Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review — House of Commons, 2021-07-08
Topic: Health
Yasmin Qureshi (Labour, Centre-left): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy) on obtaining this debate. I am chair of the all-party group on hormone pregnancy tests, which contains 135 MPs. This is just one of the countless times I have stood on the Floor of this House on behalf of thousands of victims affected by the hormone pregnancy test drug Primodos to plead with this Government’s Ministers to do the right thing. I have used most of my Prime Minister’s questions and Health orals on this issue. Some 1.5 expectant women in the UK were prescribed Primodos, a hormone-based pregnancy test used in the 1960s and 1970s that caused them to have babies with malformations and disabilities, to have miscarriages and to have stillbirths. For decades, these families have been dismissed and have been told repeatedly that despite all the evidence of a cover-up, it is all in their heads and there is no link. So imagine my relief, and theirs, when one year ago today the Cumberlege review was published. It was the most comprehensive assessment of all the evidence on the hormone pregnancy tests and it said very clearly that Primodos caused avoidable harm. The report exposed widespread systemic failings, where warnings were ignored. For hundreds of Primodos families across the country who had campaigned for the truth and closure, the conclusion of this report was a significant moment of recognition. The review also said that had Primodos been removed from the market in 1967, when concern was first raised, many of these families would not have endured the decades of suffering. It was also very clear that compensation should be made available for these people Today, we are in this House to ensure that this report does not gather dust, which the cynic in me would say is the Government’s intention. I pay tribute to Baroness Cumberlege, who is sitting in the Gallery today, for conducting this review and to her colleagues. The review was thorough and sensitive over the course of two and a half years. Baroness Cumberlege has been so affected by this report that she has set up an all-party group on first do no harm. In her review, she found that the root cause was a failure of the healthcare system by some in the medical profession who have ignored the concerns of women and their families. From these findings comes clear guidance and recommendations on how to support these people and ensure that these things do not occur again. The Minister will be aware that in Scotland some of these measures have been implemented so I would like to ask: why the delay in this Department? The Government refuse to acknowledge the Primodos families and instead keep telling us, "We refuse to comment due to an ongoing legal action." That is a smokescreen, an excuse, a deliberate refusal to accept that Primodos families deserve justice. Baroness Cumberlege remarked in the other place that "rumours are…rife of a ritual burial"—[Official Report, House of Lords, 2 September 2020; Vol. 805, c. 385.] of the report. Frankly, from the answers to the parliamentary questions that I have asked, it is easy to see why that conclusion is reached. Today is the Minister’s opportunity to give an assurance to the families that the report will be implemented in full In one of the letters that the Minister wrote to me, she said that there is no causal link between Primodos and deformities. She hides behind the expert working group report to justify her refusal to give the families of Primodos the dignity and justice they deserve. However, is she aware that the expert working group, which was done by the MHRA, a Department of Health and Social Care agency made up of civil servants, who decided who would be on the group, was so discredited by academics, campaigners and Members of this House? We had an urgent question in the House on its report, and I ask the Minister to look at that debate, because every aspect of the expert working group was discredited. It is surprising that the Government are using that group as a reason not to compensate these people I ask the Minister to remember that the Cumberlege review was set up after the expert working group. Baroness Cumberlege’s group looked at the expert working group’s report with a fine-toothed comb. Despite that, with all the other evidence it heard, it came to the conclusion that the harm was avoidable and that there was a link. In a Sky interview, the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), said of the expert working group report: "At one point it says that they could not find a causal association between Primodos and congenital anomalies, but neither could they categorically say that there was no causal link." It was also found at the time that the report’s initial recommendations had been changed to its final recommendations. Even in that report, there were discrepancies Why does the Minister continue to rely on the findings of that discredited expert working group report, and why does she continue to remind us that there is no causal link when she knows well that there was no causal link for the thalidomide victims and they have rightly been compensated? She also knows that it will be impossible to test these drugs on pregnant women, so there could only ever be a possible link The Minister will know the inspirational campaigner for Primodos families, Marie Lyon, with whom I have had the pleasure of working for the last 10 years. Marie Lyon will refuse to let this scandal be swept under the carpet, just as I and my parliamentary colleagues will. We are often reminded of the bravery and dignity of the people who have suffered and the families who look after them, including children and older people. They deserve respect and admiration—and they deserve justice. It is outrageous for the Government to suggest that justice for Primodos families could be delayed or denied. If they were given compensation, then we would not have to consider any legal recourse. I ask the Minister again: please do not listen to the civil servants. Do not listen to the MHRA expert working group recommendations, which have been roundly condemned. Instead, please look at the report of the Cumberlege review, which was carried out by a Conservative former Health Minister and the experts who sat with her. They went through everything, and they have made it very clear what needs to be done I ask the Minister please to compensate the victims of Primodos and, of course, all the victims of mesh and sodium valproate, and I urge her please to stop listening to the bureaucrats—the civil servants—in the NHS and give justice to the victims of Primodos, mesh and sodium valproate.