Cat Smith

Cat Smith

Labour — Lancaster and Wyre

Speaking in the House of Commons on 29 October 2026

Debate

Sodium Valproate

Contribution

I totally agree with my hon. Friend, but I would go further still. For parents of children with additional needs, the last thing they need is to be fighting a national campaign for justice. They already have enough on their plate trying to cope with their child and ensuring they are accessing the support they need without having to run a national campaign, but that has been the reality for many of the parents—primarily mothers—of children who have been harmed by valproate. That is exactly what they have had to go on and do. I turn back to the history of the reviews into this scandal. The Conservative Government initially rejected the recommendation that I have just set out; however, in 2022, they had a change of heart when the then Health Minister, Maria Caulfield, tasked the patient safety commissioner with providing options for financial redress. That felt like a real step forward for the campaign at that point. The commissioner produced the Hughes report in February 2024. It reiterated what we already know. It says: “The Government has a responsibility to create an ex-gratia redress scheme providing financial and non-financial redress for those harmed by valproate”. The Hughes report recommended that the Government create a two-stage—

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