Financial redress for Foetal Anticonvulsant Syndrome caused by sodium valproate

This House calls on the UK Government to pay compensation to sufferers of Foetal Anticonvulsant Syndrome, caused by womb exposure to sodium valproate; notes this is a key recommendation in the thorough and excellent report by Baroness Cumberlege, First Do No Harm, which summarises the outcomes of the independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review; notes that paragraph 1.38 states valproate has caused physical and neurodevelopmental harm and that the state and manufacturers have an ethical responsibility to provide ex gratia payments to those who have experienced avoidable damage from the interventions reviewed; further notes that the report, published in July 2020, stated that patients have waited far too long for redress and that the Government did not address this aspect in their response in July 2021, and that a full year later, in July 2022, still have not set up an ex gratia payment scheme for victims already known to have waited too long for compensation; recognises that the victims of Foetal Anticonvulsant Syndrome are getting older and may need greater levels of support and that the Government must show compassion, empathy and an immediate willingness for some form of justice by way of redress; and calls for a redress agency to be established to provide adequate redress for the victims of sodium valproate, and to implement the other two redress recommendations highlighted from the review on hormone pregnancy tests and pelvic mesh.