Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate he has made of the cost to the public purse of the NHS stockpiling medicines for six weeks in the event that the UK leaves the EU without a deal; and whether that cost will be borne from existing Department of Health budgets.

As we set out in the Department’s letter to the pharmaceutical industry on 23 August, in the unlikely event we leave the European Union without a deal in March 2019, based on the current cross-Government planning scenario, we will ensure the United Kingdom has an additional six weeks supply of medicines in case imports from the EU through certain routes are affected. This is the current planning assumption but will of course be subject to revision in light of future developments.

The Government has not asked the NHS to stockpile medicines. It has asked industry to make preparations for doing so.