Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if will make an assessment of the potential merits of conducting a review into the funding of the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency.

There is currently no planned review of the funding of the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).

The MHRA is funded predominately by charging fees to industry, for the services it delivers, with additional funding being provided by the Department. The fees are set to recover the full cost of delivering the respective services. This follows the HM Treasury guidance, Managing Public Money. This cost-recovery approach means that the regulated bear the cost of regulation, rather than the taxpayer and, by extension, patients.

Departmental funding to the MHRA is set in advance through collaborative spending review processes, which consider the MHRA’s needs in detail.