Esther McVey MP: speeches

118 published records · newest first.

Speeches

6 Feb 2025 · Low-income Countries: Debt Cancellation · Hansard source
More
Order. I remind hon. Members that this debate is about debt cancellation for low-income countries.
6 Feb 2025 · Low-income Countries: Debt Cancellation · Hansard source
More
I remind Members that they should bob if they wish to be called.
6 Feb 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source
More
I am hugely concerned, my constituents are hugely concerned and the Cheshire police force is hugely concerned about the rising number of serious sexual attacks by those here illegally in this country and those who have been housed in immigration centres in Cheshire. May we have a debate on the rising risk in Cheshire, a review of legislation to remove foreign offenders, and the risk assessments undertaken on the threat posed by individuals placed in accommodation centres in Cheshire?
3 Feb 2025 · AstraZeneca · Hansard source
More
How does losing £450 million of investment on Merseyside and into the wider north-west area equate with the Chancellor’s stated priority of economic growth?
30 Jan 2025 · Medicinal Cannabis · Hansard source
More
I remind Members that they need to bob if they wish to be called. I also remind Members that, if they wish to speak, they need to be here for both the opening and closing speeches.
20 Jan 2025 · Points of Order · Hansard source
More
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. You will recall that on Thursday afternoon I led a Backbench Business debate on the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, during which lots of critical comments were made about the MHRA. I specifically made reference to the minutes taken from meetings of the Commission on Human Medicines for the vaccine benefit risk expert working group. On Saturday, following the debate, the MHRA removed the minutes from its website. I should be grateful for your guidance and advice as to what can be done to ensure that those minutes are put back on the website immediately, and without alteration. Surely public bodies should not be using debates in this Chamber as an excuse to remove information that is in the public interest.
16 Jan 2025 · Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency · Hansard source
More
I do not believe that the MHRA has taken such action. We are probably still waiting for it. Hopefully, that will come out. People are also either not getting compensation quickly enough or not receiving compensation that is commensurate with the illness and damage caused to them. It is worth noting what happened when The Daily Telegraph reported on the potential causal link between the AstraZeneca vaccine and blood clots in March 2021. The journalist who wrote the story received a threatening call from the MHRA warning that The Telegraph would be banned from future briefings and press notices if it did not soften the news—an extremely defensive approach for an agency whose No. 1 strategic objective is to maintain public trust through transparency and proactive communication. Does that sound like an agency that is doing its best to maintain public trust, let alone patient safety? It is clear that the system does not work. We have good evidence that suspected adverse reactions are under-reported, but what about the ones that are reported? We know from freedom of information requests that the MHRA does not have a process for investigating and following up individual yellow card reports. We know that the retrieval of follow-up information from the yellow card database still requires manual extraction and that only 54% of deaths reported as possibly linked to exposure to one of the covid-19 vaccines were followed up by the MHRA. That is extremely worrying or, as Matt Hancock infamously described it in a 2021 WhatsApp message, “shonky”. The chief medical officer, Chris Whitty, replied to that message by saying that the system “needs to get better”. Another long-standing problem with the MHRA is its lack of transparency. Take FOIs to the agency as an example. Between 2008 and 2017, only 41% of requests were successful. In 2021, 76% were answered outside the 20-working-day statutory response time. A culture of delay and secrecy has emerged, and MHRA’s behaviour around the Commission on Human Medicines meetings for the covid-19 vaccine benefit risk expert working group show that beyond any doubt. Minutes of the meetings were published just last month, four years after they took place—why the delay? They are stuffed full of redactions that leave us with many more questions than answers, particularly as to why the new vaccines were continually described as safe and effective. In the meeting on 18 November 2020, the expert working group asks if Pfizer was “required to respond to the 36 questions asked by MHRA”. In response, the MHRA confirmed that “there is no formal obligation to reply”. Why is there no formal obligation to reply? Surely it is essential, when making such an important decision as to whether to allow a new vaccine to be rolled out to the nation, to have those replies. The minutes do not specify the 36 questions. Indeed, they do not appear to have been mentioned again. I asked a written question last week to see whether, in the spirit of openness and transparency, the MHRA would publish those questions and any answers received from Pfizer. The response was that the MHRA does not intend to publish those questions or any subsequent responses. Why not? Is this not a matter of public interest? Those issues were not resolved before the MHRA gave the green light to start the vaccination of the nation. Particularly worrying is the issue of lymphopenia, where blood does not have enough white blood cells, which was reported in phase 1 of the trials and then went away—not because they fixed the problem, but because testing for the condition was not conducted in phases 2 or 3. In summary, the failure to act on the weaknesses of the MHRA will lead only to more harm and further damage to the public’s trust in the pharmaceuticals agency and those tasked with regulating it. My hope is that the debate will help bring those wide-ranging issues further to light and focus the Minister’s mind on finding solutions. I will end on the words of Dr Tom Jefferson of the University of Oxford: “You cannot support both secrecy and vaccination. Requesting data is not a sign of being against drugs or vaccines; it shows that you favour transparency. Those who try to keep data confidential and criticise those who ask for evidence are anti an evidence-based approach. How can you have informed consent if you do not know precisely what is happening?”
16 Jan 2025 · Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency · Hansard source
More
The number of people who have taken their lives after coming off SSRIs shows that it is not a one-off or rare. There are many people, including one of my constituents, aged only 25, who took her life. I congratulate my hon. Friend on raising this issue. What more can we do to raise awareness of the effects of withdrawal from these antidepressants?
16 Jan 2025 · Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency · Hansard source
More
I thank all Members who have stayed late to speak today, many of them recounting the deeply moving and harrowing experiences of their constituents. All contributions reinforced the failings of the MHRA. In fact, listening to Members, the verdict on the MHRA is guilty as charged, confirming that it is in need of substantial reform. I feel sure that the Minister will ensure that that reform starts here and now. Question put and agreed to. Resolved , That this House notes that the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) continues to need substantial reform, as recognised by the Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review (IMMDS), with patient safety concerns persisting and exacerbating since the review’s publication in 2020; believes that the MHRA’s 2017 expert working group report on Primodos was deeply flawed, with IMMDS later concluding the drug had caused avoidable harm; further notes that the yellow card system for reporting suspected adverse drug reactions is failing, with no process for following up on serious or fatal reactions and conflicts of interest, with 75% of the MHRA’s funding being derived from industry fees, a concern raised in the Fourth Report of Session 2004-05 of the Health Committee, The Influence of the Pharmaceutical Industry, HC 42-I, published on 5 April 2005; also notes the MHRA’s delayed response to reports of myocarditis, pericarditis and vaccine-induced thrombotic thrombocytopaenia following covid-19 vaccination, despite action from regulators in other countries; and calls on the Government to fully implement the recommendations in the IMMDS review and to acknowledge the harm done to patients and the financial burden on the healthcare system as a result of the MHRA’s widespread regulatory failures.
16 Jan 2025 · Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency · Hansard source
More
My hon. Friend makes a good point. If people lose trust in vaccines, the pharmaceutical industry and the regulatory agency, that is precisely what happens. We know that these vaccines are essential to many people, so we do not want that happen. We want to ensure that new vaccines and medicines coming into use are thoroughly tested and that, along the way, we keep an overall watch on whether they are working correctly.
16 Jan 2025 · Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency · Hansard source
More
I beg to move, That this House notes that the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) continues to need substantial reform, as recognised by the Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review (IMMDS), with patient safety concerns persisting and exacerbating since the review’s publication in 2020; believes that the MHRA’s 2017 expert working group report on Primodos was deeply flawed, with IMMDS later concluding the drug had caused avoidable harm; further notes that the yellow card system for reporting suspected adverse drug reactions is failing, with no process for following up on serious or fatal reactions and conflicts of interest, with 75% of the MHRA’s funding being derived from industry fees, a concern raised in the Fourth Report of Session 2004-05 of the Health Committee, The Influence of the Pharmaceutical Industry, HC 42-I, published on 5 April 2005; also notes the MHRA’s delayed response to reports of myocarditis, pericarditis and vaccine-induced thrombotic thrombocytopaenia following covid-19 vaccination, despite action from regulators in other countries; and calls on the Government to fully implement the recommendations in the IMMDS review and to acknowledge the harm done to patients and the financial burden on the healthcare system as a result of the MHRA’s widespread regulatory failures. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting this debate and the many colleagues from across the House who supported my application for it, especially the hon. Member for Blackley and Middleton South (Graham Stringer), and also the hon. Members for Bolton South and Walkden (Yasmin Qureshi) and for Great Yarmouth (Rupert Lowe). The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency is the body responsible for ensuring the safety and efficacy of medicines used in the UK. Its job is to oversee medical products, medicines, medical devices and blood components for transfusion. The responsibility it has is extremely important, as it comes with the potential not only to change people’s lives for the better, but to cause serious harm—even death—if poor decisions are made or safety signals are missed. The MHRA is required to scrutinise applications from the pharmaceutical companies for new products and devices and to remain ever vigilant over existing drugs should safety problems arise post-authorisation. It has to weigh up the arguments for and against these products and devices. After all, the companies trying to get these products on to the market—and to keep them there—are driven, as all industries are, by commercial success. It is up to the MHRA to balance that with the health and safety of the UK and the public. Alarm bells rang for many of us when, in March 2022, Dame June Raine, the chief executive of the MHRA, boasted of the agency’s transition from watchdog to enabler. Twenty years ago, the Health Committee report, “The Influence of the Pharmaceutical Industry”, found that the MHRA was unusual in being one of the few European agencies “funded entirely by fees derived from services to industry”. Not much has changed since, with the MHRA continuing to get 75% of its funding from the pharmaceutical industry. In this context, the agency’s transition from watchdog to enabler does little to quell suspicions of conflicts and the implications that has for patient safety. One of the most worrying issues is the MHRA’s mismanagement of the yellow card system. Established in 1964, the system is a way for patients, relatives and healthcare professionals to report suspected adverse reactions to drugs or medical devices. The reporting scheme should be a valuable source of information about possible harms, and act as an early warning system, but there is gross under-reporting to it. As the IMMDS’s 2020 review put it, the system is “too complex and too diffuse to allow early signal detection.” Under-reporting is a big problem because it makes it difficult to spot safety signals and assign causation. That then translates into unnecessary harm or death, with devastating side effects from treatment going unnoticed for years, months or even decades. That was recognised by the IMMDS review led by Baroness Cumberlege in the case of Primodos, sodium valproate and surgical mess—I meant to say mesh, though perhaps the word should have been “mess.” According to research from Bangor University in 2019, potentially avoidable adverse drug reactions cost the NHS £2.2 billion a year in hospital admissions. In 2018, the MHRA estimated that only 10% of serious reactions and between 2% and 4% of non-serious reactions are reported. More recently, it has claimed that reporting rates for covid vaccines are better due to higher public awareness, but it has not been able to point to published evidence to back up that claim. The yellow card is currently a voluntary scheme that doctors and members of the public can report to, but I echo calls from the Sling the Mesh campaign and others for the UK to follow the example of Denmark and Sweden by making it mandatory for all healthcare professionals to report suspected adverse reactions. Let me turn to the MHRA’s failure to act promptly on evidence of adverse reactions. We have seen that historically. For example, sodium valproate was known to cause harm to unborn babies in the 1980s, yet the MHRA did not establish a valproate pregnancy prevention plan until 2018. The known harms to unborn babies were allowed to persist for over 30 years. More recently, in 2021, the MHRA reacted slowly to strong signals that there was a serious problem with the AstraZeneca vaccine causing an autoimmune condition called vaccine-induced thrombotic thrombocytopenia. Denmark and other European countries suspended the vaccine for all age groups on 11 March 2021. The MHRA, by contrast, only started to restrict the vaccine in some age groups nearly two months later, on 7 May—yet there was a signal in the yellow card reports as early as 8 February. How many people were needlessly exposed to a risk?
14 Jan 2025 · UK-China Economic and Financial Dialogue · Hansard source
More
Did the Communist party of China tell the Chancellor that she was doing a good job or a bad job of running the UK economy when she was there?
14 Jan 2025 · Agricultural and Business Property Relief · Hansard source
More
Does my right hon. Friend agree that this brutal change to inheritance tax—let us call it what it is, a family farm tax—will destroy family farms and farming in the UK as we know it? Does it not make nonsense of Labour’s claim to believe in food security for the UK? We need a U-turn straightaway. The question I am now being asked by my farmers is: did this policy come about because the Government did not know what they were doing and through a lack of knowledge by the Labour party of the farming community? Or will we look back at this and see it for what it is: theft by the state of land from private owners?
8 Jan 2025 · Social Housing Tenants: Antisocial Behaviour · Hansard source
More
I gently remind the Minister to leave a couple of minutes for Lee Anderson to wind up.
8 Jan 2025 · Social Housing Tenants: Antisocial Behaviour · Hansard source
More
Order. I remind Members that, should they wish to speak and be called in the debate, they need to bob. Members wishing to speak need to be here for the opening and closing statements. Wind-ups will begin at 10.30 am, with two minutes at the end for the mover of the motion.
8 Jan 2025 · Social Housing Tenants: Antisocial Behaviour · Hansard source
More
We now move to the Front-Bench contributions, starting with the spokesperson for the Liberal Democrats.
8 Jan 2025 · Heat Batteries: Decarbonising Homes · Hansard source
More
Order. Before the hon. Gentleman intervenes, may I remind Members that interventions should be concise and should not be speeches?
8 Jan 2025 · Heat Batteries: Decarbonising Homes · Hansard source
More
I will call Deirdre Costigan to move the motion. I will then call the Minister to respond. As is the convention for 30-minute debates, there will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up.
8 Jan 2025 · Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill · Hansard source
More
The Minister is most generous. I would like her to explain how our reasoned amendment, which would allow a national debate on this horrendous grooming, is a wrecking amendment. Given the numbers, it is not a wrecking amendment, and what she has said on the Floor of the House is not right.
8 Jan 2025 · Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill · Hansard source
More
Will the Minister give way?
8 Jan 2025 · Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill · Hansard source
More
Will the Minister give way?
8 Jan 2025 · Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill · Hansard source
More
I agree, as would all Members, that we want excellent standards for all schools. One idea that the Conservative Government had was that if a school was failing, new management would go in to increase standards, yet the Secretary of State wants to dismantle that. I would call that vandalism of our education system.
8 Jan 2025 · Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill · Hansard source
More
Just for clarification, should Government Members do the right thing tonight and vote for our amendment, there would be no wrecking of any Bill—they just need to vote the right way.
8 Jan 2025 · Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill · Hansard source
More
Will the Minister give way?
6 Jan 2025 · Flooding · Hansard source
More
A number of my constituents have been affected by flooding and in a variety of ways. The Minister mentioned in her opening statement the breach of the Bridgewater canal, the damage that that has caused in Cheshire, and the immediate repair work that needs to be done by Peel. What is being done to ensure that local authorities clear blocked drains, because that is the root of most of the flooding?

Published records only — not a full account of an MP’s work. How we work →