Hughes Report: First Anniversary

Sharon Hodgson Excerpts

Thursday 27th March 2025 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Gateshead South) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the first anniversary of the Hughes report on valproate and pelvic mesh.

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Furniss. It is a delight to see such a well-attended debate and a packed Public Gallery, as this is a very important topic. Last month marked the one-year anniversary of the publication of the Hughes report. Thanks to that report, we now understand what the potential compensation schemes for women and children impacted by the mesh and valproate scandals could look like.

I will briefly break convention to say how grateful I am for the passion and hard work of our Patient Safety Commissioner, Henrietta Hughes, who—gosh!—has not managed to get into the public Gallery. Somebody might want to tell her there is a spare chair. Can somebody make sure she is allowed in, because it is her report we are discussing? [Interruption.] There she is. I thank our wonderful Patient Safety Commissioner, who has thankfully now been let into the room.

It is great to see so many campaigners, who have been a great help and source of expertise and support to me over many years. I particularly thank Kath Sansom from Sling the Mesh, and Janet Williams and Emma Murphy from the Independent Fetal Anti-convulsant Trust, or In-FACT, as well as many more—too many to name.

I am also glad to see Charlie and Lesley Bethune, who have tirelessly campaigned on behalf of their daughter, Autumn. They have travelled all the way down from Scotland. Their MP, the right hon. Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell), cannot be here today, but he sends his sincere apologies. They would welcome an undertaking from the Minister and the UK Government to engage with those affected in Scotland, recognising that this is a UK-wide issue. Like so many others, they would also welcome progress on a response.

Every Member present will have a constituent who is affected by one of these health scandals. At least 7,000 children have been harmed by the drug valproate since it first came on to the market in 1973, with an estimated further 28 per month exposed to it, and at least 40,000 women across the country have been injured by mesh.

It is important to note that the actual figures are likely to be much higher due to a lack of awareness and many parents being reluctant to label their children. Putting an exact number on these things can therefore be extremely convoluted and difficult. Regardless, these are not just statistics: behind each number is the story of a woman who trusted a healthcare professional and was horrifyingly let down, a woman or a child who has been damaged irreversibly, a woman who has had to alter her life to accommodate for the physical, mental and financial toll of these scandals.

[Susan Murray (Mid Dunbartonshire) (LD)]

Does the hon. Lady agree that it is important that any inquiry and report looks into the fact that the products that were used, particularly in the mesh scandal, were properly licensed for the procedures they were used for?

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[Mrs Hodgson]

Yes, I agree. That is a huge part of the problem, especially with regard to medical devices. The Cumberlege report looked into the medications, but also medical devices, which is what mesh comes under. Often they are put into use for one thing and then used for something else without any further testing or investigation. I agree with the hon. Lady that that has got to stop.

After all that these women, families and children have been through, compensation would help at the very least pay to their bills if they cannot work any longer, or help to ease the constant worry about how their child will be able to survive independently when they are gone. I have a constituent impacted by her mesh implant who is unable to work—like most of those affected—and therefore cannot afford the day-to-day necessities. She is in constant pain, suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and has lost all trust in medical professionals. Compensation would not reverse her physical or mental pain, but it would at least make her life easier. There are thousands just like her, including my very own mam, who is now aged 80. I have spoken in detail about her journey previously. The damage to her body and health from mesh is something she says she will regret to her dying day, which I hope is still many years off, even though mesh has ruined her long-awaited and hoped-for retirement by ruining her health.

[Bambos Charalambous (Southgate and Wood Green) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. She is making an excellent speech. My constituent Susan Cole is in the Public Gallery. Her daughter was affected by sodium valproate. It is now 14 months since the Hughes report was published. The time for the payment of compensation is now. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government could provide interim compensation even if they do not have the timeline for implementing in full the measures in the Hughes report?

[Mrs Hodgson]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend, and I commend him on all the work he does to represent his constituents. Interim payments were provided to victims of the contaminated blood scandal, as we know. Henrietta Hughes, the Patient Safety Commissioner, has detailed how to do it in her report. I ask the Government to look at that in detail when considering their response.

If the Government are not moved by the moral case in respect of these health scandals, surely they cannot deny the economic toll they have taken on our public and mental health services. Although compensation would require finding money in what we all appreciate is a very tough fiscal situation, if we do nothing we will still need to find money: one payment will be given directly to the women and children harmed; if we do not do that, another will be have to be made for the provision of mental health services, for the NHS and for out-of-work benefits. We have a decision to make and, for me and the thousands of women and campaigners, the answer could not be simpler.

I know from conversations with campaigners and constituents that the Government’s recent announcement on personal independence payments and welfare reform have caused anxiety for mesh and valproate victims who rely on those payments to survive. It is vital that we understand that the physical complications and illness caused by mesh and valproate are going to be with them for life, so they should not be forced into work if they cannot work.

I spoke to the hon. Member for Bridlington and The Wolds (Charlie Dewhirst) recently, and he told me about his constituent, Julie Robinson, and her family’s experience of sodium valproate. Julie’s daughter Samantha has been severely impacted by the epilepsy drug that was prescribed during Julie’s pregnancy. They both live in Market Weighton, in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency. He sends his apologies and asked me to raise the case of his constituent.

I hope Members will allow me to list the seven complications Samantha has following the damage done to her by valproate while in uterus. She has neurodevelopment issues, including autism; memory difficulties; speech and language impairments; hearing and vision problems; heart defects requiring major surgery; a cleft lip and palate that led to a year in hospital; dysmorphic facial features at birth; and fine and gross motor challenges. It is quite a list. These conditions have significantly affected Samantha’s health and education and will persist throughout her life. There are thousands just like Samantha who will require lifelong care, which will also affect her parents’ ability to work.

If a person can never work again because of mesh or valproate, they deserve support and to be treated with dignity. If they want to try to work, they should never be penalised or forced to go through reassessments and put under excessive anxiety or fear if it does not work for them and their family. Even prior to the welfare announcements, I have long argued for better education and empathy from the Department for Work and Pensions when assessing mesh and valproate victims. I hear from constituents impacted by mesh, for example, who would rather struggle financially than go through the gruelling and dehumanising process of explaining their condition and trying to claim the benefits they are entitled to. There needs to be proper and effective education among DWP staff about these health scandals, so that assessments are humiliation-free and quick for these women.

While the valproate and mesh scandals differ in the specifics of the cases, the crux of them and the flags that they raise remain the same. Both affect women; both exemplify what happens when there is a lack of honesty and communication about the risks of medical procedures; and both highlight the need for increased transparency on the payments made to health professionals. They show the damage that is done when profit is put before people, when big firms avoid accountability and transparency and when—I have to say it—medical misogyny is allowed to run rife. I intend to emphasise those points, which I imagine colleagues will also touch on.

Let us consider the valproate scandal. If warnings had been given at licensing, or in 1987, when Sanofi asked for information to be added to the patient information leaflet, the women and children impacted by valproate would not be in this position. Likewise with mesh, if women had been properly informed about the risks of adverse effects rather than being fed a false image, as my mam was, of “In and out; a quick 20-minute procedure that will change your life”—boy, did it change her life, but not for the better—we would not have thousands of women harmed on an irreversible scale.

[Warinder Juss (Wolverhampton West) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for securing this debate. Before I became an MP, I specialised exclusively in dealing with compensation claims on behalf of women who had suffered from the use of vaginal mesh. My hon. Friend is absolutely right that the mesh was sold to patients as a gold standard, and they were misled. Does she agree that a proper Government-backed compensation scheme will save the NHS money in the long run? As a solicitor, I was always conscious of the fact that, in pursuing these claims, it was ultimately the NHS that had to pay out the compensation and legal costs.

[Mrs Hodgson]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point, which perhaps nobody else but him would have been able to make in this debate, so I thank him for it, and I do agree.

The people harmed by mesh and valproate did nothing other than trust a medical professional’s judgment. The very least we should do is offer them compensation to help them navigate their now damaged lives, which they have had inflicted on them, most horrifyingly, by our very own NHS.

The fact that the victims of these scandals are mainly women is no coincidence. I have recently spoken in this place about medical misogyny in our healthcare system, and some colleagues here were in that debate. I said then—and I say it again—that had the thousands of women impacted by these scandals been men,

 “I do not believe that dismissal on such a scale would have occurred.”—[Official Report, 27 February 2025; Vol. 762, c. 499WH.]

We hear stories of women seeking advice from medical professionals, only to be told it is all in their head—that it is just their menstrual cycle or the menopause—or being gaslit into believing it must be anything other than the devices or medication they were prescribed.

Women not being listened to by medical professionals not only perpetuates structural misogyny; it endangers lives. It is so heartening to see so many male colleagues in this debate, because it proves that we can change things and that it does not have to be this way. Issuing compensation to these women would, at least and at last, confirm that they were right to be concerned and that they were not being hysterical—we know why it is called a “hysterectomy”—which is something women have been accused of for many hundreds of years when it comes to our health.

As well as medical misogyny, part of the defensiveness and dismissal stems from the huge sums given to the healthcare system by the industry, which creates bias. Knowing that that is the case is not enough: the UK needs to adopt sunshine legislation to ensure that this information is fully declared, in the same way that all of us in this room, as MPs, have to make declarations. That information should be presented via a centralised public database that is totally independent of industry. As we all know, sunlight is the best disinfectant, and we need to act now to prevent future scandals.

I am conscious of time, and colleagues will have a lot to say and experiences to share, so I will end my remarks by leaving the Minister with a few quick questions—sorry, Minister. Will she provide Members and campaigners here today, and the no doubt many victims of these scandals watching at home on the internet, with a timeline for when we can expect a Government response to the excellent Hughes report? If she is unable to do that today, will she commit to writing to Baroness Merron to ask for a timeframe?

Will the Minister explain what scope there is for the Government to implement a sunshine-style piece of legislation to ensure the transparency of payments made by industry to our healthcare sector? In the spirit of cross-departmental working, which I know the Government are committed to, will she write to the Work and Pensions Secretary for reassurance that victims of the valproate and mesh scandals will not be subject to reassessment and forced into work, given their physical and mental complications? Finally, in her new role, will she commit to meeting campaigners, many of whom are here today, to hear at first hand about the valproate and mesh scandals, if she did not do that in her previous role as a Back-Bench MP?

I thank the Minister in advance for her consideration, and I look forward to her answers. I will end with this: we have rightly seen compensation for the infected blood scandal, which I mentioned at the start of my remarks, the Post Office scandal and the Grenfell disaster. Those all involved innocent people whose lives were turned upside down, whether physically, mentally or worse, through no fault of their own. I fail to see how the mesh and valproate scandals do not meet the same criteria, and I encourage anyone opposed to compensation to consider that.

[Gill Furniss (in the Chair)]

I remind Members that they should bob if they wish to be called in the debate. At this stage, there are a lot of you to get in, so we are limiting speeches to four minutes.

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[Mrs Hodgson]

I sincerely thank everyone who has made the time to come along and speak on this most vital issue. They have all made such valuable contributions to this debate, and it is really heartening for me to hear such a great degree of consensus across the House that there is a wrong to be righted and that this new Labour Government have the opportunity to do just that.

There are so many hon. Members who would have liked to be here today. Indeed, while I was on my feet, my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Chris Vince) messaged to send his apologies, so I said I would make sure that was on the record. I thank the Minister; the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans); and the Lib Dem spokesperson, the hon. Member for Chichester (Jess Brown-Fuller) for listening and for their intelligent contributions. There is so much expertise on this issue across the House. If we cannot get this sorted, nobody can.

I am particularly pleased that the Minister apologised on behalf of the Government again so fully and movingly. She actually moved me to tears—I do not know about anybody else—but I am a bit soft in that regard. I hope she will agree to meet campaigners to continue this conversation, as I know Baroness Merron has done in the other place. I am sure that everyone watching both from the Public Gallery and at home will have appreciated the empathy and the understanding that the Minister has shown in this debate.

With a new Government, we have new opportunities and the chance to make a real difference to the thousands of women and children who were wronged through no fault of their own. We have all the information we need, thanks to the amazing Baroness Cumberlege and our fantastic Patient Safety Commissioner, to ensure that such scandals never happen again and that families are given compensation to help to rebuild their lives. We now have to act, as Members have said. I hope that this debate has highlighted to the Minister the urgency of that—I am sure that it has—and that she will have the conversations required to make this happen so that these wrongs can be righted at last and as soon as possible.

If Members are willing, I ask that they gather at the bottom of the stairs outside this Chamber to join campaigners for a photo to mark this occasion, and to spend a few moments talking to them.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the first anniversary of the Hughes report on valproate and pelvic mesh.