Hormone Pregnancy Tests

Justin Madders Excerpts

Thursday 13th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi) and the hon. Member for Livingston (Hannah Bardell) on securing this debate, and I welcome the well-informed and passionate nature of the contributions that we have heard from across the House. I take this opportunity to pay tribute to Marie Lyon, chair of the Association for Children Damaged by Hormone Pregnancy Tests, who has never given up in her fight to ensure that parents like her get to the bottom of exactly what happened to their children and why.

I also pay tribute to the all-party parliamentary group on oral hormone pregnancy tests, ably chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South East, which has offered the campaigners a huge amount of support. It was its campaigning, alongside the Association for Children Damaged by Hormone Pregnancy Tests, that led to the expert working panel group being set up.

There are serious concerns about the process that clearly need to be addressed. We welcome the fact that the former Minister for Life Sciences has sought to set up an independent investigation into the issues. Unfortunately, as we have heard, there appears to be a divergence between the type of process that the Minister sought to establish and the way it is currently operating. I will address that point later in my remarks.

As we have heard, hundreds, if not thousands, of families have been affected by this issue and have suffered not only debilitating physical conditions but, in some cases, sadly, premature death. Alongside that, they have experienced a sense of injustice and the pain of more than 40 years of questions being left unanswered. My hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South East, in setting out the history so well, made the crucial point that the victims should be at the heart of the process. The testimony she gave on their behalf clearly showed that that is not currently the case.

My hon. Friend the Member for Makerfield (Yvonne Fovargue) spoke about her constituent Marie Lyon, who is on the panel, and gave the specific example of her being required to read 36 files in two weeks, which she cannot talk to anyone about. That is a patently absurd way to go about this business, and a stark example of what is going wrong.

The hon. Member for Livingston (Hannah Bardell) spoke forcefully about her legitimate concerns about the impartiality of the working group and, disappointingly, a lack of any substantive response when those concerns were raised.

We also heard from my hon. Friends the Members for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds), for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle)—she made a particularly powerful speech—for Bootle (Peter Dowd), for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes), for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra) and for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds), and from the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg). Time prevents me from going into much detail, but all those Members spoke passionately on behalf of their constituents and clearly identified the issues that we need to address in the current process.

As we now know, from the late 1960s warnings began to emerge about adverse reactions to the drug Primodos, including birth defects and miscarriage. A wide range of studies prompting warnings continued, and by the early 1970s it was declared that Primodos should not be used as a pregnancy test. However, despite this and a warning issued in 1975 by the Committee on Safety of Medicines about an association between hormone pregnancy tests and an increased incidence of congenital abnormalities, Primodos continued to be provided to women until its withdrawal from the market by Schering in 1978. In 1977 there were still, unbelievably, 7,038 prescriptions of Primodos to pregnant women.

That really is the crux of the issue: the delay between warnings emerging and any action being taken to stop the drug being offered to women. As we have heard today, steps were taken in Sweden, Finland, Germany, the USA, Australia and Ireland up to five years before any warnings were issued in the UK. It was that delay that led to thousands more women taking the drug than would have done so had it been withdrawn from the market when the warnings became clear in 1970. It is a scandal that families are still waiting for answers about why that was allowed to happen. There is a duty on all of us to ensure that is put right.

When the issue was last debated, in October 2014, the families were very pleased when the previous Minister for Life Sciences agreed to set up what he termed

“an independent panel of inquiry”

and committed to

“the release of all information that is held by the Department”.

He also promised that the committee would be comprised of “independent members” and that he would ensure that

“the association is properly represented and has a chance to give evidence.”

Finally, he stated that he wanted to

“shed light on the issue and bring the all-important closure in an era of transparency, so that lessons can be learned and this never happens again.”—[Official Report, 23 October 2014; Vol. 586, c. 1139-1143.]

As I said earlier, the Opposition welcomed the establishment of that process and the assurances offered by the Minister at the time. However, as we have heard today, there is now a gaping chasm between those assurances and the current process. I therefore hope that following this debate the Minister will take some urgent steps to ensure that the families, who have already been through so much, can regain confidence in the process.

With regard to independence, we have already heard that the selection process for members of the panel can at best be described as opaque. Serious concerns have been raised about conflicts of interest, and they need to be answered. Can the Minister tell us whether he is absolutely satisfied with the transparency arrangements for the selection process and with the independence of the panel? With regard to the promise to release all information, it is vital that the panel, in addition to being provided with absolutely every piece of relevant evidence, is afforded sufficient time to consider it. The evidence must also be presented in an accessible format, as is good practice in a process of this nature. Is the Minister satisfied with the way the information is being presented to members of the panel, and can he now confirm that every piece of information held by the Department has in fact been released?

In terms of the association being properly represented, we have heard that just one member of the association is entitled to attend meetings as an observer and that they have been required to sign a confidentiality clause. I understand that the clause applies both during and after the inquiry, and not only to the panel’s discussions but to the documents that are presented. How can that person raise concerns about the process if they are prevented from talking about it? Can the Minister explain why such a high level of secrecy is being applied to a process, the primary purpose of which was originally to

“bring the all-important closure in an era of transparency”?—[Official Report, 23 October 2014; Vol. 586, c. 1143.]

Justice must not only be done but be seen to be done, and there is a danger that this inquiry is failing properly to serve the people it was set up for. Given the public interest and the cost of this process, the Minister simply must address these issues now if the inquiry is to bring closure and the correct lessons are to be learned. Can he see how some of these issues will look if the families and victims of this scandal do not get the correct answers? Does he not agree that we owe them a process that is fair and transparent and, most importantly, that has their trust and confidence? Victims and their families have fought for 40 years to get answers, and during that time they have experienced grief, anger, a sense of injustice and, sadly, in some cases, even guilt, but despite all that their determination has never waned.

I am incredibly proud that, after 30 years, justice was finally served for three of my constituents and 93 other people who were tragically killed when they attended a football match at Hillsborough. That justice was achieved only because the families refused to give up, and, as the Minister will no doubt be aware, the families of the children harmed and killed by hormone pregnancy tests will not give up either. Why should the injustice that those people have suffered be compounded by further injustice and the sham of an inquiry that is patently not fit for purpose? Transparency, impartiality and completeness are not unreasonable demands; they are the basic ingredients for justice to be done. So, I ask the Minister, please to listen to the words he has heard today and act on them.