Brexit Negotiations and No Deal Contingency Planning

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Tuesday 4th September 2018 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that the nature of the financial settlement, as set out in the withdrawal agreement, is contingent upon us agreeing the deal as a whole, and it could not be guaranteed that we would provide the same amount of money if we left the EU without a deal. We will abide by our legal obligations, but I think my hon. Friend can safely say that that would be open for consideration.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

Will the Secretary of State explain what will happen on medicines in the event of no deal? Over the summer, the Secretary of State for Health said that the public should not stockpile medicine, but industry has been told the opposite. Does the Secretary of State think that that is at all reassuring for people with chronic conditions who need their drugs?

[Dominic Raab]

We published a technical notice on medicines, and a letter was sent to some suppliers. It is right to say that they have been asked to provide an additional six weeks’ worth of medicines, but it is worth bearing in mind that the Government already partner with pharmaceutical suppliers to ensure that we have three months’ worth of buffer stock for over 200 medicines through the emergency medicine buffer stock scheme and that Public Health England already holds at least three months’ supply of vaccines for national immunisation programmes. Of course, this would be a different set of circumstances, but those are the kind of contingency plans that pharmaceutical companies are already used to making. If the hon. Lady had looked, she would have seen that the response of the industry association was to welcome the proposals in our technical notice.