Hormone Pregnancy Tests

Jacob Rees-Mogg Excerpts

Thursday 7th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

May I join others in paying tribute to the hon. Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi), who has done such terrific work campaigning on this issue? She commandeered me as we were neighbours on Upper Committee Corridor South, when I was relatively new in Parliament. Those campaigning efforts have been so important on a fundamental issue for so many of our constituents. One of my own constituents is here today, following our proceedings closely.

The case before us seems so remarkably straightforward that it is impossible to see why there is such a stick-in-the-mud attitude from the Government, though perhaps less so from the pharmaceutical companies, because they know that they are culpable and, ultimately, deserve a financial liability. Why can I be so confident of that link? There seems to be one very striking fact, which was revealed by Jason Farrell in the important work he did for Sky News: the drug was used in South Korea and Germany as an abortifacient. It was used to procure abortions. What is a drug that will do that doing to a baby? It is causing harm. That is so straightforward. We have heard already that Primodos contained 40 times the amount of hormone in a contraceptive pill. It also contained 13 times the amount of the morning-after pill. It is so clear and self-evident that harm has been caused, and therefore responsibility must be laid at someone’s door. We know from today’s debate where those doors are.

I have great sympathy for the Minister who is to respond, because there is an extraordinary, peculiar tendency of Government—one I do not understand as a Back Bencher and did not understand in government—to cover up the mistakes of long-since-passed Administrations. We have seen it with Hillsborough, the infected blood scandal and even with thalidomide. There is no doubt an almost endless list. I do not understand it—it is not the current Administration at fault. They have done nothing wrong; some were not even born—the Prime Minister was not—when the scandal started. Yet again and again, Governments and the bureaucracy will not open up, allow the real truth to come out and follow the evidence that was so brilliantly and clearly put by Baroness Cumberlege in her report.