Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review

Debate between Maria Eagle and Jeremy Hunt

Wednesday 21st February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I can give my hon. Friend the assurance for which he has asked. We have announced today that we are improving the system of alerting both general practices and community pharmacies to ensure that the right advice is given and the right safeguards are in place, so that people who are pregnant or might become pregnant do not take a medicine that is very powerful and very effective in the right circumstances, but incredibly dangerous in the wrong ones.

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

I welcome the Secretary of State’s intention to look further at these very concerning issues, but I fear that his putting them all in one place means that he may not be giving sufficient attention to the Primodos issue, which is a scandal of very many years’ standing. I do not think that the recent report of the expert working group is the basis on which Baroness Cumberlege or anyone else should look further at the matter, because it was a complete whitewash, and the Secretary of State needs to acknowledge that. I think that if he were to do so, the people affected by Primodos over the last 40 years or more would feel much more confident that the process that he has described today might enable them to secure some resolution.

[Mr Hunt]

I understand why the hon. Lady has asked her question in the way that she has, but we set up the expert working group after a lot of very careful thought because we honestly wanted an answer. We are faced with circumstances in which scientists disagree, and in those circumstances it would not be right for me, as Secretary of State, to announce a different scientific view. I think that the right thing to do is to allow someone the time and space in which to look at the issues that the hon. Lady has raised, and that is what Baroness Cumberlege will do.