SOUTH Hams MP Dr Sarah Wollaston has voiced her outrage at Government 'attempts to suppress' important research relating to minimum unit pricing on alcohol.

The local MP says it is 'a disgrace' that a report detailing the impact minimum unit pricing would have, was only published on the day that the Government released a statement ditching minimum unit pricing.

Dr Wollaston tweeted on Wednesday morning: 'It is a disgrace that this report was suppressed until the day of the statement ditching MUP.

'We now expect Pharma to stop suppressing inconvenient data from drug trials . . . same should have applied to timely publication of that report.'

The report was compiled by The University of Sheffield, which looked at the ban on below cost selling policy and compares the potential impact of this against a 45p minimum unit price. A British Medical Journal feature looking into the U-turn made by the Gover-nment on minimum unit pricing, claims that two papers, 'refuting the lack of "concrete evidence" for minimum pricing and damning the alternative as worthless, were with the Government but embargoed until after Jeremy Browne's statement'.

In the feature, which Dr Wollaston claims reveals 'the shabby truth', she asks: 'Who stopped (the papers) being published and why was it that people like me couldn't get an advance copy in time to make the case in parliament?

She describes the decision to scrap the minimum unit pricing policy as 'absolutely shameful'.

'Why is it that a publicly funded institution like Sheffield was able to be intimidated into not publishing its data?' the MP asks.

'We should know exactly what was said to them and, if pressure was put on them, exactly who put that pressure on them.'

She added: 'Why on earth did a publicly funded academic body like Sheffield agree to delay publication of research which clearly refuted Government claims?' At a time when transparency and open data rightly stressed by govt for others, (they) should practice what they preach.'