Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has the capability to monitor the stockpiling of medicines by industry after the UK leaves the EU, and what powers his Department has to compel suppliers to stockpile those medicines.

On 23 August 2018, the Department wrote to a number of pharmaceutical companies that supply the United Kingdom with medicines from, or via, the European Union/European Economic Area, asking them to ensure they have a minimum of six weeks’ additional supply in the United Kingdom, over and above their business as usual operational buffer stocks, by 29 March 2019. Companies are best placed to decide on the timing for complying with the stockpiling request.

Since writing to pharmaceutical companies, we have received good engagement from the industry who share our aims of ensuring patients maintain continuity of medicines supply. The Department continues to work closely with these companies to ensure that their UK stockpiles of medicines are sufficient to cope with any potential delays at the border that may arise in the short term from the unlikely event of a no-deal Brexit.