Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review

Cat Smith Excerpts

Thursday 9th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Ms Dorries]

I thank my hon. Friend for his comments and for his campaigning. It is the campaigning of Members of this House on behalf of their constituents that has got us to the position where we are today. It demonstrates how this place works at its best when MPs represent their constituents in campaigning on issues such as this. On his specific question, I would like him to write to me, because I am not quite sure why, if the operation was undertaken by the NHS, his constituent had to pay tens of thousands of pounds. If he would like to write to me and let me know the details, I will give him a more detailed response.

[Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

As chair of the all-party parliamentary group on valproate and other anti-epileptic drugs in pregnancy, I would like to put on the record my and the group’s thanks to Baroness Cumberlege for her work on this. We welcome the report. I believe that its recommendations should be implemented in full as quickly as possible, because it is 268 pages about four decades of women being let down and lied to. When those women have campaigned for justice, Members of this House have told them that they are bored housewives and they are being hysterical. We cannot allow these women to be denied justice any longer. I would like to invite the Minister to join a meeting of our all-party group so that we can talk about the recommendations in more detail in a way that we cannot do on the Floor of the House.

[Ms Dorries]

I could not agree with the hon. Lady more. As I said earlier, whether it is Shipman, Paterson, Cumberlege or a maternity incident, women so often struggle to get their voices heard when they are at the heart of issues like this. I would be happy to talk to the all-party group, particularly on sodium valproate, where a huge amount of work is being done. We are seeing the number of users of sodium valproate in pregnancy declining, but there is more work to be done. I would be particularly interested in talking to the hon. Lady about how we get the message out about the dangers of sodium valproate, because there are women who suffer from epilepsy for whom sodium valproate is the only treatment that works effectively. That is the heart of the problem that we need to keep discussing and work through further. I am happy to meet and talk to her.