Ian Fantom – Oct 17, 2020

Dear people involved in the Covid Vaccine Consultation Exercise,

I have just seen today’s updated web page announcing what is likely to be the government’s decision following the closure of your consultation exercise (https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/distributing-vaccines-and-treatments-for-covid-19-and-flu/consultation-document-changes-to-human-medicine-regulations-to-support-the-rollout-of-covid-19-vaccines). You give no information on the results of the consultation exercise itself, but merely go ahead in announcing the government’s decision on this legislation. We have no way of knowing whether that was in any way influenced by the consultation exercise, and if it was, how representative were the responses of that consultation exercise. Given the short period over which that consultation exercise ran, and the fact that hardly anyone amongst the public seemed to know anything about it, I have to be extremely sceptical of this consultation exercise. It looks to me to be simply a means of by-passing Parliament.

Indeed, in section 2, ‘Targeted discussions’, you state, “Even though we are happy to receive comments from anyone, the purpose of this consultation exercise is to engage directly with specific stakeholders that we have identified. The UK government will be holding discussions with those stakeholders, at which it will be going into further detail about the proposals. This consultation document has been produced to support those discussions.”. So you launched a ‘consultation exercise’ targeting those with financial interests in the regulatory approval of vaccines, ignoring the general public, and ignoring Parliament. You even go further than that in saying that these people are “generally used to discussing draft legislation without having all of the detail explained”. In other words, they’re yes-men, who will agree to whatever you do, provided it enables the production and sale of their vaccines

The abuse of Statutory Instruments has already been made clear by the Speaker of the House of Commons. To my mind, wherever the government has exceeded its powers in introducing major legislation under the device of ‘Statutory Instruments’, that new legislation should be considered null and void. Whether the courts will agree with that remains to be seen, but I think the people will. Removing or diminishing the regulatory safeguards in the approval of vaccines is major legislation, and this seems to me to be a gross abuse of power.

My MP wrote to me saying, “In July, a Center For Countering Digital Hate poll revealed that over 1/3 of UK adults would refuse a COVID-19 vaccine”. The deregulation of the vaccine supply will undoubtedly result in a dramatic rise in the numbers of people refusing a COVID-19 vaccine. This legislation applies not only to COVID-19, but also to flu. The idea that my grandchildren will receive an annual flu jab with an unregulated vaccine just fills me with horror.

The government is holding Parliament and the people in contempt.

Ian Fantom. MSc