UK-EU Future Relationship Negotiations and Transition Period

Ben Bradshaw Excerpts

Monday 7th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

I can give my hon. Friend and his constituents those assurances. This is an incredibly serious matter. The supply of medicines and medical devices, even without the pandemic, has always been a priority, going right back to last year and the potential no deal scenario planning that went on, with huge efforts. His question affords me the opportunity to pay tribute to the civil servants, military personnel, local resilience forums and many other people who have been planning and conducting exercises—and of course all the people who have been working on the winter planning assumptions around that. I can give him those assurances that we take this very seriously indeed.

[Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)]

Those assurances were flatly contradicted only last week by the head of the UK’s pharmaceutical industry, Richard Torbett, who said that border delays and, crucially, the absence of mutual recognition standards in the event of no deal will disrupt the supply of vital medicines to this country, including vaccines. Why should we believe Government Ministers rather than the man who heads our multibillion-pound medicines industry and knows what he is talking about?

[Penny Mordaunt]

There are many potential problems, but those problems have been methodically thought through. As I say, they range from administrative issues that the right hon. Gentleman refers to, right through to freight transport issues, including our securing back-up plans if commercial transport is not available or we have issues of pinch points on the key transit routes. In addition to that, and in addition to the phased approach to the border that is being taken next year, we have also, for the first few weeks, put additional measures in place to really try to ensure that there are no delays and no snarl-ups on those key freight routes.