Eurotunnel

Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen Excerpts

Monday 4th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Courtown]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, for her questions. Her last question was specifically about the cost that was paid. I do not have that figure, but if it is not commercially confidential I will ensure she gets it. The noble Baroness also referred to the Seaborne matter. As she said, due diligence was carried out not only by senior officials at the Department for Transport but by third-party organisations with sufficient experience and expertise in this area, including Deloitte, Mott MacDonald and Slaughter and May. Due diligence was carried out throughout this process, and the fact is that we took careful note of our legal advice on this matter as well.

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen (Con)]

My Lords, as a very old nurse I will take this back to health. A lot of people in this country are on long-term medication. Can my noble friend the Minister tell me what conversations the Department of Health and Social Care is having with pharmaceutical companies to make sure there are sufficient medicines in the UK when we leave the EU?

[The Earl of Courtown]

My Lords, my noble friend asks about sufficient supplies of medicines. I can confirm that we are working closely with pharmaceutical companies to ensure that patients can continue to receive the medicines they need. As I said before, we are confident that the supply of medicines will be uninterrupted in the event of no deal. In addition to extra warehouse space, as a first line of defence industries have been asked to ensure a minimum of six weeks’ additional supply in the UK for prescription-only and pharmacy medicines—over and above existing, business-as-usual buffer stocks—by 29 March 2019.