Covid-19 Inquiry Module 4 Report: Government Response

Rupert Lowe Excerpts

Tuesday 27th October 2026 Westminster Hall

[Rupert Lowe (Great Yarmouth) (Restore Britain)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stuart.

The covid lockdowns were the darkest period in recent British history, bar none. Our freedoms were stripped away in ways most of us never imagined possible. Alongside all that came extraordinary pressure on millions of people to take the covid vaccine. There was pressure from politicians, employers, media institutions—everything, everywhere. For some, refusing meant losing their livelihood. They did it anyway.

We were told to trust the science, but science is not a commandment; it is a process of questioning, testing and challenging evidence. When a Government ask millions of healthy people to undergo an unproven medical intervention with unwanted consequences, scrutiny should increase.

Covid posed very different risks to different people. A vulnerable elderly person faced a very different calculation from a healthy 25-year-old. In fact, they could not have been more different. The 25-year-old was at no risk whatever—they were more likely to drown to death than have serious issues with covid—yet so much of the messaging treated vaccination as though it were the same decision for everyone. Why? Why were people asking questions treated with such hostility, and why were people who refused a medical intervention made to feel like social pariahs?

I am particularly concerned about children. For the overwhelming majority, the risk of severe covid illness was non-existent. It was a cold; there was no threat at all. Let us remember that the roll-out to teenagers was forced through against the advice of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, which originally declined to recommend a mass roll-out for younger teens.

The facts are quite clear. We do know that cases of myocarditis and pericarditis occurred following covid vaccinations, particularly among adolescent and young adult males. Millions of healthy young men and women should never have been forced to take that vaccination, and those responsible for that decision must be held accountable. Informed consent is the only way.

Then there was Nadhim Zahawi, the Conservative Government’s Vaccines Minister at the time, who now speaks for Reform UK. He stated that children aged 12 to 15 could receive the covid vaccine even where their parents objected. A 12-year-old could take the vaccination against their parents’ wishes. Think about that—12 years old.

Then came vaccine passports, also forced through by Reform UK’s Zahawi. I found the entire concept morally repugnant. The state making access to ordinary parts of life dependent on someone disclosing their medical status was criminal. That is not how a free country should operate. I did not take the covid vaccine. I did not want it, need it or take it. That decision cost me money and affected my travel, and I lost some friends. It made my life considerably more difficult, but I do not regret it for one moment.

This debate cannot end with another speech about how badly things were handled. We all know that. There must be accountability. By law, the inquiry cannot decide whether anyone is liable for what went wrong. That responsibility now rests with Government, regulators and, where necessary, the courts. The inquiry itself recognised the heavy cost of lockdowns, even if it criticised how decisions were made. That is exactly why there must be a full, honest reckoning of their true costs and benefits, as well as of the treatment of care home residents.

Questions about pandemic censorship and conflicts of interest demand answers too. Who decided which questions the public were allowed to ask and who profited from the answers? Those are questions that any healthy democracy should ask. The Government have accepted that the reform is needed, but they have offered no timetable and no detail. Those who have been injured by those vaccines cannot be left waiting any longer. The scheme needs an overhaul. Nobody can be above the law.

Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency

Rupert Lowe Excerpts

Thursday 16th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Rupert Lowe (Great Yarmouth) (Reform)]

I should start by alerting people to my declared interests relating to the pharmaceutical industry.

All of us familiar with the growth of the quango will be aware of how these unelected, unaccountable organisations have come to control and dominate British public life—not us, the democratically elected Members, but the quangos. Failure is rewarded and never punished. No organisation encapsulates that point as comprehensively as the MHRA. Its role is essentially to ensure that medicines and medical devices are safe and effective—where have we heard those words before? How can it possibly be trusted to regulate properly when it is funded largely by the companies it is tasked with regulating? It is simply human nature for a conflict like this to impact on the decision-making process.

The biggest challenge in the MHRA’s history was the covid response, and it failed. It enabled the biggest assault on civil liberties and economic prosperity in my lifetime, which was lockdown—the greatest scandal of them all. It was, quite simply, the most disgraceful period of recent history. The MHRA’s insistence on vaccines for all enabled lockdown restrictions to continue for as long as they did. It must take part responsibility for the consequences: vast NHS backlogs, mental health issues rife, soaring alcohol-related deaths, obesity booming, children’s development wrecked, long-term illnesses mounting, increased substance abuse, domestic violence on the rise, unnoticed child neglect, fathers missing the birth of their children and elderly loved ones left to rot and die alone. We were not even allowed to mourn the dead properly. The wicked list is endless.

None of it was based on any science, and certainly not the vaccination of almost the entire population—including, disgracefully, young children. This was a hideous dereliction of duty by the MHRA. It was not just children it forced the covid vaccination on, but tens of millions of people who had absolutely no need for it whatsoever. There was clear risk from taking the vaccine—not just the initial two doses, but the booster following them. The evidence for the vaccine was simply not there, particularly considering that by that stage, almost the entire population had actually caught the virus, which gave far more effective natural protection than any man-made intervention. The MHRA knew that, but it failed to act. Why? Was it under political pressure not to undermine the wretched covid response? Had it been honest about the real need—or lack thereof—for population-wide vaccinations, the whole case for lockdown would have collapsed.

As of 4 November, there had been 489,991 adverse reaction reports from covid-19 vaccines in the UK. Those are just the reported issues. What is the true number? When individual after individual reports feeling far worse after taking the vaccine than they ever did after the virus, should we not question whether that vaccination was necessary? The MHRA failed. This was simply not a vaccine that was needed by the entire population.

We were fed the lie that taking the jab would protect vulnerable loved ones, which was disgraceful dishonesty. The vaccine did not prevent transmission—we know that now, and we knew that then. It should always have been a fully free and informed choice. If an elderly man in his 90s believes that the virus poses more of a threat than the vaccine, then let him take it. For almost everyone under 70, that is a risk analysis that falls firmly in the camp of not having the vaccine. Don’t even get me started on the abhorrent vaccine passport policy—one of the most evil policies devised by Government in living memory.

The MHRA should have provided full and transparent data so that educated adults could make their own decisions for themselves and for their families. It must act as an independent barrier against both political expedience and corporate profit, protecting public health above all else.

The question is: who regulates the regulator? Who protects against regulatory capture? How did the MHRA allow politicians, celebrities and even its own agency to describe these vaccines as safe and effective, when yellow card data clearly showed it is not universally safe and certainly not universally effective? How could MHRA CEO June Raine say she had transformed the MHRA from a watchdog to an “enabler” of the pharmaceutical industry—an oxymoron for a watchdog that is meant to safeguard public health? It is Parliament’s duty now to exercise its sovereign power to ensure that we learn from the myriad of mistakes.

[Several hon. Members rose—]