Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 10 September 2018 to Question 170317, on Drugs, what estimate he has made of the number of weeks delay for medicines there will be at the UK border in the event that the UK leaves the EU without a deal; and whether that estimate has been revised since his letter of 23 August 2018 to the pharmaceutical industry.

Our request to suppliers is for them to store an additional six weeks’ stock. This will be on top of their business as usual contingency stockpiles. Six weeks is the current cross-Government planning assumption but will of course be subject to revision in light of future developments.