Oral Answers to Questions

Calum Miller Excerpts

Wednesday 28th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Max Wilkinson (Cheltenham) (LD)]

4. What steps she is taking with the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care to help tackle health inequalities affecting women.

[Calum Miller (Bicester and Woodstock) (LD)]

12. What steps she is taking with the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care to help tackle health inequalities affecting women.

[The Minister for Secondary Care (Karin Smyth)]

We are committed through our 10-year health plan to prioritising women’s health as we build an NHS that is fit for the future. That includes renewing the women’s health strategy, investing in research that addresses health inequalities and continuing to build on vital progress in women’s health.

[Karin Smyth]

The hon. Member and I discussed this issue before he brought a debate on it to Westminster Hall, and I know that he has campaigned hard on it for local women. He raises an excellent point: we must ensure that what is happening on the ground with regard to maternity and the changes that people are proposing line up adequately with the national task. He has made that point very clearly today, and I will make sure that the local system is aware of it.

[Calum Miller]

My constituent Debra was advised over 20 years ago to take sodium valproate during her pregnancy. Alongside thousands of other women, that advice has had severe consequences for her family. Both her sons have faced significant challenges through their lives and remain highly dependent on their parents, as a direct result of that drug. On Saturday, I visited Debra and she shared her fears for her sons’ future and her anger that more than two years after the Hughes report was published, no action has been taken. Will the Minister meet Debra and me to hear her family’s story and to discuss how the Government intend to put right this terrible injustice?

[Karin Smyth]

It was the cases of many women like Debra, which have often been raised in this House, that led to that report, and we understand that people are facing serious and long-lasting conditions. I am happy to arrange for a Minister to get back to the hon. Member on that specific case and update him on the review.