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 11 October 2018 to Question 176274 on Drugs, when the Government plans to complete its consideration of the support that may be provided to suppliers in relation to the stockpiling of medicines; for what reasons that process was not completed before the Government advised suppliers to increase their stockpile of medicines; what assessment he has made of the effect on the supply of drugs of not providing that support; and if he will make a statement.

Since writing to pharmaceutical companies in August, we have received very good engagement from industry, who share our aims of ensuring continuity of medicines supply for patients across the United Kingdom. The Department continues to work closely with these companies to ensure that their UK stockpiles of medicines are sufficient to cope with any potential delays at the border that may arise in the short term from the event of a no-deal Brexit.

In our letter to industry, the Government committed to considering what support to UK medicines suppliers we might provide as part of our European Union exit no-deal contingency programme and we will make an assessment of what that support might include when we have heard back from all the companies we wrote to in relation to their stockpiling or alternative contingency plans.