Department of Health and Social Care

Sadik Al-Hassan Excerpts

Tuesday 30th June 2026 Commons Chamber

[Sadik Al-Hassan (North Somerset) (Lab)]

I must declare an interest as a registered pharmacist for nearly two decades and an expert on pharmacy procurement.

Let be begin by saying that I welcome the UK-US pharmaceutical trade agreement, and also by saying something quite controversial: President Donald Trump is right. We do underpay for drugs—not just our expensive, lifesaving rare cancer drugs, but the everyday drugs that we purchase.

[Iqbal Mohamed]

Will the hon. Gentleman to comment on the fact that the NHS pays 10 times the manufacturing costs for over 80% of the licensed medicines that we buy? How is that underpaying?

[Sadik Al-Hassan]

I am not sure where the hon. Gentleman’s figures come from. When we look at the drug tariff reimbursement, which is the system that we use to pay, and compare it with the arrangements in other countries, it is clear that we underpay significantly. Perhaps he is referring to something of which I am unaware; I should be happy to chat to him outside.

We in this country are addicted to low-cost drugs for our health service, and what does that addiction mean? It means that we have the lowest costs and we always go for the cheapest drugs, and that favours foreign manufacturers. It destroys UK supply chains, as we have seen over the last 25 years, and it endangers our resilience as a country. We are already seeing the side effects of that, with drugs being out of stock. We have a system for payment called the drug tariff, which establishes how much pharmacies will buy drugs for and how much they will be reimbursed for. There are currently 254 price concessions. Price concessions happen when a drug is out of stock, and we must make an emergency increase to the price in the drug tariff to try to bring it back into the country. Given that there are 3,500 drugs in that section of the drug tariff, 254 does not sound a lot, but it is the highest level that I remember seeing in my entire professional career. Last month’s highest level of 230 has just been exceeded.

Cheap drugs often mean that we overvalue the benefit of medicines in our system and use a “drug first” approach in the NHS, and that has continued for decades. When we increase the price that we pay for drugs, it allows us to start considering the benefits of other types of treatment, such as social prescribing. Social prescribing becomes a great deal cheaper by comparison in a system in which drugs are valued at the correct level. The all-party parliamentary group on pharmacy, which I chair, published a report in June 2025 that laid out some of the problems with drug pricing and availability. I absolutely support the idea of paying more for drugs, because at the moment we are building a system that is creaking and breaking. By trying to pursue every penny of savings, we have destroyed UK manufacturing and offshored our problems. The only way to bring that back is to rebuild the drug tariff, with the idea of paying to procure more in the UK.

[Layla Moran]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his speech, because he is showing how important this debate is. A lot of this has not been flushed out. Medicines UK, which is responsible for a lot of the generics that he talks about, disagrees with him, but that is a conversation for another time. My question is specific: does he agree that the lack of transparency behind this deal, and the lack of an impact assessment, is a material issue and that we should ask the Government to release such information?

[Sadik Al-Hassan]

First of all, Medicines UK does not disagree with me; its members disagree that the value from the UK-US trade deal will go to people other than them. Medicines UK actually thinks that companies are not paid enough for drugs in this country. Unfortunately, you might need to go and have a chat with the association about that, because you might have misunderstood.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. You mean “the hon. Member”, not “you”—I do not need to go anywhere. I ask the hon. Member please to wrap up as soon as he can, because we have many speeches to get in.

[Sadik Al-Hassan]

In conclusion, I welcome the deal. I hope we find a way to pay for drugs correctly in this country, so that we value them properly and can value the rest of the system.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I will give Front Benchers a heads-up: we are not going to have a huge amount of time, so please edit your speeches accordingly.

Spinal Muscular Atrophy: Newborn Screening Test

Sadik Al-Hassan Excerpts

Monday 22nd June 2026 Westminster Hall

[Sadik Al-Hassan (North Somerset) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Mundell. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland Central (Lewis Atkinson) for his impressive eloquence. Watching this debate today is my fantastic communications officer, who has spinal muscular atrophy and whose insight on this issue has been incredibly valuable. SMA is a life-threatening genetic condition where timing is everything. Without early diagnosis and treatment, irreversible damage occurs within the first months of a baby’s life. Left untreated, around 90% of babies born with severe SMA will die before their second birthday or require permanent ventilation just to survive.

However, when SMA is caught through newborn screening before symptoms even appear, that trajectory can change completely. Early treatment can halt the disease in its tracks and provide children with opportunities they would not have otherwise had. That is why I welcome the news of the screening that will begin in parts of England this October.

Under the current plan, however, screening will reach only two thirds of England, which leaves some newborns in England excluded. Many of my constituents in North Somerset rely on Bristol hospitals, such as Southmead, where my two children were born, which are not among those rolling out screening. Babies born there will belong to the 28% or so missing out.

This really is a postcode lottery, plain and simple. A baby’s chance of early diagnosis should not depend on their parents’ address. As we heard, Scotland has now launched a full national programme, and I believe that the Republic of Ireland has done the same. We are falling behind our neighbours while our children’s futures are decided by geography.

I spent nearly 20 years working as a pharmacist. In that time, I developed a particular instinct: if a disease can be treated, you treat it, and if a harm can be prevented, you prevent it. That instinct does not leave you. I agree that the current trial raises serious ethical concerns. When I consider this issue, the question I keep returning to is straightforward: where is it possible to prevent irreversible disability, why would we not act for every child without delay? Every baby, wherever they are born in the UK, deserves the same chance at a healthy life.

Community Pharmacies

Sadik Al-Hassan Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd June 2026 Westminster Hall

[Sadik Al-Hassan (North Somerset) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine. I must declare an interest as a registered pharmacist. I speak today wearing two hats: as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on pharmacy and as someone who spent nearly two decades working as a community pharmacist. That experience is why earlier this year, as APPG chair, I wrote a vision for what pharmacy should look like in 2040 and put it directly to policymakers across Government and pharmacy.

Community pharmacy remains one of the most accessible parts of the NHS, with around 80% of the population living within a 20-minute walk of a pharmacy. However, as has been mentioned, nationally 1,383 pharmacies have closed since 2016, including six in North Somerset, even after two pharmacies were reopened in Portishead thanks to the hard work of Magna Pharmacy and Ramesh. Every single day, 1.6 million people walk through a pharmacy door, saving an estimated 38 million GP appointments every year.

That is why the funding settlement announced last week matters so much. The 10.3% uplift adds £340 million to the overall contract. More importantly, an increase in the margin allowance provides important support and stability for the sector. I thank the Minister, the Department and Community Pharmacy England. However, I have called this a down payment on a brighter future. It is just a start, not an end point. The 10.3% uplift is very welcome, but it comes against a backdrop of an around 9% yearly increase in costs.

Pharmacy First and the inclusion of independent prescribing are good starting points, but the next step is to map out what we want Pharmacy First to look like through to 2030 and beyond. It cannot simply remain a pharmacist-led service for a small number of conditions. Community pharmacy has the potential to play a much broader role across acute care, minor ailments and prevention. That ambition must be backed with the professional boundary changes to match, because it will mean nothing if the foundations are not right.

Pharmacies are receiving £800 million less in real terms than a decade ago. The Government’s independent analysis found a funding gap of £2 billion a year. Former colleagues are telling me that they are dispensing more and more medicines at a loss, spending hours sourcing drugs that should be available and managing patients’ anxiety when the supply chain fails. As a country, we have become addicted to cheap medicines in our NHS, which has created vulnerabilities right across our supply chain. Fixing the drugs bill in a way that supports wider investment and greater supply chain resilience will also strengthen community pharmacy services for the future. We must get this right.

My vision for pharmacy in 2040 calls for genuine integration into neighbourhood healthcare, as the 10-year health plan intends. However, integration works only if the infrastructure works. A true single patient record system with read-write access for pharmacists is the foundation on which everything else depends. Primary care, pharmacy and hospitals all need to work from the same picture of the same patient and sing from the same hymn sheet. There is no point writing a vision for pharmacy’s future that does not fit the wider NHS system it sits within.

The 10-year health plan wants to move care closer to home. Community pharmacy is already there. It is an incredibly efficient, high-value asset to the NHS. I urge the Government to match that ambition with sustained, multi-year funding, a workforce plan that unlocks independent prescribing and the digital infrastructure to make seamless care a reality. This could be a really bright future for community pharmacy. I believe in the future of the profession, but only if we have the will to see it through.

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[Ms Julie Minns (Carlisle) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine. I thank the hon. Member for Tiverton and Minehead (Rachel Gilmour) for securing this important debate. I also thank the staff at community pharmacies across my constituency, particularly the staff at the Well pharmacy in Denton Holme who have given exceptional care and support to my family for many years.

Pharmacies and their staff provide a vital accessible health hub in our communities. However, this year Community Pharmacy England has reported that 55% of pharmacy staff experience abuse, often triggered by medicine shortages, prescription delays, long queues and other issues entirely outside their control. I am sure all hon. Members will agree that, whatever the prompt, abuse of that nature is completely unacceptable. I will therefore be grateful if the Minister can briefly outline what action the Government are taking to protect pharmacy workers from abuse.

Sadly, under the previous Government too many community pharmacies were lost. Between 2019 and 2024, 1,633 community pharmacies closed. In the same period, about 400 opened: just one for every four that was closed. In communities such as Carlisle, the closure of a pharmacy has a significant knock-on effect on the remaining pharmacies. Two pharmacies in the Harraby area of Carlisle have closed in recent years, placing additional pressure on the sole remaining pharmacy, on Central Avenue, and resulting in longer waits for prescription collections. It is therefore doubly frustrating that efforts to open a new pharmacy in the same community have so far come to nothing because the premises’ landlord, the Riverside housing association, has failed to respond to representations from both the prospective pharmacist and me since last October.

[Sadik Al-Hassan]

Shame!

[Ms Minns]

In the meantime, ironically, the shop next door, a former pharmacy, has been refurbed and opened as yet another barber’s and mini-mart. It is simply not good enough. That is why I very much welcome this Government’s prescription for our community pharmacies: not just £3.6 billion in funding for community pharmacies, but the Government’s high street strategy, the recently announced crackdown on dodgy vape shops and mini-marts and the plans to integrate community pharmacies as key local healthcare hubs. These actions are not just vital for the health of local people; they are vital for the health of our high streets, too.

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[Sadik Al-Hassan]

Only the good ones.

[Dr Chambers]

Yes, the good ones.

There has been a general consensus that pharmacies are often overlooked as a source of care for those in the community. I have visited many pharmacies in my Winchester constituency: there is Eric, who runs Springvale pharmacy up in Kings Worthy; there is Colden Common pharmacy in Colden Common; and there is the Wellbeing pharmacy on Winchester High Street, which gives me my flu jab every year. The people there actually make having a flu jab a lot of fun; we always have a great laugh. I never thought having a vaccine would be something I would look forward to, but I love going in and seeing them.

We know about the 8 am rush for GP appointments, so the fact that a high street service exists where one can drop in for advice and consultations is absolutely brilliant. Pharmacies allow us to siphon off some of the pressures on GP services, but—as pharmacists have been telling me repeatedly since well before I was elected—pharmacies are currently under immense pressure.

Adding to that pressure is the increase in national insurance contributions, which has saddled pharmacies and GP surgeries with additional costs. As a consequence, many local pharmacies have had to limit opening times and staff numbers. In Alresford in my constituency, the hard-working staff at Wessex Pharmacies have had to close shop on Saturday afternoons. That service will be sorely missed, particularly by those who are in full-time education or work during the week and who relied on being able to pick up their prescriptions at the weekend.

In addition, shorter opening times mean that if a patient sees their GP later in the day, the required prescription is delayed by a day if the paperwork is not registered in time. For a patient with an urgent need for medication, that extra day can be extremely frustrating and worrying.

Although we really do welcome the recent 10% increase in Government funding to community pharmacies, it is worth pointing out that that is giving with one hand and taking with the other. In the wake of rising costs for energy, staff and medicines, this funding increase was the first in 10 years, so it was sorely needed, but unfortunately, it did little to alleviate the extreme pressures heaped on community pharmacies in the Budget.

That point comes into focus when we consider the rise in drug costs: a 20% to 30% rise for things like paracetamol and hay fever medications, and an elevenfold rise in the cost of cancer drugs since February, while the funding provided to community pharmacies has dropped by more than 20% in real terms since 2015. That is why we are calling on the Government to invest in pharmacies in smaller towns, particularly in villages and rural areas such as mine in the Meon valley. In places such as Bishop’s Waltham and Colden Common, people need access to a community pharmacy, and not only for convenience: Conservative-run Hampshire county council has cut vital bus services to the nearest big towns, which means that people without a vehicle, especially older people, absolutely rely on local pharmacies for their medication.

We are also calling for a new, long-term, sustainable model for pharmacies and an expansion of Pharmacy First to give patients more accessible routine services so that we can free up GPs’ time. We want an exemption for pharmacies from the national insurance contributions increase so that funds can be spent on patients and vital medications.

I come to my final, key point. I have spoken to many pharmacists since I was elected and before that, and I have had very long, in-depth conversations with them. I have also attended events in Parliament organised by the Royal College of Pharmacy and the National Pharmacy Association and I have discussed their issues with the NHS pharmacy contract. Given my professional background, I am used to sourcing, dispensing and prescribing drugs. However, the contract is so complicated that, despite my extensive conversations with those organisations, I do not fully understand it. The key message that comes out is that it costs pharmacists to dispense NHS medication in many cases, and that NHS medication is sometimes being subsidised by other sales in shops. I even met two pharmacists who said that their personal finances are subsidising some NHS dispensation. That is clearly not tenable in the long run.

Jhoots Pharmacy

Sadik Al-Hassan Excerpts

Wednesday 15th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call our very own pharmacist, Sadik Al-Hassan.

[Sadik Al-Hassan (North Somerset) (Lab)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. As a pharmacist for nearly 20 years and the MP of North Somerset, I have the dubious pleasure of having two Jhoots pharmacies in the town of Portishead in my constituency. I cannot say two operating pharmacies, because they have shuttered their doors, with reports of them not having paid their bills, their rent or their staff. As a pharmacist, I know that this affects the perception and view of community pharmacy up and down the country. What plans do the Minister and the Department have to ensure that bad actors in the pharmacy space—as Jhoots, in my opinion, appears to be—are dealt with more quickly and effectively under new legislation?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. Questions should not be statements.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sadik Al-Hassan Excerpts

Tuesday 17th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Kinnock]

The hon. Gentleman will have seen—and I am sure will welcome—the record uplift of £3.1 billion that we are putting into the pharmacy sector after years of underfunding, incompetence and neglect from the Conservative party. A big part of this is ensuring that the shift from hospital to community takes place, and we want pharmacists to be taking pressure off primary care. We have to make Pharmacy First work effectively, which means getting the allocation of funding right. That is what we are working on in terms of reforms. Now that we have the spending review and the package, that is what we will be delivering.

[Sadik Al-Hassan (North Somerset) (Lab)]

3. If he will undertake a review of the potential impact of medicine supply chain shortages on community pharmacies.

[The Minister for Secondary Care (Karin Smyth)]

Increasing the resilience of the UK medical supply chain is a key priority. I regularly meet the team to routinely take action to mitigate supply issues, including requesting additional stock, identifying alternative global sources and issuing management advice. Although the Department has no plans to conduct a specific review, we constantly work to identify and take forward further actions to reduce the impact of medicine shortages, including targeted winter monitoring.

[Sadik Al-Hassan]

Having worked in community pharmacies for nearly 20 years, I have witnessed at first hand the pain that medicine shortages can cause North Somerset patients and their loved ones. Will the Minister meet me, along with my hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Steve Race) and other members of the all-party parliamentary group on pharmacy, to discuss the outcome of our inquiry into these shortages?

[Karin Smyth]

I congratulate my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour on his dedicated career in community pharmacy, and thank him for the expertise that he brings to the work of the all-party parliamentary group to help Members understand the impact of this issue on patients and pharmacies. I am planning to hold a parliamentary event on the subject in the autumn, and I am keen to work with the APPG to make it a success for all Members.

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Sadik Al-Hassan Excerpts

Report stage
Friday 13th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sadik Al-Hassan (North Somerset) (Lab)]

Before entering this place last July as the Member for North Somerset, I had been a pharmacist for nearly 20 years. Pharmacists have a unique role in our healthcare system as the group of health professionals who specialise in drug usage and safety. That is where I wish to focus my thoughts today, and on which I offer the House my expertise.

Throughout the passage of the Bill, we have had the great benefit of learning from a number of international examples. In Australia, we have seen a carefully designed countrywide pharmacy system that has delivered self-administered assisted dying safely and with dignity. The evidence from that experience is greatly reassuring. Even in cases where the drug was not fully ingested, every patient who made use of the service died peacefully and without complications, with not a single complaint yet received from any of the families involved.

From Switzerland, we have learned from decades of practice, over which they have refined the substances and processes involved to the point where complications are now nearly unheard of. Their approach demonstrates that with care and rigorous regulation, drugs can offer an effective and compassionate route to end one’s life.

That brings me to new clause 13, introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater). The clause outlines a comprehensive framework for the oversight and safety of substances involved in assisted dying. As is only right for life-ending drugs, the public expect the highest standards of transparency and the highest standards from manufacture to dispensing. As someone who has been involved in every facet of pharmacy for the past 20 years, I believe that the clause meets all our expectations. By strengthening safeguards and enhancing the workability of the Bill, new clause 13 ensures that healthcare professionals can act with clarity and confidence.

Amendment 72 is similarly important, and I believe it will provide much assurance to those in this place who are uncertain about whether they can support the Bill. By ensuring that all regulations made by the Secretary of State under new clause 13 are subject to the draft affirmative procedure, it will ensure that this place continues to play a central role in overseeing the safe and effective implementation of this legislation for years to come, and through our collective and continued scrutiny, it offers the opportunity for many millions of constituents who have contacted us on this issue to continue to have their voices heard and their concerns answered.

[Dame Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

I rise to speak to new clause 14 and amendments (a) and (b) to that new clause. I am honoured to speak after the hon. Member for Rochdale (Paul Waugh). I also thank the hon. Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater) for working closely with us on the issue of banning advertising. Whatever our views on assisting terminally ill adults to end their lives—and I remain implacably against the potential harms that arise when our society and our imperfect state are given permission to help people kill themselves—I have to acknowledge that there was a majority on Second Reading in favour of the Bill and a majority for closing down debate in the last sitting on Report.

Thinking ahead to the possibility that this Bill might get on to the statute book, I hope that everyone participating in the debate will recognise that we should not allow the services of the organisations that will arise from the legislation to advertise on television, online, on posters, on TikTok or on any platform that our constituents may see.

We can all imagine a scenario where, if the Bill passes without the House agreeing to new clause 14, independent contractors and not-for-profit firms, and perhaps even the NHS, will be able to advertise to potential customers, for instance on afternoon television. Can you imagine a situation, Madam Deputy Speaker, where, while watching a repeat episode of “One Foot in the Grave”, an advert runs for a funeral plan company, and is then followed by an advert for an organisation offering services to make it easier to have an assisted death?

Members may think the situation I am painting is merely hypothetical, but in Belgium, in fact, the Government themselves are running online adverts featuring young, healthy women at a yoga class talking about how they are worried about granny’s situation, and discussing whether they have considered telling her about the option of assisted dying.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Spen Valley for tabling new clause 14. It is not perfect, but she and I have had a lot of discussion about the wording. I also support the intention behind amendments (a) and (b) to new clause 14. It is important that Ministers confirm—as we have heard before, and as I hope we will again today—that encouraging assisted dying under the Bill remains a crime under section 2 of the Suicide Act. However, this requires showing intent to encourage, and adverts might be framed so that they are not so intended, so a specific provision on advertising is needed in this legislation.

I am also concerned about the scope of some of the exceptions in unamended new clause 14. I am grateful that the example set out in subsection (2) does not refer to potential service users, but there is nothing preventing the Secretary of State from exercising Henry VIII powers to exempt them, and doing so would negate the point of the prohibition. I would be grateful if the Minister would confirm that the power will not be exercised to create exceptions for adverts targeted at potential service users.

It is the case, as the hon. Member for Rochdale mentioned, that a number of advert bans already exist on the face of legislation, such as the Cancer Act 1939, the Surrogacy Act 1985 and the Tobacco Advertising and Promotion Act 2002. Such bans are set out clearly on the face of those Acts.

I hope the matter can be resolved. I hope the House today will, at a minimum, support new clause 14. I hope that the House will also support the strengthening amendments, which I endorse. I hope that Ministers will confirm that these powers will never be used to create an exemption to section 2 of the Suicide Act in order to partially allow encouragement of assisted dying, as I think it would defeat the whole point of the provision.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gregory Stafford]

I entirely agree. Some of the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage) may address that.

[Sadik Al-Hassan]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Gregory Stafford]

I will make a little progress, but I will give way to the hon. Gentleman in a moment.

My amendment would require the Secretary of State to prohibit the use of medical devices designed to induce death by the administration of gas, such as the Sarco suicide pod, which has been in the press recently. That device bypasses medical oversight entirely and presents an ethical rupture in our current framework. If the Bill proceeds without safeguarding against such methods, we risk opening the door to a deeply troubling precedent—one that would erode professional accountability and compromise the integrity of end-of-life care.

[Sadik Al-Hassan]

I would like to share my expertise as a pharmacist with the hon. Member. Drugs can be used for many indications and are quite commonly used in unlicensed situations, where there would be less evidence to support them than in the situation that we are discussing today with new clause 13: an idea that is incredibly well researched, practised and evidenced in multiple countries.

[Gregory Stafford]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I do not disagree that drugs are used for different things; that is not the thrust of the argument that I am making. What I am saying—relatively clearly, I hope—is that when the drugs we would potentially use in these situations have been used, there have been unintended consequences and side effects. We must ensure that the drugs we use, if the Bill passes, are absolutely effective in what they are intended to carry out: namely, the end of the life of the individual.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Johnson]

I think one of the key problems with this form of intervention, compared with others, is that we cannot ask the patients afterwards how that felt. We cannot get their feedback, because they are dead. If we are going to give them things such as neuromuscular blockers or sedatives, we may not be able to tell what they feel. There are physiological ways in which we can monitor patients and get some idea—perhaps in their heart rate or blood pressure—but we will not be doing that. That is, therefore, one of the reasons for my tabling the amendments, to ensure that the drugs are properly regulated by the MHRA, so that we know that they have been properly tested on the purpose for which they are to be used.

[Sadik Al-Hassan]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Lizzi Collinge]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

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[Robin Swann (South Antrim) (UUP)]

I rise to speak in support of amendment (a) to amendment 77, which is in my name. I should also refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests about my involvement with the Royal College of Psychiatrists.

New clause 13, we are told, is a replacement for clause 34; I hope that Members have taken the time to compare the two. New clause 13 contains even more powers than clause 34. It follows the trend of this Bill: instead of more detail being added, more powers are added. It seems to me that the line is, “There are some issues that we’ll sort out later,” but that this place will not be involved in that “later”. What is particularly concerning is that the powers that the Bill creates contain no explicit limit or guiding principle by which they are to be exercised. Nor do we have the benefit of a policy paper from the Secretary of State saying how he intends to exercise those powers or how his successors will.

I believe that the provisions relating to “approved substances”—clause 25 and new clause 13—face a real problem. As Dr Greg Lawton, a barrister and pharmacist, told the Committee in written evidence, the lethal substances intended to end life are not medicinal products within the meaning of the Human Medicines Regulations 2012. That definition is itself derived from EU law, which states that

“the term ‘medicinal product’…must be interpreted as not covering substances whose effects merely modify physiological functions and which are not such as to entail immediate or long term beneficial effects for human health.”

That creates the real problem: if the substances are not medicinal products, why does the Bill provide that pharmacists are to be involved in their preparation and why would doctors be supplying them? New clause 13(4) seeks to get around the problem by giving the power to the Secretary of State to amend the Human Medicines Regulations 2012 so that the substances fit in. The impact assessment tells us that the Government have no plans to conduct or rely on the sort of scientific studies normally done for drug approvals or for the MHRA to be involved.

[Sadik Al-Hassan]

As a pharmacist, I should say that the drugs to be used for assisted dying are commonly used in pharmacy now. It would be obvious for pharmacies to supply those drugs in some way, shape or form. I accept the hon. Member’s point about medicines being used, but he will, I hope, accept my point: how would the same studies used to approve treatments be used to approve their use for death?

[Robin Swann]

I think the hon. Gentleman said in an earlier intervention that those medicines would then be used off licence, to the risk of the prescribing doctor and the person using them. That is where the risk falls back on the individual rather than being covered by anything in the Bill. That is where my regret comes.

I understand the need to treat the substances as medicinal products in England and Wales if it is the will of the House to change the law here; what I cannot understand is why the law should change the situation for the rest of the United Kingdom. That is the basis of my amendment to amendment 77. The House is not voting for assisted dying in Northern Ireland, so it has no locus to change the definition of a medicinal product in Northern Ireland in order to accommodate this Bill, which we have been told applies to England and Wales only. Or is it the intention of the Bill’s sponsor or those behind her to extend it to Northern Ireland at a later date, using some of the Henry VIII regulations in it?

There is a further issue in Northern Ireland. We are still in part subject to EU law, and I would be interested to know whether the Government have considered that aspect. Can the Minister really change, by ministerial diktat, EU law in Northern Ireland when it comes to the use of these substances? If so, why is he not being granted such power in other areas of significance to Northern Ireland? Why only this? Why has so much Government time previously been spent on medicine regulation and supply for Northern Ireland? Why did the right hon. Member for Melton and Syston (Edward Argar), as the Minister of State for Health, and I, as the Minister of Health in Northern Ireland, spend so much time on that? To that extent, I ask the hon. Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater) and the Minister: what engagement has there been with the Department of Health in Northern Ireland or the chief pharmaceutical officer for Northern Ireland? Or is this another part of the Bill that is being put in to meet the promoter’s needs without any background or engagement?

In conclusion, the application of those provisions to Northern Ireland also has implications for the conscience protection. If, as a result of regulations made under those provisions, pharmacists in Northern Ireland are required to be involved in the manufacture or preparation of such substances, they will not have the benefit of the conscience clause, as that clause has not been extended to Northern Ireland. I therefore oppose the extension of those provisions to Northern Ireland and Scotland. I will also oppose amendment 77 and ask hon. Members to support amendment (a) to amendment 77 in my name.

Draft Human Medicines (Amendments Relating to Hub and Spoke Dispensing etc.) Regulations 2025

Sadik Al-Hassan Excerpts

Monday 2nd June 2025 General Committees

[Sadik Al-Hassan (North Somerset) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Stuart. I refer hon. Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests as a registered pharmacist, and previously a superintendent pharmacist of a distance-selling pharmacy. Although it is great to hear the hon. Member refer to distance-selling pharmacies in this august place, I remind him that he is representing the views of only one, admittedly large, distance-selling pharmacy, and that there is perhaps a wider range of views among distance-selling pharmacies.

[Dr Evans]

Of course, and I thank the hon. Gentleman for that point, with his august history as a pharmacist. My job in the Opposition is to raise these issues with Ministers for consideration. At the heart of my point is that, by choosing only one model and not offering two, we are closing down the opportunity for not only patients but businesses. If we want to invent in the NHS, that seems a bad way of doing it. It is why the last Government suggested that having a couple of models allows people to invest in, invigorate and improve our system, because otherwise, innovation will fall behind. That is at the heart of the questions I am posing to the Minister.

That leads me nicely on to my follow-up question. Does this mean that the Minister will choose not to introduce model 2? Is that likely to be in line in the future, and if so, when?

Those questions go to the principle of this. The last Government decided that there were two options to accommodate all different fields, be it dispensing GPs, community pharmacies, large-scale chemists and pharmacies or, indeed, distance-selling pharmacies. It is really important to take into account the whole environment we have in the health service. We will not divide the Committee, but we would like answers to those questions about the practicalities and policies behind the regulations.

[Sadik Al-Hassan (North Somerset) (Lab)]

I start by reminding the Committee again about my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, which includes a number of pharmacy-related entries as a registered pharmacist, including my employment by PillTime prior to being elected to the House.

With that out of the way, may I say how genuinely thrilled I am to be here this evening? Although this may seem a very niche issue to many on the Committee, as a pharmacist for nearly 20 years, many of those spent in community pharmacy and latterly in online pharmacy, I can tell Members through first-hand experience of the difference that this legislation will make to thousands of community pharmacies struggling across the country.

Although I am incredibly thankful to the Government for finally unfreezing the funding settlement after a near decade-long squeeze under the Conservative Government, there remains great financial strain upon the sector and thus a clear need for modernisation to improve efficiencies. Innovation such as hub and spoke model 1 is how we enable that modernisation and unlock the efficiencies needed to ensure community pharmacy has a future. Having worked in pharmacies for the last two decades, I know the difference that implementing hub and spoke model 1 could quickly make to my fellow pharmacists not only in enabling greater efficiencies, but in creating the much-needed additional capacity to enable the delivery of Pharmacy First services. As we look at implementing the three big shifts, pharmacy has a clear role in delivering the preventive agenda, but it can only step up and fulfil that role if we give it the funding and capacity to do so.

In late March, Minister Kinnock ensured that community pharmacy received the largest uplift in funding across the whole of the NHS. Today, the Committee can deliver hub and spoke dispensing and thus create additional capacity. Having worked with innumerable stakeholders in the pharmacy sector to get this legislation moving again after its derailment last September, I can say with confidence that there is widespread support within the community pharmacy sector for hub and spoke model 1. It will finally provide the beloved village pharmacy a level playing field with the larger chains, which have been able to utilise these technologies for decades.

The benefits of the model extend far beyond the efficiency savings, with robust evidence of greater levels of patient safety by providing access to automation in the dispensing process. I thank the Minister for acting with haste greater than many in the sector expected when the implementation of hub and spoke was indefinitely delayed last September. Although I apologise for the interminable stream of letters, conversations in corridors and questions I have since sent his way, I am afraid I still have one more point that I would appreciate clarification on.

As I understand it, the VAT status of hub and spoke services is still to be explained. Could the Minister elaborate on what exactly the VAT status will be for any fees or charges between hub and spoke? From my understanding, it is currently treated as zero-rated,and there exists some uncertainty within the sector over whether that will still apply under model 1, and if not, what elements might be subjected to VAT and at a higher rate.

[The Chair]

It is worth noting that Members should refer to colleagues by their constituency, as opposed to their name, even when they are an august Minister.

Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Eleventh sitting)

Sadik Al-Hassan Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 23rd January 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Dr Johnson]

The hon. Gentleman and I agree that we need to restrict the advertising of these products, because we do not want people, particularly young people and children, to start becoming addicted to nicotine. We agree on that. However, the Bill does not say an advert needs to promote a brand of nicotine product to be considered promotion or illegal under the Bill. It simply says “a nicotine product” or “a tobacco product”. I am keen to ensure the Minister clarifies that a doctor—I declare an interest as a doctor—or other health professional such as a pharmacist, like the hon. Member for North Somerset, will not find him or herself on the wrong side of the law for promoting vaping to individuals who smoke.

[Sadik Al-Hassan (North Somerset) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. Current medicine regulations do not allow products to be advertised, but do not get in the way of smoking cessation clinics that currently take place at GP surgeries or pharmacies. The amendments the hon. Lady is proposing are, therefore, not needed. In fact, as my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford suggests, they could be used as a loophole for advertising by an industry that has been shown to be very successful at finding ways around legislation to increase market share and the numbers of smokers and vapers.

[Dr Johnson]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. He comes to this debate with significant experience as a pharmacist himself. In bringing forward this amendment, it is not our intention to create a loophole. None of us wants to see children vaping or using nicotine products and developing an addiction they struggle to quit for the rest of their lives, with the associated costs to their health and their purses. However, I want the Minister to assure the Committee that he has considered the position of pharmacists and people who will legally be selling these products as a stop smoking device, perhaps in a hospital clinic or as a health professional, and made sure they will not be criminalised.

If we are to follow the chief medical officer’s advice—that vaping is not suitable for children but is suitable for adults who smoke as a harm reduction measure—and are to have that harm reduction process in place, which I believe is the Minister’s intention, it is important to consider how it will continue under these regulations. It is important to consider how pharmacists and other health professionals will be able to have discussions with their patients or clients in which they may wish to say, “Vaping is better for you,” and in so doing effectively promote the process—not a specific product, but the genre of products.

Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Twelfth sitting)

Sadik Al-Hassan Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 23rd January 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Andrew Gwynne]

As I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West, we will take all this away and look at it in detail, and we will come back to Members. I am just about legally savvy enough to understand the point that the hon. Lady is making that a break clause or something like it would probably be required, because the coming into law of the Tobacco and Vapes Bill on Royal Assent is expected—it is not an act of God, and it will not come as a complete shock and surprise.

Finally, clause 133 allows us to extend all of part 6 to cover devices that enable a

“tobacco product to be consumed”

or

“an item which is intended to form part of such a device”,

but that are not in the Bill.

[Sadik Al-Hassan (North Somerset) (Lab)]

On the conversation we were having previously, does the reference in clause 125(3) to a “specified date” mean that we can have an open discussion with the Secretary of State in the next stage of the Bill’s passage about deciding at what point the provision will apply to the contracts?

[Andrew Gwynne]

I will take that away, because I do not know the answer off the top of my head. In bringing forward regulations, the Secretary of State and I will want to ensure that we get these measures right. That is why there are statutory duties to consult on secondary legislation throughout the Bill. That will ensure that we get these measures and the details right, and that there will hopefully be no ambiguity about the different dates for the offences of printing, publishing and distributing advertisements or about those related to sponsorship deals and the production of the kits that come out of them. With that, I commend the clauses to the Committee.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 124 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 125 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(Taiwo Owatemi.)

Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Eighth sitting)

Sadik Al-Hassan Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 16th January 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Sadik Al-Hassan (North Somerset) (Lab)]

Would the hon. Lady’s amendments affect the financing of the actions of trading standards, and would more money need to go in to offset that?

[Liz Jarvis]

I do not know the answer to that, so I will refer that question to the Minister.

[Sadik Al-Hassan]

They are your amendments.

[Liz Jarvis]

I am sorry; I do not know about that.

Our amendments would also promote transparency and accountability by giving those with skin in the game a direct role in deciding how fines are used to address public health priorities in their area. They would strengthen the Bill’s public health focus while retaining the integrity of its enforcement mechanisms.