open to innovation and the world.

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