Liz Truss meetings with hard-Brexit group deleted from public register

Trade secretary held talks with Institute for Economic Affairs that were on transparency register until being reclassified as personal

Recent meetings between Liz Truss, the UK trade secretary, and a pro-hard Brexit thinktank have been reclassified as personal discussions, removing them from the public record and sparking Labour allegations that she wants to conceal the group's influence on public policy.

Two meetings with Truss and the Institute of Economic Affairs had originally been included in quarterly transparency data published on the government's website and described as discussing trade. They were removed on Wednesday with a note explaining they were personal meetings - the first such revision since the department was created in 2016.