A Labour MP has been forced to apologise and delete a series of tweets that falsely accused a Tory minister and his family of jumping the queue for the coronavirus vaccine.

Dr Rosena Allin-Khan made the public allegation against Nadhim Zahawi on Twitter on Saturday evening despite acknowledging she had only heard “rumours” and did not know if it was true.

She added: “In really hope it’s not, unless you meet the necessary criteria. There are millions of vulnerable people waiting patiently in the queue.”

She later pleaded with people to “avoid throwing unnecessary attacks” at Zahawi who is the minister in charge of the Covid vaccine rollout in the UK.

A later tweet which was also deleted, apologised for causing a “pile on”.

But in the early hours of Sunday morning, Dr Allin-Khan was forced to issue an apology to Zahawi and his family for “sharing unsubstantiated claims”

Zahawi acknowledged the apology and reiterated that the claims were “not true”.

He added: “We all need to work together to beat this awful disease.”

Elsewhere, batches of the newly approved coronavirus vaccine from Oxford University and AstraZeneca have started arriving at hospitals ahead of the jab’s rollout.

Some 530,000 doses of the vaccine will be available for rollout across the UK from Monday, with vulnerable groups already identified as the priority for immunisation.

One of the first hospitals to take delivery of a batch on Saturday morning was the Princess Royal Hospital in Haywards Heath, part of Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust, PA Media reports.

Dr George Findlay, chief medical officer and deputy chief executive at the trust, said the vaccination programme gives NHS staff “more confidence” coming into work.