Sir Mike Penning speaks in another debate calling on the Government to honour the recommendations of the Cumberlege report and set up redress schemes for the families affected by Primodos, sodium valproate and pelvic mesh.
Sir Mike Penning (Hemel Hempstead) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Rosindell.
Groundhog day—here we go again. This is almost the identical debate that we had before. If this was in the main Chamber, especially if it was not on a Thursday afternoon, the Chamber would be full, because there is not one constituency that does not have somebody affected by the three conditions. As the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Sarah Green) said just a moment ago, what is the point of commissioning a report or having an inquiry and then ignoring the key components of its conclusions?
I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke) on securing the debate. Sadly, I think we will end up having more. I am a loyal member of Her Majesty’s Government. I am absolutely aghast that we are here again discussing this. I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), our former Prime Minister, for her support. The report would not be here today without her.
I congratulate Baroness Cumberlege, along with Marie Lyon, who ran the fantastic Primodos campaign. There was some worry about the experts that the baroness had around her, and we questioned her on those points to make sure that the inquiry was truly independent. At the start, the all-party parliamentary group was very sceptical because we had been let down by the expert working group. What an oxymoron that is! It is an insult to experts. Those on the group might be experts in their particular field, but they are not experts in people.
I want to talk in particular about Primodos. As several colleagues have said, very vulnerable women went to their GP for help, because they thought that they might be pregnant. They were myriad different ages, from myriad different parts of the country and certainly from different economic backgrounds. This touched everyone. They went to their GP and said, “I think I might be pregnant.” That GP, in an NHS GP’s surgery, pulled open a drawer, gave them some tablets and said, “This will tell you whether you are pregnant”—no advice, no concerns, no documentation.
These days, I have to take some medication and it is like “War and Peace” when I open the packet—even if I buy an aspirin. Although that is understandable, as aspirin can be very dangerous, so I will not use that example—perhaps ibuprofen or something. Clearly, that is because the industry, the pharmas, know that they have to cover themselves because they might be sued.
The side-effects for some of those ladies and their families and loved ones have been so traumatic. Some had miscarriages, some were told to abort the child and some went on to have children with abnormalities that were frightening then and today. The type of disabilities were similar to those of thalidomide, and one might have thought that we would have learned the lesson of thalidomide—tainted blood, as my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) alluded to earlier. But no—we have not learned those lessons.
Some people are alive today, but many have passed away. What is the Department waiting for? Is it, as with thalidomide, for these people to die early? That is why the fund for thalidomide ran out—the Department thought there was enough money in the fund, but people lived, because they have character and they survived, so we are about to top up the fund. These people, too, have lived, with unbelievable conditions. We, in Parliament and as a Government, surely should be here for them.
When the initial report of that expert working group was produced, many of us in the Chamber said that it was a complete whitewash. It was indeed a complete whitewash. The all-party parliamentary group had some evidence sessions with members of the working group, and I asked, “Who gave you the authority to change the ministerial guidance on what your report should look like?” They said, “Oh, we just thought that we would change it.” It was all about the evidential base—it was easier for them to come to the conclusions that they wanted to come to.
We said it was a whitewash, and the Government did the right thing: they got Baroness Cumberlege to look at the three areas—I apologise to the other groups, because I completely agree with everything that was said, as I have constituents in the same situations that have been mentioned. But what is the point of saying to these people, “Here’s the report by the baroness, and the Government accept some of it”?
I had the honour of being the Policing Minister when my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead was the Home Secretary. The Hillsborough inquiry report was difficult. Governments of all colours had previously rowed away from the issue, because in general they were probably frightened about the conclusions—the conclusions were frightening. However, we did the right thing and we honoured the report. That is absolutely what should have happened with this report.
The Government, though, are turning around to say to these families that I am talking about today, and to the families involved with the other two conditions: “If you don’t like what we are saying, sue us.” I have been told that we have to be slightly careful not to go too much into the legal side of this, but they have fought all their life to look after their loved ones and to say, “This is not on me.” They were worried about the ladies who took the tablets, but men—the fathers of these children—have been told, “This was probably genetic. That happens.” That does happen, but this happened because NHS doctors gave these tablets to patients in an NHS surgery and did not tell them the risks, even though they knew them. Back in 1967, Primodos was removed because of the risks, yet it was still available in 1978. I had been in the Army for four years in 1978; it was not that long ago. They knew the risks, but they continued.
People ask me why GPs were doing this. It was because drugs company salespeople were going into the GP surgeries and pushing their product at the doctors, promoting it so they could earn more and more money. We need pharmaceutical companies. Many of the medicines that we have today would not have been invented without pharmaceutical companies. However, when they get it wrong, we have to hold them to account. They got it wrong, and the Department of Health got it wrong, and thus Governments—it does not matter what colour they were; I do not care—got it wrong.
We touched earlier on why we are fighting this. I had the honour of serving in six or seven Departments—I lose track sometimes; it was three at one time, I think—and I was told lots of times by my officials that we needed to fight or challenge something. That happened lots of times at the Home Office; my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead is nodding away. I was the Disabilities Minister at the Department for Work and Pensions, and I asked why we were not settling with these people, because we had made a mistake. I was told that the Treasury counsel thought we might have a case, with about a 30% chance of success. Come on, guys.
At the end of the day, Governments are worried about saying, “Excuse me; we got it wrong and we are going to put it right.” The Government are going to put it right, we hope, but mistakes will still happen. That is the nature of medicine, I am afraid. But when we get it wrong, and doctors get it wrong, for once in their lives I wish they would just turn around and put their hands up. That is what I hear from my constituents in the complaints that come through my office; I am sure it is the same for all colleagues in this room. We see these reports and the amount of compensation that is to be paid, and they are challenged, and then eventually people get their money. There is something wrong.
I have sat in the Minister’s chair on more than one occasion and been bombarded, quite rightly at times. However, this is not about the Minister; it is about Government, and the structure of Government. Using the Minister as a conduit, this needs to go further, back up to the top and, at the end of the day, to the Treasury. The reason why people in government are so worried is because this could set a precedent. They are worried about whether it will cost the Treasury lots of money. Let us be honest: it will cost the Treasury lots of money, sometimes in ways that it is not even expecting. We have already talked about PIP and access to work. We could go on about the amount in benefits that this is costing Government anyhow. As well as that, the decent thing to do is to honour recommendation 4 of the Cumberlege report. It does not use the word “compensation” because Baroness Cumberlege was not allowed to use that; the terms of reference given to her were written to make sure that she could not. However, it says that this has been done to these people, we got it wrong, they trusted the Government and the Government have to compensate them.
I will say one final thing. The NHS is a wonderful organisation. Around the world, people look at our NHS and say, “We wish we had that. We wish we could do that.” This is damaging the NHS. This, tainted blood and thalidomide—we could go on about other things—are a danger. We rightly addressed tainted blood and thalidomide, thank goodness; the campaigning by the thalidomide action groups was absolutely phenomenal. This needs to be resolved before it damages the NHS even more. Colleagues will retire or leave. Some people—particularly those affected by Primodos—will pass away. But we will not go away. We will go on and on and on about it in this House until compensation—recommendation 4—is provided to our constituents, and that is the right thing to do.
Sir Mike Penning (Hemel Hempstead) (Con)
Baroness Cumberlege specifically states in her report that her terms of reference prevented her from talking about individual compensation and redress. Is my right hon. Friend suspicious, like me and probably many others, that that was specifically written into the plan so that she could not do what my right hon. Friend is asking for?
Alec Shelbrooke
That is where we have to dig into recommendation 4:
“Separate schemes should be set up for each intervention—HPTs, valproate and pelvic mesh—to meet the cost of providing additional care and support to those who have experienced avoidable harm and are eligible to claim”.
Sir Mike Penning
The hon. Lady may be new to the House, but she is doing very well in trying to understand the position. In the case of Primodos, that was not a drug that was going to cure anything; it was simply a tablet that told the person who took it whether they were pregnant. There were other methodologies around at the time that were deemed to be safe, but GPs continued to give out Primodos when they knew it was not safe. It is quite a clear, difficult thing: GPs were giving out a drug years after the relevant bodies said it should not be given.
Feryal Clark
I totally agree with the right hon. Gentleman. I am the mother of an eight-month-old, and during my pregnancy I trusted my GPs and everything they said. I was vulnerable, like all mothers, and I believed that they wanted the best for me. It is absolutely devastating that GPs knew the impact of these drugs yet continued to give them out to women. I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that contribution.
Sir Mike Penning
May I press the Minister and draw her back to the Cumberlege report? What she is talking about going forward sounds really good, and the proof will be in the pudding, as my grandmother would have said. But recommendation 4 of Baroness Cumberlege’s report for the Government talks about—this is my word—compensation. That is so important because, as we heard, some of these people have been caring for their loved ones for the last 50 years. They are not going to be here forever, and they feel enormously vulnerable that their loved ones, who they have looked after for all that time, will be left without their needs being met.
This is not all about the ladies who, for instance, took Primodos tablets. It is about the outcomes—in order words, their children, who are living with this today. We quite rightly concentrate when talking about sodium valproate, mesh and Primodos on what happened at the time, but the consequences of that are these people who are now in their mid-50s and 60s. What will happen to them? They will fall back on the state for PIP and other benefits when actually, recommendation 4 says in black and white that the Government should have sorted it out.
Maria Caulfield
I thank my right hon. Friend for making that point. Compensation can be claimed now. Our concern about setting up a specific body to oversee that is that that would not address the fundamental problem of why it is difficult to get compensation. However, it is a fundamental right of anyone who believes they suffered from clinical negligence to seek compensation, and we actively encourage that.
Sir Mike Penning
It is fortunate that we have so much time because we can ask lots of questions. Marie Lyon, the Primodos campaigner, has effectively been told by the Minister’s predecessor, “See you in court”. I do not know about the experiences of the other conditions, but the Primodos campaigners do not have money. They have the will, but they are completely exhausted. They pinned all their hopes on the Government accepting the report’s recommendations. These people will not get a no win, no fee arrangement or a pro bono. They will have to try to fundraise, and they will, but is that morally right when the baroness’s report and its recommendations, published by the Government, say that they should not have to go through that?
Maria Caulfield
Specifically on Primodos, there is pending litigation so it is difficult for me to comment while that is in progress, but, depending on the outcome, the Government will respond to that.
Sir Mike Penning
The Primodos victims—I am not allowed to talk about the court case—have had no choice. They are in court now because the Government would not take on Cumberlege recommendation 4. It is all well and good talking about what will happen in the future, but they are living with this now. They are in court today. Surely the Government should settle with them now. Like the Minister has said several times, these things get settled out of court. Well, settle with Primodos victims now and they will not have to go through that.
Maria Caulfield
I cannot speak on active litigation claims, but between 70% to 80% of claims are settled out of court because that is the avenue we want to go down. It is not in anyone’s interest to go to court. I am happy to keep hon. Members updated. There will be a formal review in the summer, but I am happy to have my feet held to the fire to ensure we deliver on the Cumberlege review for those patients who have suffered.