Sodium Valproate

Cat Smith Excerpts

Thursday 29th October 2026 Commons Chamber

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

It is not the first time that I have had an Adjournment debate on sodium valproate in my 11-and-a-bit years as a Member of Parliament. It continues to be an issue that affects so many, and for which justice still feels so far away.

Given the history of this House debating the topic, I do not intend to spend much time going over the history of the drug, which has been used to treat epilepsy and bipolar disorder since the early 1970s. For the benefit of anyone who is tuning in for the first time, I will go over the brief facts of what happened. The drug is teratogenic and was known to be teratogenic from the time it was first licensed. Despite that, doctors were initially advised that the risk did not justify

“discouraging a woman who needs anticonvulsant treatment from having a child or changing a satisfactory drug regimen when the epilepsy is well controlled.”

The result has been that we have been playing catch-up ever since, with the Valproate Pregnancy Prevention Programme only being launched in 2018, following tireless campaigning from women affected, such as my constituent Janet Williams—who is in the Public Gallery—and her friend and colleague Emma Murphy.

It is difficult to calculate the number of children exposed to valproate in utero since its 1973 licensing. The Patient Safety Commissioner has made an estimate of around 14,000 for the period from 1972 to 2017 in England. Diagnosis often gets picked up when clinicians, or in some cases parents, recognise facial dysmorphic features. Children born with foetal valproate spectrum disorder can have a wide range of physical and mental health symptoms, including but not limited to weak muscles, visual problems, hearing difficulties, difficulties with balance, social anxiety, low energy, heightened sensitivity to noise and difficulties in regulating emotions. One of the biggest health conditions facing people with foetal valproate spectrum disorder is autism. A significant number also have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, dyspraxia, sensory processing disorder and epilepsy.

It can affect children in very different ways. In some of the most severe cases—I know that the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) has a constituent who is very severely affected—the individual can end up bedbound and very severely disabled. For some children, autism and sensory processing may be more of an issue.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Member for introducing this long-awaited debate. I have a constituent, Karen Buck, whose daughter, Bridget Doyle, was born paralysed, is bedbound and suffers from autism. The reality is that there are many victims out there who suffer from a variety of conditions, as the hon. Lady quite rightly points out—not least spina bifida, which she has not mentioned. The problem here is that legal aid for the court case, which was established to try to get recompense for those victims, was withdrawn some 20 years ago. Unfortunately, although commitments have been made time and again to help these people, these mothers are now advanced in age, and the children they have supported will desperately need support when their lives end. Does the hon. Lady think there is now a need for a proper compensation scheme?

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[Cat Smith]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising the case of his constituent Karen and her daughter, Bridget. I agree entirely that the time is now. He raises an important point that because this scandal has been going on for so long—the drug was first licensed in the 1970s—the babies who were harmed are no longer babies or even children, but adults with disabilities, whose parents are getting older every year. When I speak to those parents, one of their biggest anxieties is about who will look after their children when they no longer can. That is why we need compensation to be paid out sooner rather than later, because it has frankly already been too long.

I turn to the case for compensation. The case for redress from the Government for the families affected by this maladministration has been conclusively made. This is not the first debate we have had in this Chamber on this matter, and there have been multiple reviews on it. In 2020, the Cumberlege review, established by the previous Prime Minister, Theresa May, found that

“the state and manufacturers have an ethical responsibility to provide ex gratia payments to those who have experienced avoidable damage”.

These payments should be made to cover costs such as

“travel to medical appointments, respite breaks or emergency payments where a parent has to stop working to cover care.”

I pay tribute to the former Prime Minister for her work on this issue, because she really is a doughty campaigner on this.

[Liz Twist (Blaydon and Consett) (Lab)]

I also have constituents affected by the sodium valproate issue. I wonder whether she agrees that it is a double injustice—first, that the parents, Emma and Janet, had to fight to get recognition and change in the prescription of sodium valproate; and secondly, that they have to fight again to get compensation for the very real damage caused.

[Cat Smith]

I totally agree with my hon. Friend, but I would go further still. For parents of children with additional needs, the last thing they need is to be fighting a national campaign for justice. They already have enough on their plate trying to cope with their child and ensuring they are accessing the support they need without having to run a national campaign, but that has been the reality for many of the parents—primarily mothers—of children who have been harmed by valproate. That is exactly what they have had to go on and do.

I turn back to the history of the reviews into this scandal. The Conservative Government initially rejected the recommendation that I have just set out; however, in 2022, they had a change of heart when the then Health Minister, Maria Caulfield, tasked the patient safety commissioner with providing options for financial redress. That felt like a real step forward for the campaign at that point.

The commissioner produced the Hughes report in February 2024. It reiterated what we already know. It says:

“The Government has a responsibility to create an ex-gratia redress scheme providing financial and non-financial redress for those harmed by valproate”.

The Hughes report recommended that the Government create a two-stage—

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[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

Before I call the hon. Member to continue, I would just like to say what a pleasure it is to see the Clerk of the House at the Table for his last ever Adjournment debate.

[Cat Smith]

The Hughes report recommended that the Government create a two-stage financial redress scheme, comprising an interim scheme and a main scheme, with the interim payments commencing in 2025. Those who are paying attention will realise that it is now somewhat later than that. The commissioner further recommended that the payments be made by an independent body that commands the confidence of patients. That point is particularly important. The patients who have been harmed have lost so much confidence, so it is really important to have an independent body administering the scheme, to give them confidence in it being done properly.

Both the Cumberledge review and the Hughes report stressed the need for speed when responding to this issue. That is to a large extent, as the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) set out, due to the time and nature of the scandal. We now have a cohort of adults with foetal valproate spectrum disorder whose parents are finding it increasingly difficult to support their needs, due to their own health and care requirements.

Sadly, over two years on from the Hughes report, the Government have yet to formally respond to it, despite a clear recommendation that interim payments were to have commenced last year. The previous Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, my right hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting), gave a television interview with ITV Granada’s Líse McNally in February this year in which he indicated that he wanted to commence compensation payments before the end of this Parliament. It is therefore troubling that, as set out in answers to parliamentary questions from me and colleagues, the Government’s line today remains that

“a decision to provide compensation has not yet been made.”

I want to touch on the responses that colleagues and I have been getting to our written parliamentary questions, because they are increasingly frustrating. It almost feels as though, when Ministers see a written parliamentary question come in with the word “valproate” in it, a stock answer gets lifted off the shelf and given to Members. Some victims have told me recently that they feel quite gaslit by some of the answers to written parliamentary questions; they keep referring back to the same answer. We really need to make progress on this issue.

Does the Minister understand the considerable distress that such uncertainty and inconsistency causes, and will she today make it unequivocally clear that the Government accept the case for financial redress for the victims of sodium valproate, and put in place a clear timetable for delivering financial redress?

My right hon. Friend is a good Minister and will want to do the right thing, but if she needs any more persuading, she can tune into BBC Two at 9 pm on 9 November and watch “Mums v Big Pharma”, which was produced by the same people who made the programme about the Post Office scandal. It shows the human cost of the scandal for so many families, some of whom are in the Gallery tonight. The programme is the perspective of two Lancashire mams who have absolutely had enough and are fighting for justice. If I know one thing about Lancashire women, it is that when we have got our teeth into something, we tend to stick at it, and we will persevere. That especially goes for Janet Williams, who has been campaigning for justice since 1996. It really is time that justice was brought forward for these victims.

In addition to the conversations I have had with victims of the scandal, I have heard concerns raised by those living in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, who feel that the Government have not engaged as well with victims in the devolved nations. Part of that will be because health is devolved to those nations, but although health is a devolved matter, the regulation of human medicines and medicinal products remains reserved. Those victims, too, deserve to be taken seriously and brought with English victims on that journey towards redress, both financial and non-financial. The Government have previously put in place UK-wide schemes for redress, such as for infected blood, and I know that the Minister is well aware of that. Will the Government therefore commit to working closely with victims from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and with the devolved Administrations, on this matter?

[Anna Dixon (Shipley) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for her campaigning on behalf of the victims of this scandal. Is she aware of the report from the Public Accounts Committee that makes recommendations about Government compensation schemes? We looked at schemes, including for the infected blood scandal, and our recommendations were that schemes needed to be designed with the victims, and that there should be independence, just as there is in the case of infected blood. I hope that the Minister, in responding, will take note of that report, and will say how such a compensation scheme could be set up that provides quick redress to victims, in the way that my hon. Friend hopes.

[Cat Smith]

I commend my hon. Friend for the work that she does, along with others, on the Public Accounts Committee. That report is right to stress both independence as a means of giving confidence to victims, and schemes being designed with victims. These families have already had so much done to them that it is important, when it comes to redress, that they are part of designing the solution. Part of redress, and of getting justice, is no longer having things done to them, and instead being part of designing the solution.

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Gateshead South) (Lab)]

Apologies, Madam Deputy Speaker, for being late to the debate. The early start caught me somewhat by surprise. As my hon. Friend is aware—she may have touched on this already—the Hughes report is excellent. It gave a blueprint, right down to the amounts involved, for how a redress model could be put in place and facilitated. It has been over two years since the Hughes report. I know that there has been a change of Government, but this Government have been in for over two years now. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is about time the Government came forward and accepted the recommendations of the Hughes report?

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[Cat Smith]

I thank my hon. Friend for all the work that she has done over a number of years on this issue. She has been a doughty campaigner on sodium valproate, and she has the confidence of many of the victims and is very well thought of. I entirely agree with what she says about the Hughes report. It is a very good report that should have been acted on already. It is frustrating that we have been waiting as long as we have.

There were many things in the report on redress, including on non-financial redress. As part of that, we have the pilot clinics in Manchester and Newcastle, which support children and adults who have been affected by valproate. They are pilots, however, unlike some of the other clinics. In the case of mesh, the clinics are permanent, and they are able to provide psychological support as well. The clinics for the victims of valproate are still in trial, and we do not have any outside the north of England. As a north of England MP, I am very glad that the clinics are local to me, but victims of valproate live right across the United Kingdom, and accessing support should not become a postcode lottery. Will the Government update the House on whether the clinics will be made permanent and perhaps expanded to cover a wider geography?

Finally, will the Minister meet me and victims, especially those from the campaign organisation INFACT, to discuss in detail the Government’s long-term intentions in this area? Many of the victims feel that they have been in the dark about what is happening for an awfully long time. We have been in government since 2024, and the time has come; we can no longer drag our feet. Justice needs to be done, and redress needs to be put in place. The families affected are owed no less than that.

I am so glad that you are in the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker, because you, too, have been a doughty supporter of these victims, and I know that you are fondly thought of, especially by those in the Public Gallery, for your support on this. I am grateful for the interventions from Members on both sides of the House. This truly is an issue that cuts across party politics. Regardless of what colour rosette we wear, we cannot fail to see the injustice that has been done to these families. I would like it to be a Labour Government who deliver redress to these victims.

This scandal has been going on since the 1970s. The time for just talking about this has passed—we need to start acting. The families who have been affected are owed nothing less. I hope that in the Minister’s reply, she will give them some hope, because I am told that hope is back. Let us make sure that means something, and let us have some hope from the Dispatch Box tonight.

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[Dame Diana Johnson]

I will of course take that away. As a Minister, I have made it clear that we should respond in a timely way not only to Members of Parliament, but in other correspondence, and in a way in which people can understand what is being said to them. I absolutely take my hon. Friend’s point.

Moving on, we are determined to build a system that listens, that hears and that will act, and we need to do that with speed, compassion and proportionality. As someone who has fought hard for the compensation due to the victims of the infected blood scandal, I fully understand the strength of feeling on this matter, and I can also appreciate the frustrations of the families and the campaigners. This is a complex and sensitive issue that requires careful co-ordination across Government.

The support we offer to those who have suffered profound harm must be meaningful and responsive to their needs. The Government are clear that those affected have already waited far too long for answers. While a decision has not yet been taken to provide financial redress, my priority is to drive these discussions forward with greater urgency, while ensuring that any decisions we take are underpinned by a thorough assessment of the available options, with continued engagement across Government. Our discussions so far have considered the scope, affordability and practical challenges of a redress scheme, so I will say a few words about non-financial redress.

[Cat Smith]

I seek some clarity. The Minister says that the decision has not yet been made, yet a previous Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, the right hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting), told ITV that he was expecting financial redress by the end of this Parliament. Can the Minister just clarify that, because it seems inconsistent?

[Dame Diana Johnson]

My understanding of what the previous Secretary of State said is that he wanted to see progress within this Parliament. I am mindful of the Hughes report, which set out clear recommendations around redress, and I have just tried to set out that that is the avenue I am pursuing with some speed, looking at what the options are. I hope that that answers my hon. Friend.