Simon Hoare MP asks Prime Minister whether thalidomide survivors will “finally get … justice”

Simon Hoare MP asked the Prime Minister whether  she would “augment the work of the foreign office to make the case for UK thalidomide survivors to the Germany government to finally get the justice that they for too long have been denied”.

In Prime Minister’s Questions on 2nd May, 2018, Simon Hoare noted that, “The hopes of the 464 survivors of thalidomide in the United Kingdom, the Thalidomide Trust and the all-party group which I chair were significantly depressed at the weekend seeing media coverage, particularly in the Sunday Times, suggesting that the Germany government is seeking to resile from its verbal pledge to make good the promise to compensate those UK survivors … whose mothers took and were prescribed the German-manufactured drug thalidomide.”

The Sunday Times had reported, “Thalidomide victims ‘betrayed’ as Germany ditches aid pledge,” following Onwards and Upwards’ publication of the revelatory book The Thalidomide Catastrophe by Martin Johnson (former Director of the Thalidomide Trust), Raymond G. Stokes and Tobias Arndt.

In her reply, Prime Minister Theresa May assured that “…the FCO is pursuing their discussions with the German government on this point.”