LOCAL MP Gary Streeter has written to the Advertising Standards Authority to try and help overturn a ban on advertising claims that 'God can heal'.

The Conservative MP for South West Devon has joined forces with Gavin Shuker, Labour MP for Luton South, and Tim Farron, Liberal Democrat MP for Westmorland and Lonsdale in a bid to get the ASA to provide indisputable scientific evidence to prove that prayer does not work.

Mr Streeter, chairman of the Christians in Parliament group, wrote with Mr Shuker and Mr Farron on behalf of the group after the ASA banned a Christian organisation from claiming on its website and in leaflets that God can heal illnesses.

The leaflet written by Healing on the Streets, which is available to download from their website, read: 'Need Healing? God can heal today!'

The ASA said the adverts were misleading and banned them.

HOTS, based in Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire, said it was disappointed with the decision and is planning to appeal.

In the letter to the ASA Mr Streeter, Mr Shuker and Mr Farron said: 'We are writing on behalf of the all-party Christians in Parliament group and your ruling that the Healing OnThe Streets ministry are no longer able to claim, in their advertising, that God can heal people from medical conditions.

'We write to express our concern at this decision and to enquire about the basis on which it has been made.

'It appears to cut across two thousand years of Christian tradition and the very clear teaching in the Bible.

'Many of us have seen and experienced physical healing ourselves in our own families and churches and wonder why you have decided that this is not possible.

'On what scientific research or empirical evidence have you based this decision?

'You might be interested to know that I (Gary Streeter) received divine healing myself at a church meeting in 1983 on my right hand, which was in pain for many years.

'After prayer at that meeting, my hand was immediately free from pain and has been ever since. What does the ASA say about that?

'I would be the first to accept that prayed-for people do not always get healed, but sometimes they do.

'That is all this sincere group of Christians in Bath are claiming.

'It is interesting to note that since the traumatic collapse of the footballer Fabrice Muamba the whole nation appears to be praying for a physical healing for him. I enclose some media extracts. Are they wrong also and will you seek to intervene?

'We invite your detailed response.'