Hormone Pregnancy Tests

Mike Penning Excerpts

Thursday 7th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House notes that children were born with serious deformities due to the hormone pregnancy test drug Primodos, which was taken by expectant mothers between 1953 and 1975; further notes that official warnings were not issued about Primodos until eight years after the first reports indicated possible dangers; observes that the report by the Commission on Human Medicines’ Expert Working Group on Hormone Pregnancy Tests in 2017 was inconsistent with other academic reports; notes that the Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review, First do no harm, found that Primodos caused avoidable harm; further notes that the Government has refused to acknowledge the recommendations by the Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review relating to Primodos families; and calls on the Government to fully implement the recommendations in the Independent Medicines and Medica al Devices Safety Review and to set up a redress fund for families affected by Primodos.

I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting this debate. This is now the fifth time we have had a debate trying to persuade the Government to grant justice to families affected by Primodos. I cannot even begin to count the number of times in the last 12 years that this issue has been raised on the Floor of this House during Prime Minister’s questions, Health questions, business questions and even Treasury questions. Time and again, this Government have insisted that there is no credible evidence to support an association between Primodos and deformities. Indeed, they have gone to great lengths to try to prove that there is no association at all.

I remind this House that Primodos was a tablet given to patients by their general practitioner as a pregnancy test. It was 40 times—I repeat, 40 times—the strength of an oral contraceptive today. It does not take a scientist to imagine what a dosage of that strength would do to a foetus. Babies were born with severe deformities, babies who are now adults in their 40s and 50s and have lived their whole lives with these disabilities.

[Sir Mike Penning (Hemel Hempstead) (Con)]

May I take the hon. Lady back a few moments to the tablets that were given by the patient’s GP in a national health surgery, paid for by the national health, and the doctor was paid by the national health? It was not private clinics, but the national health giving this drug.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention. It is important to stress that it was the state, the NHS, involved in this.

In July 2015, I stood in this House and urged the Government to disclose all the evidence they had and to set up an independent inquiry. The then Minister, the hon. Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman), heard those concerns and agreed to an independent review, which would be led by an expert working group.

However, first, the expert working group was not independent. In fact, many of the experts were found to have conflicts of interest with the industry. Secondly, the review of the evidence conveniently ignored several important studies and then later said, “Oh, well, there was insufficient evidence.” Thirdly, the terms of reference of the review had said that it would try to find a possible link. Yet the reports’ conclusion said it was unable to find a “causal link”. How exactly does the Government intend to find a causal link, short of testing the drug on pregnant women?

--- Later in debate ---

[Ed Davey]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her intervention. I did not see that particular programme, but I am sure she is right. The key thing is that we need to make sure that those large organisations are held to account. That is our job, and we have been failing, because we have not held them to account—we are still here, many years and many debates later. We have had a Prime Minister on our side, and these people still have not been held to account.

[Sir Mike Penning]

Actually, the records show that this issue did get to court in America, and the drug company did a deal—as happens in American courts—on a non-disclosure. Why would a drug company do that unless it was trying to cover up? It settled in the American courts, as I understand it, but on the basis that all the information was destroyed and would never be disclosed. Those are the sorts of things we are dealing with.

[Ed Davey]

The right hon. Gentleman is right to remind me and the House of that particular case. Interestingly, an American law firm was helping the campaign and was going to take the issue to court because of what had happened in America. For some reason, it pulled out.

[Sir Mike Penning]

What a surprise!

[Ed Davey]

Yes, what a surprise. All these examples add up to show that a lot of powerful people are trying to stop justice being done in this country and around the world, so I am so pleased to see cross-party support here today, in a very powerful way, to make sure that is put right.

Justice should come before the interests of the shareholders and justice should come before the professional reputations of the medical people on the regulatory bodies, and that is why the Minister should listen to the House today. Absolutely we should see the recommendations of the review come forward and absolutely there should be the compensation fund. She should get up at the Dispatch Box today and announce that. The offer that was made, I am told—I have not seen it in writing, but I am told an offer was made—was a £1 million total pot for all the families, which would have been a few thousand pounds per family. I hope the Minister does not suggest that that will be good enough. We need a proper compensation fund, and we will not stop fighting until that the Government provide for that. I hope she will respond to the answer from the right hon. Member for Maidenhead to my intervention about why Government solicitors are threatening the families and telling them they have to sign agreements that they will not continue any legal action, which goes exactly to the point that the right hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Sir Mike Penning) made.

I want to see that action and I want the recommendations of the review to be implemented, but I want to put on the record that I am a bit suspicious. I think those involved are going to try to wriggle out of this in some way. They are going to make sure that no liability is mentioned, but they were liable. They knew it in the 1960s and they knew it in the 1970s: they are liable, and everyone who has been looking at this case knows it. I want the review to be implemented because the families need the money now. Individuals are dying, such as my constituent, and people are worried about their adult children and need their adult children to have the money now. I want the Government to go ahead and do that now. But I will tell the House what I really want: I want a public inquiry. I am fed up with these reviews. The review was great, but because this is such a scandal—a global pharmaceutical scandal—we want more. All this will come out only if the lawyers cannot threaten people and have non-disclosure agreements, so I want an inquiry in public—a public inquiry so that these people can be properly held to account once and for all.

--- Later in debate ---

[Allan Dorans (Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock) (SNP)]

There is considerable evidence indicating that those women who took the drug Primodos—prescribed by their general practitioner—and who were pregnant at that time gave birth to babies with serious birth defects, including deformities and disabilities, missing limbs, cleft palates, brain damage and damage to internal organs. In some cases, those women miscarried or had stillbirths.

[Sir Mike Penning]

This is a really important point: Primodos was not prescribed; no prescription was written. No pharmacist could look at the patient and say, “Is this the right drug for that person?” It was a drawer opened, tablets taken out and pushed across. I know it is not intentional, but the word “prescription” is slightly misleading.

[Allan Dorans]

I thank the right hon. Member for his intervention; he is absolutely correct. The surviving victims are now mainly in their 40s and 50s. Many face a host of new medical problems and their bodies continue to suffer. Many have died prematurely.

--- Later in debate ---

[Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi) on securing this debate, and thank her for her outstanding work in leading this campaign in Parliament. I also pay tribute to all the families of children who were born with birth defects after their pregnant mothers took Primodos for the courage that they have shown. In particular, I pay tribute to Marie Lyon—who, I am pleased to see, is here with us today—for her tireless work.

Those affected should not have to fight for justice. I join colleagues in the debate in calling on the Government to acknowledge the fact that the recommendations in the Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety review relating to Primodos-affected families have not been implemented, and to explain why; to implement those recommendations and to set up a redress fund for families affected by Primodos; and to withdraw the 2017 expert working group report on hormone pregnancy tests, which has been disputed by academics and is inconsistent with other more independent studies.

In their fight for justice, the families have suffered setback after setback. The latest came a few months ago when claims for damages against Bayer Pharma, Schering Health Care Ltd, Aventis Pharma Ltd and the Government were struck out in the High Court, partly owing to lack of funding for legal representation. That was a bitterly disappointing blow.

The Government have a moral duty to set up the redress fund for those affected. As far back as the late 1950s, concerns were raised that hormone pregnancy tests, the most commonly used of which was Primodos, could cause abnormalities in a developing baby. Further studies in the UK and elsewhere from the late 1960s to the early 1970s suggested a link between the use of hormone pregnancy tests and a wide range of serious birth defects.

It took until 1975 for the Committee on Safety of Medicines to recommend that hormone pregnancy tests should no longer be used. The committee said that there was “little justification” for them, as alternatives were available. It then sent an alert letter to all doctors in the UK, advising them of a possible association between hormone pregnancy tests and an increased incidence of congenital abnormalities. The letter recommended that doctors “should not normally prescribe” those products as pregnancy tests.

However, it has been reported that Primodos sometimes continued to be used as a pregnancy test within the NHS until it was withdrawn from the market by the manufacturer, Schering Chemicals Ltd, in 1978. By that stage, the damage had been done. Legal proceedings by the affected families began, but were discontinued in the early 1980s. It was not until early 2014, and the discovery of documents from the 1960s that reportedly showed that studies suggested that hormone pregnancy tests caused miscarriages and congenital abnormalities, that a new campaign called for an independent public inquiry into them.

Criticisms of the 2017 independent expert working group report on hormone pregnancy tests included the fact that it did not examine regulatory issues and that a number of documents had not been included in the review. Additionally, the methodology and findings in the report have been disputed by academics and are inconsistent with other academic reviews, as today’s motion highlights. One of those reviews was by a group of researchers at the University of Oxford, led by Professor Carl Heneghan. The researchers concluded:

“The evidence of an association”—

by which they mean between hormone pregnancy tests and birth defects— “has previously been deemed weak, and previous litigation and reviews have been inconclusive. However, we believe that this systematic review shows an association of oral HPTs with congenital malformations.”

Despite that, the Government say that they currently have no plans to reassess the findings of the expert working group review. I hope that, today, we hear a different response from the Minister.

In 2018, the independent medicines and medical devices safety review was announced by the Government, led by Baroness Cumberlege. Despite the Cumberlege review’s finding that Primodos caused avoidable harm, and the clear recommendation for redress for those affected, the Government have refused to even acknowledge it. That is a grave injustice and an insult to those who have suffered. Let us remind ourselves of some of the adverse impacts that affected individuals and families have attributed to hormone pregnancy test use: congenital heart defects, dysmorphic facial features such as cleft palate and lip, digestive system and bowel issues, intellectual disability, limb defects and, tragically, death.

[Sir Mike Penning]

Could I add to that those who were told to have an abortion, and those who had a miscarriage or a stillbirth? Their families have been damaged almost as much, and the guilt is still with them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Mike Penning (Hemel Hempstead) (Con)]

It has been an honour and a privilege to sit through this debate. As usual, I will be speaking with no notes, because a lot of what has been said today I would have said myself. I pay tribute to the chair of the all-party parliamentary group, the hon. Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi). We have done much work together over the years.

I pay tribute to Marie Lyon and all the other campaigners, but there is something about this debate. Every time we have it there is unity, conformity, passion and love in the Chamber but, as my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg) said, it disappears into Government and does not come back out. Governments of all descriptions have known about this for years and could have done something about it, but, for some unknown reason, they did not. When I was a Home Office Minister under my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) we did other inquiries together, but we had to battle to get them.

I do not understand why Governments, of all descriptions, do not come to the House to make statements, so we have to UQ them. It is plainly obvious that we will get a statement. We had three statements today, and quite rightly, but the Government would have been UQ-ed if they had not come to the House. Perhaps common sense is prevailing.

When it comes to really serious issues, like Primodos, for some unknown reason the Government, the Department and the Treasury pull down the shutters. It is not one Department, and I fear for the Minister when she stands at the Dispatch Box, because this is way outside the remit of just the Department of Health and Social Care.

We heard earlier that Government lawyers are threatening activists who are trying to get justice for their families, loved ones and others. Many of these campaigners have lost their loved ones, and some of them were victims themselves when they were told to have an abortion or when they had a miscarriage or stillbirth. A lot has changed in society but, in the 1960s and 1970s, it was a really difficult thing for a woman to go to her GP because she thought she was pregnant, especially if she might be a single mum. These couples and single mums were passionately waiting for this pregnancy to make their life fulfilled, and then, a short time later, they were told that perhaps the best thing to do was to abort the child because they would have terrible deformities, or they might go through childbirth. I am lucky enough to have just become a grandfather. I remember being there 33 years ago when my wife punched me on the nose halfway through childbirth. She did not intend to do it; she had no idea what was happening. She was just in a lot of pain and doing that made her feel better. These women were there and then all of a sudden they realised that the disfigurements and abnormalities were there to be seen—or, as we have heard in this debate, not seen until a little later.

We will be having a debate later, which I will be leading, about a situation where babies are born exactly like that and people are being told, “Oh, they’ve got bunions.” They do not have bunions; they have a genetic deformity. But because that deformity is so rare, no one understands it. On this issue, however, the Government, the NHS, the GPs and the drug company knew what they were doing. If the drug company had withdrawn Primodos after a year, when it first started to see this, most of us would have understood that these sorts of situations occur and it should, rightly, have compensated. However, that is not what happened. This went on year after year, with it knowing about this drug.

My point about the word “prescribed” is not just semantics; this drug was not prescribed. A prescription is a prescription. Opening a drawer and giving out a couple of tablets to the lady in front of you is not a prescription; it is a handout. This was done with no information given as to the dangers that we all see today. We have only to buy a packet of paracetamol to see written across the back of it what could happen. These ladies were not given that opportunity. They needed to know whether or not they were pregnant, for whatever situation they were personally in, and the GP then opened the drawer. This was in an NHS surgery, with a GP who was self-employed, as they mostly are, but paid for by the NHS. Those drugs were given not through a pharmacist, but directly from the drug company to the GP to hand out.

Let me conclude on an area that we have not really touched on, and it is something that Governments need to understand. I was a shadow health Minister for four years and I was passionate about this. The damage to our NHS of public understanding of this is so, so bad. The public need to trust the NHS. When they go to their GP, they need to be able to trust that if something needs to be done, it will be done for them and not for the system. Our NHS is being damaged by the way this cover-up continues. Government lawyers have accepted bits of Baroness Cumberlege’s report, but the fundamentals of it, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead made sure happened, have been completely ignored. We can run around the head of a pin and say, “It is because there was legal action here and legal action there,” but we should say, “Let’s just do what is right. We have made a mistake, in the Department or in the drug company, and we are going to put it right and put it right today, for those families who are still there and for those families we have lost.” That is the decent thing that this House should do.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

We come to the wind-ups. I call Hannah Bardell.

--- Later in debate ---

[Maria Caulfield]

I can show the hon. Lady my remarks—they are on the back of this paper, and I have been writing them down during this debate. I am only two minutes into my speech and I am addressing some of the points that were made. I will of course come on to Primodos as well.

It is important to recognise that we did take those issues in Baroness Cumberlege’s review seriously. We could not look at the issue around Primodos at that time because of the legal case, which I have touched on, but there have been some reviews. My hon. Friend the Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman) was here just before this debate. In his time as Minister for Life Sciences, he took the campaigns and the evidence around Primodos so seriously that he set up the expert review in 2014 to look at the evidence that was in place. I hear very loudly this afternoon some concerns about that expert working group and that maybe evidence was either misinterpreted or not looked at, but that expert working group did look at the evidence at that time and also issued a public call for evidence.

[Sir Mike Penning]

The so-called expert group changed the remit that it was given, with no recourse, as I understand it, to any Minister for permission to do so. It changed the terms of what it was supposed to look at, which is not what it was asked to do in the first place.

[Maria Caulfield]

I hear my right hon. Friend and, as I said, I will come on to that specifically towards the end of my remarks.

There were further evidence reviews. Hon. Members have touched on the evidence from Heneghan et al., and from Brown et al. in 2018. Those were looked at, and again there was no evidence of causality found in those reviews.

Local Radio: BBC Proposals

Mike Penning Excerpts

Thursday 22nd June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sir Mike Penning (Hemel Hempstead) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House calls on the BBC to reconsider its decision to reduce local news output from local radio journalism which will have a negative impact on communities across the UK, reduce access to local news, information and entertainment and silence local voices.

I start by asking the House to note that some of our Doorkeepers are wearing regimental medals today, after Mr Speaker granted them permission to do so, for the first time, to mark Armed Forces Day. We acknowledge the service of our veterans to this country and this House.

I say a big thank you to the Backbench Business Committee for granting this debate, and to all the colleagues who supported my bid. I was a little worried at one stage about whether we would have enough colleagues on a lovely Thursday afternoon, but the air conditioning is good in the Chamber and bad in the rest of the House. I hope my contribution will be accepted on both sides of the House.

The future, or lack of future, of BBC local radio affects everyone in this House and everyone in this country. Not everyone listens to BBC local radio, even though it has a substantial following, particularly among people who cannot access it through any other source, such as digitally. It is trusted in a way that no other medium is trusted. Local radio, local presenters, local knowledge and local topicality cannot be replicated in another part of the country. In my constituency, BBC Three Counties Radio turns into BBC eight counties at weekends.

The National Union of Journalists had an excellent lobby in Parliament, which I had the pleasure of attending, but this issue is not only about journalists. BBC staff, all the way from junior runners to local presenters, do not know whether they have a job. Some of them were issued with pre-redundancy notices at a really difficult time for renegotiating their mortgage. I was told categorically at the lobby that some people have been told they cannot remortgage when their fixed term runs out because they have no guarantee of a job.

Some freelance presenters were compulsorily moved into the pay-as-you-earn scheme by the BBC, probably because of concerns about IR35 legislation. They had work in other places, but they did not have a formal contract. Given that they were moved into PAYE a couple of years ago, we might think they will get redundancy compensation, but because they have been on PAYE for such a short time, they probably will not get it.

This debate is about the people who need local radio and the people who serve us on local radio. I think the BBC needs to wake up and smell the coffee. There are whole generations of people in our constituencies who have nothing to do with the BBC. They do not watch the BBC and they do not go online with the BBC, but they have to pay the licence fee. Constituents say to me, “The only thing I listen to is Three Counties Radio, which offers a service that no commercial station offers. Why am I paying the licence fee?” The younger generation, including some members of my family, say, “I’m paying the licence fee, but I don’t have anything to do with the BBC. I have to pay it because, obviously, it is a criminal offence not to pay the licence fee.” I think the BBC is going down a very dangerous road in alienating the core people who want to support it at the same time as trust in the national media is waning.

What will the BBC gain from these proposals? The BBC would say it has to move with the modern world and go digital, but most of its listeners cannot do that. Is the BBC saving huge amounts of money? I was told off by a colleague in this House for naming Gary Lineker as a very highly paid BBC employee. Well, I am going to do it again. He gets £1.2 million a year from the BBC, and he also works for BT Sport and other organisations. That is entirely up to him, but the people we are referring to cannot do that and are not on that sort of salary. This would be loose change out of the salaries being paid to the high-cost presenters. It is not just Gary Lineker; lots of others have high values.

[Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is making a good point. One thing that grips me about this issue is that so many of our BBC radio reporters, such as those on BBC Radio Solent, which I want to see thrive and not get cut back, have starting salaries of £30,000. It is bizarre that BBC bigwigs think it is okay to have people on serious megabucks at a public institution, while they are making redundant and unemployed journalists who are on relatively low wages, given the importance of the job they do.

[Sir Mike Penning]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. This is about people. The way that the human resources people and the hierarchy at the BBC have handled this is appalling for a public body. It is so wrong that people are petrified, and have been for months, about whether they have a job. They are being told, “If you don’t accept the job we are going to offer you, you will be out the door.”

Ofcom has responsibility here. More than 600,000 people took part in the consultation that the Department for Culture, Media and Sport held on Channel 4, whereas Ofcom’s review of the BBC operating licence had 12 people respond to it. I cannot believe that Ofcom believes that that is representation in a consultation on the future of the BBC. I cannot believe Ofcom just sat back on that. It has a responsibility to make sure that the BBC fulfils its obligations to the people who pay the licence fee—a fee they have no choice but to pay.

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

As Members are fully aware, I hail from the far north of Scotland and once upon a time I was a councillor up there. The BBC was well staffed in those days and I bear the scars of its reporting on me. I did not like it at the time but, by God, that is what local democracy was about, and it was properly reported. That is part and parcel of the way we do things in this country, even as far away as where I live. This cutback will fundamentally undermine proper local democracy in remote places such as the far north of Scotland.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Mike Penning]

The hon. Gentleman has hit the nail on the head. Accountability is the key, but we can have accountability only when there is knowledge on the part of the person asking the question. That comes from local journalists and local radio. One reason local radio is trusted more is exactly because, as he said, we get hauled over the coals sometimes. We go on our local radio stations and we say what we think is right, and sometimes we are told categorically, “That’s not right.” Why do they say that? It is because it is their opinion and because they have the local knowledge in that part of the world.

[Greg Clark (Tunbridge Wells) (Con)]

I completely agree with the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone); what he describes in the far north of Scotland applies to the south-east of England, in Kent, where Tunbridge Wells is pleased to host Radio Kent. We seek a local democracy in which people make decisions about who is to be their Member of Parliament and who is to be their councillor, but if they do not have the ability to listen to them and see them answer questions, how can they make that informed decision, on which our democracy depends?

[Sir Mike Penning]

That is the crux of this debate. As many colleagues know, before I came into this House, I was here for many years as head of news and media for the Conservative party. I interacted with the journalists and I was termed a “spin doctor”; that is what I was accused of, probably perfectly correctly.

I interact with my local presenters fairly regularly. I cannot remember the last time a senior BBC journalist did that. They walk straight past me as though I am completely invisible and go on the “Today” programme the following day and say, “This is the view of the Conservative party.” I do not know who they talk to, because they are not talking to me. Perhaps I have got a bit long in the tooth and I should be texting them or WhatsApping them. They do not actually communicate, particularly with the Back Benchers, unless of course they are going to say something completely outlandish that causes their party a load of grief, and then of course they will be on the “Today” programme the following morning. At the end of the day, that’s fine, if I have said something like that. However, I really feel that the only way that can work is if there is empathy with the people who understand what is going on in the local patches of different constituencies around the country.

I had the largest explosion and fire since the second world war in my constituency, just after I, a former fireman, was elected. My thoughts about what went on that day will live with me, and with my constituents, forever. The first people to get on to me were from my local radio station. They asked me, “What the hell is going on, Mike?” I said, “I’ve no idea, but give me 15 minutes. I am at the command centre and I will let you know”. Of course, later on Sky, the BBC and other national broadcasters got in touch, but it was the local paper—which has now met its demise, as have local papers in most of our constituencies—and the local radio station that contacted me first.

As we look at where these proposals will go, we see that it is absolutely imperative that this House sends a message to the BBC hierarchy, as well as to the workers of the BBC, including journalists, runners and junior people in offices, that we will not tolerate the undermining of local radio in our constituencies.

[Andy Carter (Warrington South) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. He mentions sending a very clear message to the BBC, but I would like to take him back to his point about Ofcom. We should also be sending a very clear message to Ofcom. This House expects Ofcom to regulate the BBC and robustly hold to account the management of the BBC for delivering local services. Ofcom has written to the BBC saying that it is not certain that its own rules for regulating local radio are robust and sufficient. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is time for Ofcom to stand up for this House, and for listeners and viewers?

[Sir Mike Penning]

My hon. Friend makes an important point to bring me back to Ofcom. If Ofcom is saying, “Nothing to do with me, guv. We don’t have the power to sort this out,” then this House should do that, because we gave Ofcom the powers in the first place. That is crucial.

I will touch on one last thing. It is not all about whether the schools are going to close or the brilliant work that BBC local radio—and, to be fair, some of the commercial stations—did during the covid lockdowns. It is about the little things that matter in our constituencies.

I put my hand up—I am president of Hemel Hempstead Town football club. We are in the Vanarama national league south. If we do really well, we will be in the play-offs, I hope, this year—let’s keep wishing. We used to have two hours of non-league football on Three Counties Radio on a Saturday—gone. Why would that be? Perhaps they think no one is interested, but it was the lifeblood for a lot of the clubs to tell people where they were playing and who were the new players coming in. Football clubs, like pubs and post offices, are the core of our constituencies. Cutting that programming willy-nilly saves what? The BBC cannot even tell us that.

Why does the BBC not say, “Well, we are going to invest more money—£19 million or so—elsewhere”? I am not really interested in that. What I am interested in is why it is taking one amount of money from a certain core activity to put it somewhere else, when it was doing a frankly brilliant job in the first place. By the way, it is the BBC’s duty, under its franchise, to provide that.

[Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)]

The right hon. Gentleman is being very generous with his time. I want to pick up on his point about what is important to local people. People who live in a rural area like North Shropshire want to know what is happening in North Shropshire. As much as they bear no ill will to the people of Stoke or Wolverhampton, they are not that interested in what is going on there. The lifeblood of every fête, charitable event or local football match is that the organisers can get on local radio and tell people that those events are happening. Does he agree that the local connection is important, particularly for people who live in rural places and cannot access commercial stations, because they do not get a signal? BBC local radio is the lifeblood of those organisations and people.

[Sir Mike Penning]

The hon. Lady is absolutely correct; BBC local radio is the lifeblood. Whether it is a football match, or the local schools closing because we have had half an inch of snow, those are the sorts of things that are really important to local people. I love Norfolk. I go fishing on the Norfolk broads on a regular basis, but I do not think the Norfolk broads area has any synergy with junction 8 of the M1 being blocked. The latter has massive effects in my constituency, but no effects in another area. I am not really interested in their issues; they are not interested in mine. It breaks up the empathy with the community in what people trust the BBC to do.

As well as our sending a message to Ofcom and to the BBC, the motion before the House today, which was carefully drafted with the assistance of the Table Office, is worded in such a way that, if necessary and if anybody in this House objected to it, we could divide on it, so that this House could send that message to the BBC. I hope that we are unanimous and that we do not need to do that, but if we do, we will. If this House does not divide and we unanimously accept the motion before us, that message needs to be heard by the BBC loudly and clearly. It needs to wake up and smell the coffee before the British public say they have had enough of the BBC.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Thanks, Mike, for keeping to 15 minutes, so that we can get a few more people in. I have already given forward notice that we will have a time limit of four minutes, so, for four minutes, I call Emma Lewell-Buck.

--- Later in debate ---

[Anna Firth (Southend West) (Con)]

I am deeply disappointed that the BBC is continuing with its plans to cut local radio services for my constituents, and I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Sir Mike Penning) on securing this important debate.

BBC Radio Essex is a hugely trusted and valuable resource for my constituents, not only because it reports the news and travel news, and deals with so many local issues, but because of the source of comfort that our local radio provides, as has been said by so many Members. I would go as far as to say that the voices of Sadie Nine, Sonia Watson, Ben Fryer, Simon Dedman and Andrew Sinclair, and those of our sporting commentators, Glenn Speller, Dick Davies and Dave Monk, are some of the most trusted voices in our county. Those people also do a fantastic job of holding me to account.

We have talked a lot about local radio being a lifeline and a comfort, which it undoubtedly is, but our local radio, BBC Radio Essex, also does so much work for charity and so much community building. It is about not just the fantastic local radio shows, the interviews and getting people on, but the extra things it does. One highlight of my past 16 months in this place has been the Christmas lights being switched on in Southend, and that was hosted by BBC Radio Essex. Thousands of people were out enjoying themselves and having a fantastic evening as a result of its hard work. Our local radio hosts the “Make a Difference” awards, where it celebrates community heroes all around the country. It also does its everyday work in raising money for incredible charities, such as those we have in Southend, including the Endometriosis Foundation, Prost8 UK and the unbelievably amazing, award-winning Music Man project, among so many more.

The thing I wish to stress is how important our local radio stations are in enabling people to enjoy our local football teams. With these services stopping at 2 pm, many people will not be able to follow the fortunes of Southend United, which are on the way up—

[Sir Mike Penning]

No they’re not!

[Anna Firth]

They will be, I assure Members of that; we just need more people listening and more people supporting. It was such a pleasure for me to hold a centenarian tea party and have 100-year-old Annie Maxted telling me what a fan she is of Southend United. At that great age, she is glued to the radio—apart from when we took her to watch in person. That was an incredible afternoon; she was glued to what she was seeing through the window and understood a great deal more than I did. The point is that these people cannot go online and watch it live, so radio is key for them.

I have talked about the importance of our local radio to the elderly and how ludicrous it is for the BBC to be excluding its best audience, the one that is the most loyal and loves it the most. I also want to mention how important our local radio is to our disabled and partially sighted community, of whom I wish to mention one brilliant example—our blind campaigner Jill Allen-King OBE. I have talked about Jill many times in this place. She is now in her 80s, but she has been a BBC Radio Essex fiend ever since she went blind on her wedding day more than 50 years ago. On a Saturday night, she is a regular listener and she regularly calls in, and she is now a regular guest, as she campaigns for more guide dogs, so that the 1,000 people in the country who are still waiting, as she is, for a new guide dog can have one. For the Jills of this world the radio is an essential resource and it should not be removed.

I conclude by going back to the fact that the BBC was founded on the principles of informing, educating and entertaining people, as we all know. BBC Radio Essex is the very epitome of all those principles. My constituents need a local radio station that is relevant to their lives, and I urge the BBC to reconsider its proposals, recommit itself to providing a service for the very people who deserve it the most—

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Mike Penning]

This is what Parliament is about. On a Thursday afternoon, Parliament has come together on a motion to tell the BBC that what it is doing is wrong. It has been very enlightening. I will join my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr Walker) on that picket line—as a member of the Fire Brigades Union, I have been on many.

The point we have been trying to make is that this weekend, when I was in Corton, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous), and the road was flooded, I would not have known that had I not had BBC Radio Suffolk on. Similarly, if my bins were not collected in Hemel Hempstead this weekend, my hon. Friend’s constituents would not be the slightest bit interested. It is the localism that matters. The motion before the House is not just “We have had a chat”; I hope that in a moment, we will have made a formal decision on a motion on the Floor of the House. If colleagues in the House want to disagree with the motion, we could divide, but if it goes through on the nod, that cannot be ignored by the BBC. The BBC is independent of Government, but it is not independent of this House. This House created the mandate for the BBC to exist, and it cannot ignore the motion that is before the House today. If it does, it will be at the BBC’s peril.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House calls on the BBC to reconsider its decision to reduce local news output from local radio journalism which will have a negative impact on communities across the UK, reduce access to local news, information and entertainment and silence local voices.

Petition