The Science and Technology committee said homeopathic products are not medicines and should no longer be licensed by medicines regulators.

Homeopathic producers should not be allowed to make medical claims about them on labels without evidence that they work, it added.

The committee accused the government of sending out mixed messages about homeopathic remedies by saying that while there is no evidence to back them, they can still be paid for by Britain’s public National Health Service (NHS).

“It sets an unfortunate precedent for the department of health to consider that the existence of a community which believes that homeopathy works is ‘evidence’ enough to continue spending public money on it,” committee chairman Phil Willis said in a statement.

“This also sends out a confused message, and has potentially harmful consequences.” An election is due in Britain later this year and political leaders are under pressure to come up with any saving they can to bring down the country’s ballooning public deficit.

In its report on homeopathy, the committee agreed with the government that evidence shows homeopathy is not efficacious — meaning it works no better than a placebo, or dummy pill.

“Explanations for why homeopathy would work are scientifically implausible,” it said, but questioned why despite this the government funds homeopathic treatments in the NHS. Homeopathy, which originated in Germany in the 1700s, is based on a principle that “like cures like.” The theory is that substances that prompt certain symptoms can also treat those same symptoms if given in a highly diluted form.

The practice is controversial because many of its central concepts do not accord with modern science. Many studies have found homeopathic remedies are no more effective than placebos.

Critics say the homeopathy industry has made millions out of selling little more than “sugar pills” to vulnerable patients.

The committee’s report said homeopathy was “a placebo treatment” and the government should have a policy on prescribing placebos — an area it said ministers were reluctant touch because prescribing placebos “usually relies on some degree of patient deception.” “Beyond ethical issues and the integrity of the doctor-patient relationship, prescribing pure placebos is bad medicine,” the report said.