Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has made an assessment of the potential implications for his policies of the report by the All Party Parliamentary Group on Hormone Pregnancy Tests, published in March 2024.

We are hugely sympathetic to the families who believe that they or their children have suffered because of using hormone pregnancy tests (HPTs). The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, together with the wider Government, have committed to review any new scientific evidence which comes to light since the conclusions of the 2017 independent Expert Working Group (EWG), convened by the Commission on Human Medicines. In line with this commitment, we will be seeking independent expert advice on Professor Danielsson’s publication from the Commission on Human Medicines in due course.

On the other recommendation in the HPT All Party Parliamentary Group February 2024 report, we currently have no plans to set up an independent review to examine the findings of the EWG. In the interests of transparency, all evidence collected, and papers considered by the EWG, were published in 2018, along with full minutes of its discussions. Details of conflicts of interests and how these were managed were also published.