Drug industry payments to groups of influential MPs—“the next great parliamentary scandal?”

MPs and peers must act urgently to avert potential scandal from drug industry payments and connections to parliamentary interest groups, researchers have said.

A new study of pharmaceutical firms’ dealings with All Party Parliamentary Groups (APPGs) has flagged fresh concerns over transparency and “disjointed disclosure” mechanisms.

The report, Into the Web, by the privately owned Patient Experience Library and which was supported by funding from the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust, was published alongside a new online tool to help the public identify and track links between APPGs and industry.12

Experts said the findings strengthened the case for the UK to introduce new “sunshine legislation” that would legally require full disclosure of all recipients of industry payments, with data made fully accessible to the public.

APPGs are informal cross-party groups set up by and for MPs and peers to cover topics of interest. They have no official status in parliament but seek to influence and discuss policy.

Many groups choose to involve individuals and organisations from outside of parliament for dialogue, including representatives from industry. On health there are groups for a range of matters including autism, dementia, and obesity.3

But researchers and …