(9 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberUrgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
The hon. Lady should know that the two issues are separate. The drugs that she mentions are part of an accelerated access review, which my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Life Sciences launched recently. It will be available to all sufferers of hepatitis C, however they contracted the disease. We hope to move to that as quickly as possible, and I know that NHS England has it in hand.
A full and final settlement is exactly where we are trying to get to. The hon. Lady will be aware that this is an enormously complex area, and we want to ensure that all the concerns of sufferers and victims are taken into account in the consultation that we are going to lead, so that we can come to a final settlement that is equitable to all.
My constituent tells me that, despite the fact that he was infected when he was in the sixth form, at an age when he saw little future, he now has a good job, a wife and, following IVF treatment, a daughter, although he still faces many challenges. Specifically, will the Minister include the right to funding for a second round of IVF? My constituent and his wife are very keen to provide a sibling for their daughter and are having to use their own funds to do so—funds that they had put on one side to support their child in future years.
I know that my hon. Friend has spoken about that issue to my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea, the Minister with responsibility for public health, and she will write to him shortly with an answer to his question.