Public Office (Accountability) Bill

Jessica Toale Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 3rd November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Jessica Toale (Bournemouth West) (Lab)]

I would like to start by paying tribute to the many hon. Members and campaigners who have never stopped fighting for truth and accountability. We have heard many powerful contributions today, outlining a painful litany of cover-ups and scandals, where individuals and families have been betrayed by the very institutions that were meant to protect them. This Bill is also for those who are suffering, but who only now we are beginning to see and to recognise.

My constituent, Jan Hall, is a diethylstilbestrol—DES—daughter. DES was an anti-miscarriage drug invested here in Britain and prescribed between 1939 and the late 1970s. It was marketed as a wonder drug, but even as evidence that the drug caused harm emerged in the 1950s and after it was linked to cancer in the 1970s, it continued to be prescribed to women. This is potentially one of the biggest pharmaceutical scandals in British history, and something upon which this Bill will, no doubt, shine a light.

Jan’s mum, Rita, was prescribed DES. She died of breast cancer at the age of 32, when Jan was still a toddler. Jan has suffered from health problems for her whole life, including cervical cancer, and now her daughters, Beth and Hannah, have had a series of gynaecological problems. We know that women who took DES face around 30% higher risk of breast of cancer. Their daughters who were exposed to the drug have 40 times the risk of rare vaginal and cervical cancers, and also face infertility issues. On top of that, their sons show increased risk of genital abnormalities and infertility. This is an intergenerational issue and we are now seeing grandchildren, like Beth and Hannah, suffering from complications, with research only beginning to uncover the scale of the inherited harm. These women have fought for decades for the recognition and justice that they deserve, but for too long they have been ignored.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency has admitted that it misled the public for more than a decade. Imagine if a duty of candour had existed for DES victims. Imagine if the MHRA, the Department of Health and pharmaceutical companies had been compelled to disclose what they knew and when they knew it: generations of women might have been spared devastating illnesses, families would have been spared grief, and trust in our institutions might have been preserved. The Hillsborough law is not only a matter of legal reform, but a matter of trust. If the public cannot trust the state to tell the truth when things go wrong, then the social contract is broken. The Hillsborough law gives us a way to rebuild it.

I welcome the Prime Minister’s personal commitment to the issue and the reaffirmation that he will not water down the principles that give the Bill life. To all the families still waiting for justice—this Bill is for you. Let the Hillsborough law mark the moment when we say, finally and decisively, that justice delayed must never be justice denied.