Prince Charles wrote to Labour ministers about the use of complementary medicines, the state of the world’s rainforests, and hospital food, the second batch of royal correspondence released following a successful freedom of information request by the Guardian shows.

The 17 “black spider memos”, written between 2006 and 2009, reveal a close working relationship between Charles and senior ministers, including the current Labour leadership contender Andy Burnham, over the use of controversial complementary medicines in the NHS. Charles apparently achieved success in his calls for taxpayer-funded trials.



The heir to the throne said “the only reason I persist over integrated healthcare – despite waves of invective over the years from parts of the medical and scientific establishment – is because I cannot bear people suffering unnecessarily when a complementary approach could make a real difference.”

Shortly after Burnham became secretary of state for health in 2009 he wrote to the prince to suggest a meeting on topics including the possibility of a study on integrating complementary and conventional healthcare approaches in England.

Burnham signed off: “I would be delighted to meet with you at Clarence House at your convenience to discuss this and other topics of interest to us both.” The Labour politician added in his own hand: “I have the honour to remain, Sir, your Royal Highness’s most humble and obedient servant.”

The prince had written to Burnham’s predecessor, Alan Johnson, to express his support for the integration of complementary medicine alongside conventional medicine and raised concerns about the possible closure of homeopathic hospitals that he insisted had proved beneficial to patients.

Charles said referrals to Royal London homeopathic hospital were increasing “until what seems to amount to a recent ‘anti-homeopathic campaign’.” He said that three homeopathic hospitals “faced large and threatened cuts in funding from local healthcare commissioners” despite “the fact that these homeopathic hospitals deal with many patients with real health problems who otherwise would require treatment elsewhere, often at greater expense”.

For a refresher on what Prince Charles’s ‘black spider memos’ are, watch this video put together before the first tranche was released Guardian

Charles pointed to “effectiveness gaps” in treatments for musculoskeletal problems, depression, eczema, chronic pain and irritable bowel syndrome and said complementary medicine provided “safe and effective solutions to many of these problems”.

He then called for a pilot of complementary and alternative medicines in the NHS and Johnson replied that he and his officials had had a scoping meeting to discuss a pilot “evaluating the success of different therapies as well as their value for money”. Johnson added: “I have asked for an update on this work in the new year.

Complementary and alternative medicines, also known as CAMs, are any treatments that fall outside mainstream medical practice and include homeopathy, acupuncture, aromatherapy, herbalism, osteopathy and chiropractic. There is no agreed definition.

In another exchange, Labour leadership hopeful Yvette Cooper, then housing minister, responded positively to Charles’s lobbying. The prince wrote to Cooper in August 2007 about housebuilding, and in particular the party’s “eco towns” initiative. He promoted his architecture charity’s “expertise … on the vital matters of design and environmental sustainability”.

His charity, then known as the Prince’s Foundation for the Built Environment, is considered a bastion of traditional architecture and a conduit for the prince’s often controversial opposition to modern design.

Cooper wrote back four months later and said: “I am strongly of the view that the prince’s foundation should play a significant role in encouraging and advising on the design elements of eco towns, drawing on its well-established expertise and experience.”

She signed off: “I do hope that you will long be able to continue your work in this area and your encouragement to others to do likewise. Respectfully yours, Yvette Cooper.”

The government’s decision to release the correspondence cuts short what was set to be another battle over the publication of the second tranche of the prince’s correspondence with ministers. A freedom of information tribunal was to hold a hearing later this year on whether the Guardian should be given access to this batch.



A spokeswoman for Clarence House said: “This is the final release of material related to the supreme court judgment. The Guardian put in two separate requests for letters, before the FOI Act was amended. The conclusion of the first request resulted in the publication of letters last month. The other request was stayed whilst the first case went through the supreme court. In light of that judgment, the government has now decided to publish the second batch of letters.

“The letters published by the government show the Prince of Wales expressing concern about issues that he has raised in public, like affordable rural housing, the quality of hospital food, the preservation and regeneration of historic buildings, an integrated approach to healthcare, climate change, and others. In all these cases, the Prince of Wales is raising issues of public concern, and trying to find practical ways to address the issues.”

Last month, the government released 27 letters between the prince and ministers after a 10-year legal battle, which cost the government more than £400,000 in legal expenses in its ultimately failed attempt to block the original 2005 freedom of information request by the Guardian.

Prince Charles’s “black spider memos” show lobbying at the highest political level. The first batch dated from 2004 and 2005 and showed Charles petitioning ministers on subjects from the Iraq war to alternative therapies.

From the then prime minister, Tony Blair, Charles demanded everything from urgent action to improve equipment for troops fighting in Iraq to the availability of alternative herbal medicines in the UK, a pet cause of the prince.

David Cameron’s last government attempted to veto the release of the letters. In 2012 the then attorney general, Dominic Grieve, warned that they “would be seriously damaging to his role as future monarch because, if he forfeits his position of political neutrality as heir to the throne, he cannot easily recover it when he is king”. The case was eventually decided at the supreme court, having involved 16 judges.

In a single letter in February 2005, Charles urged a badger cull to prevent the spread of bovine tuberculosis – damning opponents to the cull as “intellectually dishonest”; lobbied for his preferred person to be appointed to crack down on the mistreatment of farmers by supermarkets; proposed his own aide to brief Downing Street on the design of new hospitals; and urged Blair to tackle an EU directive limiting the use of herbal alternative medicines in the UK.