Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the statement by Lord Bethell on 15 July (HL Deb, col 1738) that “the Primodos case is subject to legal dispute, so I cannot comment on it from the Dispatch Box”, which aspects of that legal dispute prevent an independent re-examination of the contested conclusions of the report by the Expert Working Group of the UK’s Commission on Human Medicines Report of the Commission on Human Medicines’ Expert Working Group on Hormone Pregnancy Tests, published on 15 November 2017.

The Commission on Human Medicines Expert Working Group on Hormone Pregnancy Tests was an independent group convened to conduct a scientific review of the evidence for an association between the use of hormone pregnancy tests and adverse outcomes of pregnancy.

The report and all the evidence that was reviewed by the Group has been publicly available since November 2017. We cannot discuss specific issues regarding the litigation, but this does not prevent any re-examination of the report or evidence. Any relevant new evidence would be reviewed as it becomes available.

We are carefully considering the recommendations of the Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review and will respond in due course.