Hormone Pregnancy Tests

Hannah Bardell Excerpts

Thursday 7th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Ed Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)]

It is always a privilege to follow the hon. Member for Stourbridge (Suzanne Webb). I think the whole House is grateful to her for telling the story of her constituents and their daughter Beccy. It is so important that the Minister and colleagues hear the impact that Primodos has had on ordinary families, and why we need justice.

I have been involved in this campaign for nearly a decade, but there are three women who have been critical in leading it. The first is the hon. Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi), who has chaired the APPG, but who has also done many more things: she has had more meetings, asked more questions and sent more letters, and we are all grateful to her. She is one of the greatest campaigners this House has seen in recent times. Like others, I also pay tribute to Marie Lyon and her husband, who have campaigned with more courage and bravery than I have seen from anyone outside this House in my time here. They are relentless, representing the interests of thousands of women and their families. They are not going to give up until they get that justice, and neither should we.

The third woman I want to mention is a lady called Sue Ilsley, the constituent who brought this issue to my attention. Sadly, Sue died earlier this year. I actually got to know her before this, because she was a campaigner on mental health issues in my constituency; as far as I was concerned, she was the best campaigner. I think that was partly because her mental health had been impacted by her experience of having taken Primodos as a teenager and then giving birth to a daughter—a wonderful daughter, but a daughter who had serious deformities as a result of Primodos. She campaigned on mental health, and later she brought the Primodos issue to me. When I used to speak to her, I could obviously feel her hurt and her anger, but just as the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) said, I could also feel her guilt. She should not have had any.

There are guilty people. The right hon. Lady mentioned the NHS, but I want to take it back: Schering, the original drug company that has now been bought by Bayer, bears a lot of the guilt. All the professionals and the various medical regulators who have looked at this issue over the years bear the guilt. We should not finish campaigning until those guilty people are brought to justice. Experts and judges have looked at this recently and said, “They are not guilty”—well, they are. Look at the evidence. The expert working group was shocking, and when the right hon. Lady was Prime Minister, she was quite right not to accept its report and to go for the review. We had a debate in 2019 in which that report was pulled apart, and we have seen the work of Carl Heneghan, Neil Vargesson and others, who have proved as scientists and statistical experts that the evidence is overwhelming.

I am not a scientist or a medic, but I can sort of understand legal notes, and when I spoke in this House in December 2017, I read extensive extracts from the minutes of meetings held on 20 and 21 December 1977 at the Goldsmith Building, Temple, London. Schering, the original pharmaceutical company, was getting legal advice from a Mr Clothier QC. I will not repeat that speech today, but I will repeat a few of the things that I mentioned:

“Mr Clothier felt, if the case were tried to the end by a judge, the chances were that the company would be found to be in neglect of its duty.”

This was in 1977.

“Clothier stated that there seemed to be a 5:1 chance that, if there were a malformation in a child and the mother took Primodos while pregnant, it was the fault of the drug”,—[Official Report, 14 December 2017; Vol. 633, c. 707.]

so Schering knew that. That was its legal advice decades ago. Page 7 of the memo from the Berlin archives, which this note came from, states that Mr Clothier told Schering that

“there were 2 alternatives open to us—one is to establish a voluntary scheme of compensation in which a justifiable claim will be given compensation without proof of liability but simply accepting moral responsibility.”

The company’s review came to that conclusion. Decades later, why has it not happened?

The other alternative was to take the claims to court. What I found really interesting, and what I want to focus colleagues’ attention on, is that according to the memo, the Schering representative, Dr Detering, said that he was

“hesitant in establishing a scheme as the product is marketed world-wide. If we introduce this scheme in one country, we should introduce it in other countries.”

This product was marketed in 81 countries. That is the issue here; that is why there has been a cover-up for decades. That is why the medical regulators have stood behind the pharmaceutical company in question, because they know this would cost the company a fortune. Its shareholders would have to cough up—possibly cough up billions. In my view, this is potentially one of the biggest cover-ups of a pharmaceutical outrage that the world has ever seen.

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

The right hon. Gentleman is making an incredibly powerful contribution. Does he agree that the recent drama documentary on Netflix, “Painkiller”, highlights just how this kind of issue happens and keeps on happening, and that if we do not get to the heart of it—if we do not stop pharmaceutical companies flooding the markets unregulated and drugs getting to patients, including our constituents, and doing them damage—it is just going to continue?

[Ed Davey]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her intervention. I did not see that particular programme, but I am sure she is right. The key thing is that we need to make sure that those large organisations are held to account. That is our job, and we have been failing, because we have not held them to account—we are still here, many years and many debates later. We have had a Prime Minister on our side, and these people still have not been held to account.

--- Later in debate ---

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

It is a massive privilege to speak on behalf of my constituent Wilma Ord and those other victims. I declare an interest, as a vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on hormone pregnancy tests, where I work alongside an incredible campaigner, the hon. Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi). She has done the most wonderful job and we have stood side by side.

One of the first cases I ever dealt with as a constituency Member began back in 2015, when Wilma Ord and her daughter Kirsteen came to my constituency surgery. As happened to so many of the victims—our constituents who have been mentioned today—Wilma’s doctor had taken out a pill from his top drawer when she was pregnant and handed it over to her, and she had trusted him. Ultimately, that is what this debate is about. It is about that social contract that our constituents have with us as parliamentarians and with Government, with their doctors and the institutions of the NHS, and with those private companies that are allowed into that space by us and by Government. It is also about the lack of regulation. If the Government continue to refuse to do anything about that, we can only conclude that these have been acts of state-sanctioned harm, because those companies were allowed to operate within the framework of our society and harm was done to our constituents.

Another issue, which has not been touched on an awful lot, is the flawed and failed legal process. I will touch on that, but first I pay tribute to Marie Lyon, who is a remarkable campaigner; to Jason Farrell of Sky News, who has done an incredible job and produced the documentary, “Primodos: The Secret Drug Scandal”, which I encourage Members to watch; to Baroness Cumberlege, for her remarkable work; and of course to the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May). In my opinion, her campaign on this subject is one of the right hon. Lady’s greatest achievements of her time in office. There may be many things on which we disagree, but we will continue to stand shoulder to shoulder on the issue. The Minister should be aware that we are not going anywhere. Whatever happens at the next election, parliamentarians from every party in this place will continue to hold the Government to account on the issue. The scientists Carl Heneghan and Neil Vargesson have been mentioned numerous times; their work has also been crucial.

In 2020 the right hon. Member for Maidenhead was right when she said:

“I almost felt it was sort of women being patted on the head and being told ‘there, there, dear. Don’t worry. You’re imagining it. You don’t know. We know better than you do.’”

I agree wholeheartedly with her, as that is exactly how my constituent was made to feel—she was gaslighted. I have sat with my constituent many times and I sat with her again recently. She lost her husband, George, a year ago. He died not knowing the truth and not seeing justice. It feels very much as if this Government are waiting for people to die rather than taking action, and that is for shame. When I met with Wilma recently we talked a little bit about what the future holds. As other hon. Members have said, our constituents are scared about what will happen next and about what the process and the future will hold.

I want to talk a little about that process. When some of our constituents took their legal action to court, the litigation was cumbersome and expensive and, after the judicial decision this year, the campaigners felt that they had really been done over. I will use my parliamentary privilege, Mr Deputy Speaker, to say that they were done over by a company called Pogust Goodhead, which approached the Primodos campaigners to take over the case. It then got cold feet and decided to drop the claimants and the victims when it did not fancy its chances of winning. To compound that, the company went on to withhold the documents that constituents such as Wilma Ord had presented to the company to pursue the case. That prevented the campaign from being able to find other legal representation and fundamentally meant that the campaign was unsuccessful in court. In my view, that is a hostile and odious movement by any legal firm.

The court citation states:

“Shortly after the service of the defendants’ evidence, PGMBM”—

Pogust Goodhead—

“informed the claimants that they could no longer act for them. They then applied to come off the record… The material placed…in support of the solicitors’ application to come off the record is privileged and has been withheld from me and from the defendants.”

Those are the words of Mrs Justice Yip. She goes on to say that

“some claimants discontinued their claims”,

and talks about the issues around managing a case that has “so many unrepresented litigants”.

In its mission statement, Pogust Goodhead says it is a

“global partnership…working to help individuals, groups, and businesses access fair and tangible justice.”

What a load of absolute nonsense. I appeal to the company directly today, as I am pretty sure the lawyers who worked on the case will be watching: give our constituents their documents back and come clean on exactly how you pulled out of that litigation. And for shame on the Government for going into cahoots with that crowd and leaving our constituents and those victims in that situation. That is state-sponsored and funded action against our constituents and our citizens.

As many people have said, this injustice has gone on for decades, like contaminated blood, Hillsborough and the thalidomide case. It seems to be the order of the day and the order of Government to make people wait for decades, to traumatise and retraumatise them. Baroness Cumberlege’s review clearly took a different view from that of the expert working group and concluded that the manufacturer and the state had an ethical responsibility to find a financial scheme for those harmed.

Finally on my hit list is Bayer, formerly Schering, which said that financial recompense was not appropriate. Last year, its profits were $4.4 billion. It made millions off the back of Primodos and off the back of the damage that was done to our constituents. I am sorry, but this is not good enough for our citizens. It is not good enough from the Minister and it is not good enough from the Government. They need to get off their backsides and do something about this, because we, as parliamentarians, as campaigners and as constituents, are not going away.

--- Later in debate ---

[Maria Caulfield]

I hear my right hon. Friend and, as I said, I will come on to that specifically towards the end of my remarks.

There were further evidence reviews. Hon. Members have touched on the evidence from Heneghan et al., and from Brown et al. in 2018. Those were looked at, and again there was no evidence of causality found in those reviews.

[Hannah Bardell]

Will the Minister give way?

[Maria Caulfield]

I will, but I need to make some progress on addressing the points made.

[Hannah Bardell]

Causality is one of the key issues here, because it is very difficult to prove. The only way it can be proven is if those tests were done on pregnant women, and we all know that would be utterly ridiculous and absurd. However, we do know that there was association, and the bar has been set so high that it has become impossible for people to get justice. That responsibility lies at the door of the Government. Thalidomide campaigners were able to settle with the company. We need to look at how we can make that happen for Primodos campaigners, but the Government also need to look at lowering the bar.

[Maria Caulfield]

I take the hon. Lady’s point that causality is a high bar. I am just going through the fact that there have been a number of reviews of the evidence so far. Baroness Cumberlege, when she set out the remit for her review, also stated from the outset that she would not be able to touch on causality for many of those reasons. There have been a number of reviews of the evidence, but I hear from right hon. and hon. Members some concerns that those reviews still have not got to the bottom of the issues that the families and those affected by Primodos feel that they have faced.

On the next steps, I have heard hon. Members. I heard my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers), who was clear about the drug being taken even after evidence had emerged. I heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge (Suzanne Webb) about the effect on her constituent Helen and her family. I heard from my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg) about his experience in Government and why these things often take so long. And, of course, I heard my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), who set up the Cumberlege review in the first place. My hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (James Grundy) has lobbied me hard outside this place on behalf of his constituent Marie Lyon and the many others who have been affected.

Now that we are in between the first and—potentially—second court cases, I am keen to meet and get to the bottom of right hon. and hon. Members’ concerns.

--- Later in debate ---

[Maria Caulfield]

Finger pointing is not exactly effective. As I set out at the beginning of my remarks, we have accepted the majority of those recommendations. We could not accept the Primodos ones while there was an ongoing court case. I have given my commitment from the Dispatch Box to review the outstanding recommendations in relation to Primodos, because I want to get to the bottom of this once and for all and provide justice for the families. I have heard from Members across the House about their concerns and the outstanding recommendations of the Cumberlege review, and my commitment is to look at those now.

[Hannah Bardell]

It seems to me that we are caught up in a quagmire of bureaucracy. We have had the Cumberlege review. We know what the results are. The Government said incessantly that they would not address the Primodos matter because of the court case. We now know that the court case was, in some respects, flawed, because the complainants and victims were not able to take their case forward as their information was withheld by the legal firm. As the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey) said, they are now being treated in a hostile manner by the Government by being told that they will be sued for over £10 million if they take another case forward. That is an utterly preposterous situation. If the Minister really wants to get to the bottom of it, she needs to implement fully the Cumberlege review and ignore the nonsense that has gone on in the courts.

[Maria Caulfield]

I do not want to test your patience, Mr Deputy Speaker, because I know that I am over time, but I have made the commitment to review the Cumberlege recommendations for Primodos patients. For those who have been affected by sodium valproate and mesh, we are making huge progress. Only this week, we introduced a statutory instrument so that sodium valproate can only be dispensed in the manufacturer’s original packaging. We have the pregnancy prevention programme, which is drastically reducing the number of babies born to those taking sodium valproate. We are installing the registry, so that women on sodium valproate are better cared for and not taking that medication. Now that 11 August has passed and the claim was not followed up, I am looking at the Primodos recommendations as well. My commitment is to come back to the House and update Members on the progress on those matters.