Sodium Valproate

Anna Dixon Excerpts

Thursday 29th October 2026 Commons Chamber

[Cat Smith]

The Hughes report recommended that the Government create a two-stage financial redress scheme, comprising an interim scheme and a main scheme, with the interim payments commencing in 2025. Those who are paying attention will realise that it is now somewhat later than that. The commissioner further recommended that the payments be made by an independent body that commands the confidence of patients. That point is particularly important. The patients who have been harmed have lost so much confidence, so it is really important to have an independent body administering the scheme, to give them confidence in it being done properly.

Both the Cumberledge review and the Hughes report stressed the need for speed when responding to this issue. That is to a large extent, as the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) set out, due to the time and nature of the scandal. We now have a cohort of adults with foetal valproate spectrum disorder whose parents are finding it increasingly difficult to support their needs, due to their own health and care requirements.

Sadly, over two years on from the Hughes report, the Government have yet to formally respond to it, despite a clear recommendation that interim payments were to have commenced last year. The previous Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, my right hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting), gave a television interview with ITV Granada’s Líse McNally in February this year in which he indicated that he wanted to commence compensation payments before the end of this Parliament. It is therefore troubling that, as set out in answers to parliamentary questions from me and colleagues, the Government’s line today remains that

“a decision to provide compensation has not yet been made.”

I want to touch on the responses that colleagues and I have been getting to our written parliamentary questions, because they are increasingly frustrating. It almost feels as though, when Ministers see a written parliamentary question come in with the word “valproate” in it, a stock answer gets lifted off the shelf and given to Members. Some victims have told me recently that they feel quite gaslit by some of the answers to written parliamentary questions; they keep referring back to the same answer. We really need to make progress on this issue.

Does the Minister understand the considerable distress that such uncertainty and inconsistency causes, and will she today make it unequivocally clear that the Government accept the case for financial redress for the victims of sodium valproate, and put in place a clear timetable for delivering financial redress?

My right hon. Friend is a good Minister and will want to do the right thing, but if she needs any more persuading, she can tune into BBC Two at 9 pm on 9 November and watch “Mums v Big Pharma”, which was produced by the same people who made the programme about the Post Office scandal. It shows the human cost of the scandal for so many families, some of whom are in the Gallery tonight. The programme is the perspective of two Lancashire mams who have absolutely had enough and are fighting for justice. If I know one thing about Lancashire women, it is that when we have got our teeth into something, we tend to stick at it, and we will persevere. That especially goes for Janet Williams, who has been campaigning for justice since 1996. It really is time that justice was brought forward for these victims.

In addition to the conversations I have had with victims of the scandal, I have heard concerns raised by those living in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, who feel that the Government have not engaged as well with victims in the devolved nations. Part of that will be because health is devolved to those nations, but although health is a devolved matter, the regulation of human medicines and medicinal products remains reserved. Those victims, too, deserve to be taken seriously and brought with English victims on that journey towards redress, both financial and non-financial. The Government have previously put in place UK-wide schemes for redress, such as for infected blood, and I know that the Minister is well aware of that. Will the Government therefore commit to working closely with victims from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and with the devolved Administrations, on this matter?

[Anna Dixon (Shipley) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for her campaigning on behalf of the victims of this scandal. Is she aware of the report from the Public Accounts Committee that makes recommendations about Government compensation schemes? We looked at schemes, including for the infected blood scandal, and our recommendations were that schemes needed to be designed with the victims, and that there should be independence, just as there is in the case of infected blood. I hope that the Minister, in responding, will take note of that report, and will say how such a compensation scheme could be set up that provides quick redress to victims, in the way that my hon. Friend hopes.

[Cat Smith]

I commend my hon. Friend for the work that she does, along with others, on the Public Accounts Committee. That report is right to stress both independence as a means of giving confidence to victims, and schemes being designed with victims. These families have already had so much done to them that it is important, when it comes to redress, that they are part of designing the solution. Part of redress, and of getting justice, is no longer having things done to them, and instead being part of designing the solution.