Draft Medical Devices and Blood Safety and Quality (Fees Amendment) Regulations 2023

Feryal Clark Excerpts

Monday 6th March 2023 General Committees

[Feryal Clark (Enfield North) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir George.

As has been said, the SI serves to allow the MHRA to increase the fees it charges for regulating medicines and related products. Of course, any steps the Government take to ensure that the MHRA can carry out its role more effectively are to be welcomed.

The SI will introduce a 10% increase in all the MHRA’s statutory fees, and an above 10% increase for 61 services that have seen costs grow significantly. Furthermore, it will introduce 22 new fees to ensure that the MHRA adequately recovers the costs of regulatory activity across all its services, in line with His Majesty’s Treasury principles on managing public money.

I understand and appreciate that the MHRA has not increased its fees to this extent since 2016-17, to provide the industry with certainty and stability through the EU exit period and the covid-19 challenges. I am pleased that the MHRA has gone through the consultation process to arrive at its judgment, thereby ensuring that the views of relevant stakeholders are reflected. The MHRA needs to be financially stable to be able to deliver regulatory services that protect and improve patient safety, with high-quality, safe, effective and innovative medical products, and any steps that the Government take to address that are of course to be welcomed.

We appreciate the greater clarity that the SI provides on the increased costs of providing quality care in our health services. However, I am concerned about where the increased costs of the fees will be absorbed. They simply cannot be absorbed by the NHS, which is already facing the worst crisis we have ever seen. I would therefore appreciate it if the Minister could outline how the Government will ensure that the increase in costs is not absorbed by the NHS.

We are always looking to make further strides in patient safety, and we are confident that the SI takes that into account. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response to some of the points I have made.