The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) - the body responsible for ensuring the safety and efficacy of medicines used in the UK - has removed an important collection of minutes from their website following a debate led by Tatton MP Esther McVey.
The minutes, which were highlighted in Ms McVey’s opening speech on 16 January, were from the Commission on Human Medicines' Vaccine Benefit Risk Expert Working Group held between 25 August 2020 and 5 May 2023. This was a working group set up to advise the MHRA on the Covid-19 vaccines before and during their early roll out to the UK. Despite heavy reactions, the minutes show key discussions, of considerable public interest.
The collection of minutes was removed by the MHRA on Saturday 18 January 2025, just two days after the Commons debate.
On Monday 20 January, Ms McVey made a Point of Order to ask for the minutes to be immediately republished and without alteration.
Ms McVey said: “The MHRA’s actions have perfectly illustrated, once again, their culture of secrecy, defensiveness and delay. It took them four long years to publish these minutes in the first place and now they are gone again. These are not the actions of an Agency that values transparency, far from it. Increasingly it looks like an Agency with something to hide.”
Ms McVey also tabled a Parliamentary Written Question on 20 January 2025, to ask why the minutes have been withdrawn. Despite being due for a response on 22 January, this question remains unanswered.
Fortunately, the minutes were downloaded in full before they were removed by the MHRA and these are now available as a public resource below.
Ms McVey said: “If we are to have any hope of rebuilding trust in the system, these kind of games need to stop. The MHRA could make a start straight away by putting genuine transparency at the heart of everything they do. It’s time to start treating patients with respect, not hiding away crucial details about medical treatments such as they have here, with the Covid-19 vaccinations.”
The full minutes can be downloaded HERE
