Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what contingencies are in place to protect against drug price increases in the event of the UK leaving the EU without a deal.

The costs of branded medicines are controlled by the statutory and voluntary schemes for branded medicines. Under those schemes, any price increase needs to be agreed by the Department.

For unbranded generic medicines, the Department encourages competition between suppliers to drive prices down. This means that prices fluctuate because of normal market forces and can go up as well as down. The Department is working with the supply chain to ensure that patients continue to get their medicines and the supply chain for medicines is not interrupted if the United Kingdom leaves the European Union without a deal. In such a scenario it is expected that prices remain stable. There are, however, circumstances that are outside of the control of the Department, for example fluctuations in the exchange rate or an increase in the cost of raw materials that may impact on prices of generic medicines.