Oral Answers to Questions

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd November 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am very happy to confirm that to my hon. Friend. She will know that we are making progress on this in Scotland, but we need to go further. Programmes such as local full fibre networks and 5G will allocate funding directly to local projects, based on the quality of the bids put forward. The Minister for Digital, my right hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Matt Hancock), recently confirmed in the House that we will deliver the next generation of technology directly to local authorities in Scotland, rather than going through the Scottish Government. We will make sure that Scotland is not left behind.

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

Q8. In 2014, an inquiry was set up to look into the drug Primodos—it was given to millions of pregnant women in the ’60s and ’70s—which caused deformities. Documents show a clear cover-up. Last week, a report was published, which was condemned by MPs across the House as being a whitewash and misleading. Will the Prime Minister meet the victims and order a public inquiry, so that justice can finally be done for these people?

[The Prime Minister]

I know this is an issue that a number of Members have been concerned about and I recognise that the result of the review was not what some Members and families were hoping for. It was a comprehensive, independent scientific review of the available evidence by experts. All the meetings of the expert working group were attended by Nick Dobrik, as an invited independent expert from the Thalidomide Trust and at the request of the patient group, the Association for Children Damaged by Hormone Pregnancy Tests. I am informed that the overall conclusion is that the scientific evidence does not support a causal association, but that does not detract from the very real suffering experienced by the families. I recognise that these conclusions are hard to accept, but the Department of Health is focused on implementing the review’s recommendations which will strengthen detection and better communicate the risk of medicines during pregnancy.