Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency

Debate between Yasmin Qureshi and Nusrat Ghani

Thursday 16th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South and Walkden) (Lab)]

My interest in this matter arises as I chair the APPG on Primodos, and it is a campaign that I and many other MPs have been working on for the past 12 years. On one occasion, after a big debate, the Minister ordered an expert working group to be set up. The MHRA was supposed to examine the evidence. We the campaigners and Members of Parliament thought that all the documents we had would be looked at by the MHRA, but clearly it did not look at them. The MHRA was supposed to engage with the victims and their families, but they were not spoken to or dealt with properly, and there was no thorough examination.

In fact, some of the members of the expert working group, which was set up by the Commission on Human Medicines, had connections with pharmaceutical companies. We wanted the MHRA to look at the documents, which showed very clearly that in the 1970s it was accepted by the then Committee on Safety of Medicines that this drug was causing deformities. However, the chief medical officer at the time colluded with the manufacturer, destroyed the evidence and refused to help.

We have documents that show that the manufacturer knew there was a cover-up, and yet the MHRA refused to look at them. Subsequently, Professor Carl Heneghan from Oxford University looked at the same material the EWG had looked at and came to a completely different conclusion: he said the evidence showed that there was a connection. The EWG was asked to look at whether there was a causal connection, and it changed its recommendation again. The former Prime Minister, Mrs May, was also not convinced by the expert working group. We persuaded her to set up a review chaired by Baroness Cumberlege, who said there was avoidable harm and that the victims should be compensated.

Throughout all those years, the Government of the day did not want to communicate with us, and they have not been dealing with this issue properly. They have always relied on the expert working group’s report, which has held the victims back and held us back from pursuing a possible legal claim. We say to the Government now that the EWG report needs to be relooked at, and Professor Carl Heneghan’s study of it should also be looked at. Scientific evidence has been produced using an experiment on zebrafish which shows that there is a link with this drug, and we have sent this to the Commission on Human Medicines for the Department to look at.

We must remember that this drug is 40 times the strength of the morning after pill. Women were given this pill and told it had no effect other than to see whether they were pregnant, and it then caused this damage. I ask the Minister today, with the new Government now in place, to please relook at this; the report by the EWG, which was set up by the MHRA, has been discredited, so please stop listening to it.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

Prisons

Debate between Yasmin Qureshi and Nusrat Ghani

Wednesday 25th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Yasmin Qureshi]

The Labour party also introduced IPP sentences, and I was not one of those who favoured that provision. I will touch on its impact on our prison system. The Secretary of State spoke about the fact that the Government are trying to deal with the issues caused by the remnants of the IPP regime. One problem is that people who have served their IPP sentence cannot get out of prison until they have done specific, designated training courses, but unfortunately there has been a lack of funding for those courses. The Government have to take responsibility for the fact that many thousands of people in that position have not been released from prison.

As I have said, this has been a very good and interesting debate. Many experienced people have spoken, including former Ministers and Secretaries of State. I think we can all agree that everyone is concerned about this issue. It is not a big vote winner or an issue that is often spoken about on the doorstep, but it is important because it shows what we stand for as a society. The one thing on which most people agree is that we have got problems, and there is a crisis in our prison system.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson), a former Minister, talked about some of the proposals in the White Paper that the Government have brought forward to deal with this issue. He set out all the shortcomings and all the questions that have not been answered. The White Paper seems to suggest that each prison will be run by its governor and then every problem will somehow be resolved. However, it does not provide answers to questions such as whether governors will have complete autonomy from the centre, and whether they will have enough money to be able to carry out everything they want to do. For example, if a prison governor thinks that 500 inmates require a two-month detoxification and rehabilitation programme, will he or she have the money to carry that out? It is all very well to say that governors can do such things, but where will the funding come from, or will they have an unlimited pot of money? How will people be recruited, and to whom will they be answerable? The White Paper raises a lot of questions that have not been answered, and it does not deal with the problems.

[Nusrat Ghani]

The hon. Lady has raised a number of issues, but we have yet to hear the Labour party’s solutions. Does she agree with Shami Chakrabarti, the shadow Attorney General, that half of all prisoners should be released immediately? Is that the policy of the Labour party?

[Yasmin Qureshi]

If the hon. Lady had been in the Chamber at the beginning of the debate, she would know that that question was asked by another Member; I think it was the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies). On the first point, you are the Government—[Interruption]—and it is for you to deal with the crisis of the—[Interruption.]