Trends in Excess Deaths

Andrew Bridgen Excerpts

Friday 20th October 2023 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Reclaim)]

We have experienced more excess deaths since July 2021 than in the whole of 2020. Unlike during the pandemic, however, those deaths are not disproportionately of the old. In other words, the excess deaths are striking down people in the prime of life, but no one seems to care. I fear that history will not judge this House kindly. Worse still, in a country supposedly committed to the free and frank exchange of views, it appears that no one cares that no one cares. Well, I care, Mr Deputy Speaker, and I credit those Members in attendance today, who also care. I thank the hon. Member for Lincoln (Karl MᶜCartney) for his support, and I am sorry that he could not attend the debate.

It has taken a lot of effort, and more than 20 rejections, to be allowed to raise this topic, but at last we are here to discuss the number of people dying. Nothing could be more serious. Numerous countries are currently gripped in a period of unexpected mortality, and no one wants to talk about it. It is quite normal for death numbers to fluctuate up and down by chance alone, but what we are seeing here is a pattern repeated across countries, and the rise has not let up.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

I commend the hon. Member for the tenacious way in which he has battled on this issue; I admire him for that. I wonder where he found the media were in all this. During the covid pandemic, every day the media—particularly the BBC—could not wait to tell us how many people had died on that particular day, without any context for those figures whatsoever, but they seem to have gone strangely quiet over excess deaths now.

[Andrew Bridgen]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. He is absolutely right: the media have let the British public down badly. There will be a full press pack going out to all media outlets following my speech, with all the evidence to back up all the claims I will make, but I do not doubt that there will be no mention of it in the mainstream media.

One might think that a debate about excess deaths would be full of numbers, but this speech does not contain many numbers, because most of the important numbers are being kept hidden. Other data has been oddly presented in a distorted way, and concerned people seeking to highlight important findings and ask questions have found themselves inexplicably under attack.

Before debating excess deaths, it is important to understand how excess deaths are determined. To understand whether there is an excess, by definition, we need to estimate how many deaths would have been expected. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development uses 2015 to 2019 as a baseline, and the Government’s Office for Health Improvement and Disparities uses a 2015 to 2019 baseline, modelled to allow for ageing. I have used that data here. Unforgivably, the Office for National Statistics has included deaths in 2021 as part of its baseline calculation for expected deaths, as if there was anything normal about the deaths in 2021. By exaggerating the number of deaths expected, the number of excess deaths can be minimised. Why would the ONS want to do that?

There is just too much that we do not know, and it is not good enough. The ONS publishes promptly each week the number of deaths registered. While that is commendable, it is not the data point that really matters. There is a total failure to collect, never mind publish, data on deaths that are referred for investigation to the coroner. Why does that matter? A referral means that it can be many months—or, given the backlog, many years—before a death is formally registered. Needing to investigate the cause of a death is fair enough, but failing to record when the death happened is not.

Because of that problem, we have no idea how many people died in 2021, even now. The problem is greatest for the younger age groups, where a higher proportion of deaths are investigated. This data failure is unacceptable and must change. There is nothing in a coroner’s report that can bring anyone back from the dead, and those deaths should be reported. The youngest age groups are important not only because they should have their whole lives ahead of them. If there is a new cause of excess mortality across the board, it would not be noticed so much in the older cohorts, because the extra deaths would be drowned out among the expected deaths. However, in the youngest cohorts, that is not the case.

There were nearly two extra deaths a day in the second half of 2021 among 15 to 19-year-old males, but potentially even more if those referred to the coroner were fully included. In a judicial review of the decision to vaccinate yet younger children, the ONS refused in court to give anonymised details about those deaths. It admitted that the data it was withholding was statistically significant. It said:

“the ONS recognises that more work could be undertaken to examine the mortality rates of young people in 2021, and intends to do so once more reliable data are available.”

How many more extra deaths in 15 to 19-year-olds will it take to trigger such work? Surely the ONS should be desperately keen to investigate deaths in young men. Why else do we have an independent body charged with examining mortality data? Surely the ONS has a responsibility to collect data from coroners to produce timely information.

Let us move on to old people. Most deaths in the old are registered promptly, and we have a better feel for how many older people are dying. Deaths from dementia and Alzheimer’s show what we ought to expect: there was a period of high mortality coinciding with covid and lockdowns, but ever since, there have been fewer deaths than expected. After a period of high mortality, we expect and historically have seen a period of low mortality, because those who have sadly died cannot die again.

Those whose deaths were slightly premature because of covid and lockdowns died earlier than they otherwise would have. That principle should hold true for every cause of death and every age group, but that is not what we are seeing. Even for the over-85-year-olds, according to the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities, there were 8,000 excess deaths—4% above the expected levels—for the 12 months starting in July 2020. That includes all of the autumn 2020 wave of covid when we had tiering and the second lockdown and all of the first covid winter. However, for the year starting July 2022, there were more than 18,000 excess deaths in this age group—9% above expected levels. That is more than twice as many in a period when there should have been a deficit and when deaths from diseases previously associated with old age were fewer than expected. I have raised my concerns about NG163 and the use of midazolam and morphine, which may have caused—and may still be causing—premature deaths in the vulnerable, but that is, sadly, a debate for another day.

There were just over 14,000 excess deaths in the under 65-year-olds before vaccination from April 2020 to the end of March 2021. However, since that time, there have been more than 21,000 excess deaths, ignoring the registration delay problem, and the majority of those deaths—58% of them—were not attributed to covid. We turned society upside down before vaccination for fear of excess deaths from covid, but today we have substantially more excess deaths, and in younger people, and there is a complete eerie silence. The evidence is unequivocal. There was a clear stepwise increase in mortality following the vaccine roll-out. There was a reprieve in the winter of 2021-22 because there were fewer than expected respiratory deaths, but otherwise the excess has been incessantly at this high level.

Ambulance data for England provides another clue. Ambulance calls for life- threatening emergencies were running at a steady 2,000 calls a day until the vaccine roll-out. From then, they rose to 2,500 daily, and calls have stayed at that level since. The surveillance systems designed to spot a safety problem have all flashed red, but no one is looking. Claims for personal independence payments from people who have developed a disability and cannot work rocketed with the vaccine roll-out and have continued to rise ever since. The same was seen in the US, which also started with the vaccine roll-out, not with covid. A study to determine the vaccination status of a sample of such claimants would be relatively quick and inexpensive to perform, yet nobody seems interested in ascertaining this vital information. Officials have chosen to turn a blind eye to this disturbing, irrefutable and frightening data, much like Nelson did—and for far less honourable reasons. He would be ashamed of us.

Furthermore, data that has been used to sing the praises of the vaccine is deeply flawed. Only one covid-related death was prevented in each of the initial major trials that led to authorisation of the vaccines, and that is taking the data entirely at face value, whereas a growing number of inconsistencies and anomalies suggest that we ought not to do this. Extrapolating from that means that between 15,000 and 20,000 people had to be injected to prevent a single death from covid. To prevent a single covid hospitalisation, more than 1,500 people needed to be injected. The trial data showed that one in 800 injected people had a serious, adverse event, meaning that they were hospitalised or had a life-threatening or life-changing condition. The risk of this was twice as high as the chance of preventing a covid hospitalisation. We are harming one in 800 people to supposedly save one in 20,000. That is madness.

The strongest claims have too often been based on modelling carried out on the basis of flawed assumptions. Where observational studies have been carried out, researchers will correct for age and comorbidities to make the vaccines look better. However, they never correct for socioeconomic or ethnic differences as that would make vaccines look worse. That matters. For example, claims of higher mortality in less vaccinated regions of the United States took no account of the fact that this was the case before the vaccines were rolled out. That is why studies that claim to show that the vaccines prevented covid deaths also showed a marked effect of them preventing non-covid deaths. The prevention of non-covid deaths was always a statistical illusion and claims of preventing covid deaths should not be assumed when that illusion has not been corrected for. When it is corrected for, the claims of efficacy for the vaccines vanish with it.

Covid disproportionately killed people from ethnic minorities and lower socioeconomic groups during the pandemic. In 2020, deaths among the most deprived were up by 23% compared with 17% for the least deprived. However, since 2022 the pattern has reversed, with 5% excess mortality among the most deprived compared with 7% among the least deprived. These deaths are being caused by something different.

In 2020, the excess was highest in the oldest cohorts, and there were fewer than expected deaths among younger age groups. However, since 2022, the 50 to 64-year-old cohort has had the highest excess mortality. Even the youngest age groups are now seeing a substantial excess, with a 9% excess in the under-50s since 2022 compared with 5% in the over-75 group.

Despite London being a younger region, the excess in London is only 3%, whereas it is higher in every more heavily vaccinated region of the UK. It should be noted that London is famously the least vaccinated region in the UK by some margin. Studies comparing regions on a larger scale show the same thing. Studies from the Netherlands, Germany and the whole world each show that the highest mortality after vaccination was seen in the most heavily vaccinated regions.

So we need to ask: what are people dying of? Since 2022, there has been an 11% excess in ischemic heart disease deaths and a 16% excess in heart failure deaths. In the meantime, cancer deaths are only 1% above expected levels, which is further evidence that this is not simply some other factor that affects deaths across the board, such as failing to account for an ageing population or a failing NHS. In fact, the excess itself has a seasonality, with a peak in the winter months. The fact that it returns to baseline levels in summer is a further indication that this is not due to some statistical error or an ageing population alone.

Dr Clare Craig from HART—the Health Advisory & Recovery Team—first highlighted a stepwise increase in cardiac arrest calls after the vaccine roll-out in May 2021. HART has repeatedly raised concerns about the increase in cardiac deaths, and it has every reason to be concerned. Four participants in the vaccine group of the Pfizer trial died from cardiac arrest compared with only one in the placebo group. Overall, there were 21 deaths in the vaccine group up to March 2021, compared with 17 in the placebo group. There are serious anomalies about the reporting of deaths in this trial, with the deaths in the vaccine group taking much longer to report than those in the placebo group. That is highly suggestive of a significant bias in what was supposed to be a blinded trial.

An Israeli study clearly showed that an increase in cardiac hospital attendances among 18 to 39-year-olds correlated with vaccination, not with covid. There have now been several post-mortem studies demonstrating a causal link between vaccination and coronary artery disease leading to death up to four months after the last dose. We need to remember that the safety trial was cut short to only two months, so there is no evidence of any vaccine safety beyond that point. The decision to unblind the trials after two months and vaccinate the placebo group is nothing less than a public health scandal. Everyone involved failed in their duty to the truth, but no one cares.

The one place that can help us understand exactly what has caused this is Australia, which had almost no covid when vaccines were first introduced, making it the perfect control group. The state of South Australia had only 1,000 cases of covid across its whole population by December 2021, before omicron arrived. What was the impact of vaccination there? For 15 to 44-year-olds, there were historically 1,300 emergency cardiac presentations a month. With the vaccine roll-out to the under-50s, this rocketed to over 2,172 cases in November 2021 in this age group alone, which was 67% more than usual. Overall, 17,900 South Australians had a cardiac emergency in 2021 compared with only 13,250 in 2018, which is a 35% increase. The vaccine must clearly be the No. 1 suspect for this, and it cannot be dismissed as a coincidence. Australian mortality overall has increased from early 2021, and that increase is due to cardiac deaths.

These excess deaths are not due to an ageing population, because there are fewer deaths from the diseases of old age. These deaths are not an effect of covid, because they have happened in places that covid had not reached. They are not due to low statin prescriptions or undertreated hypertension, as Chris Whitty would suggest, because prescriptions did not change, and any effect would have taken many years and been very small. The prime suspect must be something that was introduced to the population as a whole, something novel. The prime hypothesis must be the experimental covid-19 vaccines.

The ONS published a dataset of deaths by vaccinated and unvaccinated. At first glance, it appears to show that the vaccines are safe and effective. However, there were several huge problems with how it presented that data. One was that for the first three-week period after injection, the ONS claimed that there were only a tiny number of deaths—the number the ONS would normally predict to occur in a single week. Where were the deaths from the usual causes? When that was raised, the ONS claimed that the sickest people did not get vaccinated and therefore the people who were vaccinated were self-selecting for those least likely to die. Not only was that not the case in the real world, with even hospices heavily vaccinating their residents, but the ONS’s own data show that the proportion of sickest people was equal in the vaccinated and the unvaccinated groups. That inevitably raises serious questions about the ONS’s data presentation. There were so many problems with the methodology used by the ONS that the statistics regulator agreed that the ONS data could not be used to assess vaccine efficacy or safety. That tells us something about the ONS.

Consequently, HART asked the UK Health Security Agency to provide the data it had on people who had died and therefore needed to be removed from its vaccination dataset. That request has been repeatedly refused, with excuses given including the false claim that anonymising the data would be the equivalent of creating it even though there is case law that anonymisation is not considered the creation of new data. I believe that if this data was released, it would be damning.

Some claim that so many lives have been saved by mass vaccination that any amount of harm, suffering and death caused by the vaccines is a price worth paying. They are delusional. The claim of 20 million lives saved is based on now discredited models which assume that covid waves do not peak without intervention. There have been numerous waves globally now that demonstrate that is not the case. It was also based on there having been more than half a million lives saved in the UK. That is more than the worst-case scenario predicted at the beginning of the pandemic. For the claim to have been true, the rate at which covid killed people would have had to take off dramatically at the beginning of 2021 in the absence of vaccination. That is ludicrous and it bears no relation to the truth.

In the real world, Australia, New Zealand and South Korea had a mortality rate of 400 deaths per million up to summer 2022 after they were first hit with omicron. How does that compare? With the Wuhan strain, France and Europe as a whole had a mortality rate of under 400 deaths per million up to summer 2020. Australia, New Zealand and South Korea were all heavily vaccinated before infection, so tell me: where was the benefit? The UK had just over 800 deaths per million up to summer 2020, so twice as much, but we know omicron is half as deadly as the Wuhan variant. The death rates per million are the same before and after vaccination, so where were the benefits of vaccination?

The regulators have failed in their duty to protect the public. They allowed these novel products to skip crucial safety testing by letting them be described as vaccines. They failed to insist on safety testing being done in the years since the first temporary emergency authorisation. Even now, no one can tell us how much spike protein is produced on vaccination and for how long—yet another example of where there is no data for me to share with the House.

When it comes to properly recording deaths due to vaccination, the system is broken. Not a single doctor registered a death from a rare brain clot before doctors in Scandinavia forced the issue and the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency acknowledged the problem. Only then did these deaths start to be certified by doctors in the UK. It turns out the doctors were waiting for permission from the regulator and the regulator was waiting to be alerted by the doctors. This is a lethal circularity. Furthermore, coroners have written regulation 28 reports highlighting deaths from vaccination to prevent further deaths, yet the MHRA said in response to a freedom of information request that it had not received any of them. The systems we have in place are clearly not functioning to protect the public.

The regulators also missed the fact that in the Pfizer trial, the vaccine was made for the trial participants in a highly controlled environment, in stark contrast to the manufacturing process used for the public roll-out, which was based on a completely different technology. Just over 200 participants were given the same product that was given to the public, but not only was the data from these people never compared to those in the trial for efficacy and safety but the MHRA has admitted that it dropped the requirement to provide the data. That means that there was never a trial on the Pfizer product that was actually rolled out to the public, and that product has never been compared with the product that was actually trialled.

The vaccine mass production processes use vats of Escherichia coli and present a risk of contamination with DNA from the bacteria, as well as bacterial cell walls, which can cause dangerous reactions. This is not theoretical; this is now sound evidence that has been replicated by several labs across the world. The mRNA vaccines were contaminated by DNA, which far exceeded the usual permissible levels. Given that this DNA is enclosed in a lipid nanoparticle delivery system, it is arguable that even the permissible levels would have been far too high. These lipid nanoparticles are known to enter every organ of the body. As well as this potentially causing some of the acute adverse reactions that have been seen, there is a serious risk of this foreign bacterial DNA inserting itself into human DNA. Will anybody investigate? No, they won’t.

[Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way; I am conscious that time is tight. I recognise that he is making a very powerful case. Does he agree that the Government should be looking at this properly and should commission a review into the excess deaths, partly so that we can reassure our constituents that the case he is making is not in fact valid and that the vaccines are not the cause behind these excess deaths?

[Andrew Bridgen]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his support on this topic. Of course that is exactly what any responsible Government should do. I wrote to the Prime Minister on 7 August 2023 with all the evidence of this, but sadly I am still awaiting a response.

What will it take to stop these products? Their complete failure to stop infections was not enough; we all know plenty of vaccinated people who have caught and spread covid. The mutation of the virus to a weaker variant—omicron—was not enough, the increasing evidence of the serious harms to those of us who were vaccinated was not enough, and now the cardiac deaths and the deaths of young people are apparently not enough either.

It is high time that these experimental vaccines were suspended and a full investigation into the harms that they have caused was initiated. History will be a harsh judge if we do not start using evidence-based medicine. We need to return to basic science and basic ethics immediately, which means listening to all voices and investigating all concerns.

In conclusion, the experimental covid-19 vaccines are not safe and are not effective. Despite there being only limited interest in the Chamber from colleagues—I am very grateful to those who have attended—we can see from the Public Gallery that there is considerable public interest. I implore all Members of the House, those who are present and those who are not, to support calls for a three-hour debate on this important issue. Mr Deputy Speaker, this might be the first debate on excess deaths in our Parliament—indeed, it might be the first debate on excess deaths in the world—but, very sadly, I promise you it will not be the last.

Covid-19 Vaccine Damage Payments Bill

Andrew Bridgen Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 20th October 2023 Commons Chamber

[Abena Oppong-Asare (Erith and Thamesmead) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) on securing Second Reading of the Bill. I thank the right hon. Member for Tatton (Esther McVey) and the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) for participating in the debate. I have listened attentively to the issues they raise.

I will begin by setting out Labour’s position on the matter. We believe that the covid-19 vaccine is safe and effective. It has saved countless lives, not only in Britain but across the globe. Over the course of the pandemic, over 230,000 people across the UK died with covid-19. Therefore, it is important we do not understate that getting a vaccination has been, and continues to be, the single most effective way to reduce deaths and severe illness from covid-19.

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Reclaim)]

rose— Members from across the House will be aware that all vaccines go through extensive and ongoing testing procedures. The covid-19 vaccines went through multiple stages of clinical trials before being approved. [Interruption.] The vaccine has met strict independent standards for safety, quality and effectiveness.

[Andrew Bridgen]

On that point, will the hon. Lady give way?

[Abena Oppong-Asare]

I will not.

Post Office Compensation

Andrew Bridgen Excerpts

Monday 18th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I thank the hon. Lady for her work in this area, from both the Front Bench and the Back Benches. She is right to say that it has been a long and arduous process for those postmasters. That is one reason we brought forward this scheme, because we do not want the compensation process to be long and arduous. We hope to deliver all compensation by our August 2024 deadline, but we are keen to deliver compensation before that. This scheme will be a new way to try to accelerate the process. As I have said before from the Dispatch Box, we will not let an arbitrary date get in the way of paying somebody fair compensation. It is important to say that.

The public inquiry is independent; we do not put pressure on it to hear things within certain timescales, and Sir Wyn Williams is more than capable of making sure that people give evidence in good time. For me, and I think for others in this House, this is not just about lessons learned. If we can identify people who were responsible for this scandal, they should be held to account.

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Reclaim)]

Within weeks of being elected to this House in 2010 I had a meeting with my constituents, Mr and Mrs Rudkin, and was told how they had been treated at the Post Office, and the huge miscarriage of justice. I was delighted when Mrs Rudkin was one of the first nine to have her criminal conviction overturned—back in December 2021, I think—but it is clear that hundreds have not had their convictions overturned yet and are not able to claim the compensation. For them, the misery will go on. To anyone in this House who thinks that they are guilty—they are not. The clear evidence is there in the paperwork. The Post Office relied on the fact that it maintained in court that no one could alter those sub-postmasters’ computers remotely without them knowing about it, but we know from the evidence that Fujitsu was doing it day after day, fixing problems in the Horizon system. Therefore, all those convictions are unsafe. Let us get on, get them the compensation they deserve and bring this sorry episode to an end.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

We absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman. I thank him for all his efforts on behalf of Mr and Mrs Rudkin and others. Clearly, his role in the campaign has brought the issue to light and got us towards a position where we will get justice quicker. Of course, we want to ensure that the convictions on the basis of Horizon evidence are overturned. Sadly, we cannot do that without people coming forward, so the united call from this House to the probably 520 people who have not yet come forward is this: please come forward; if your conviction is unsafe, it will be overturned, and compensation, which we are keen to pay out quickly, will be waiting for you.

Post Office Horizon IT Scandal: Compensation

Andrew Bridgen Excerpts

Tuesday 18th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Hollinrake]

The hon. Gentleman raises an interesting point, as does Sir Wyn Williams, and we are looking at that recommendation carefully. It is our intention that everybody who has been affected by this is fully and fairly compensated, and we will look at any further issues that might get in the way of that. We are keen to resolve those kinds of issues.

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Reclaim)]

I have been involved in the investigation into the Post Office Horizon scandal since my arrival in this House back in 2010, representing my constituents Mr and Mrs Rudkin. By 2014, following the investigation by Ron Warmington of forensic accountants Second Sight and his evidence, I knew that they had been wrongly convicted. The right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) knew and had evidence that they had been wrongly convicted. The Post Office had evidence that they had been wrongly convicted. Importantly, the Government had evidence that they had been wrongly convicted. Will the Minister explain why, more than nine years after we all knew they were innocent, they are still waiting for full, fair compensation and closure on this issue? They are the real victims in all this—the sub-postmasters.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

We certainly agree with that, and we should leave it to the Williams inquiry to establish who knew what when, and what could have been done earlier, and hold those people to account. Getting wider compensation out to those affected is the No. 1 priority, and the why, who and when is a secondary point to ensuring that people are fairly compensated. That is the No. 1 thing on my agenda, and I thank the hon. Gentleman for all his work on this issue over a number of years.

Vaccine Damage Payments Act 1979

Andrew Bridgen Excerpts

Friday 24th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

I welcome to the Front Bench the Minister who will respond to the debate, with whom I had a meeting earlier today. During the course of that meeting, she kindly agreed to come to an early meeting of the all-party parliamentary group on covid-19 vaccine damage, which I have the privilege of chairing. At that meeting we will have representatives of victims of vaccine damage. However, as I emphasised to my hon. Friend, we will not have people there who are actively engaged in litigation, because that would be inappropriate.

This debate is about the application of the Vaccine Damage Payments Act 1979 to those who have been bereaved or suffered adverse reactions to covid-19 vaccines. The Act was extended to apply to such vaccines before they were rolled out, but it is now abundantly clear that the Act is totally inadequate for addressing the needs of most of those who have been adversely affected.

On Wednesday this week, the Prime Minister told my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Sir Jeremy Wright):

“We are taking steps to reform vaccine damage payment schemes, by modernising the operations and providing more timely outcomes”.—[Official Report, 22 March 2023; Vol. 730, c. 330.]

The Prime Minister did not answer or even refer to my right hon. and learned Friend’s requests that the Government should change the £120,000 maximum payment for those seriously injured and end the denial of any payment to those disabled by less than 60%. That was despite the Prime Minister having received notice of my right hon. and learned Friend’s question, and the fact that both he and I had raised the same points with the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care weeks ago.

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Ind)]

I commend my hon. Friend for his work on this issue. Has he had time to consider the paper produced this week by the Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, which found a strongly significant correlation between covid-19 vaccine uptake in 2021 and excess deaths in the first nine months of 2022 across the European Union and the European economic area? In fact, the correlation was so strong that it could be stated that for every 1% increase in vaccination rates in 2021, there was a 0.1% increase in mortality in 2022.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

I did notice that document, because it was drawn to my attention by my hon. Friend. May I suggest to him that he tries to engage the good offices of our right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark), who is the Chair of the Science and Technology Committee? I am delighted to see him in his place this afternoon, because I know that this issue is close to his heart as well.

The Minister confirmed to me earlier that the Government’s answer to both those questions that my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam put to the Prime Minister is no. It is rather sad that that is so, and it is regrettable that the Prime Minister did not put that on the record himself.

This month, we have already discussed in this House the scandal surrounding the supply of contaminated blood and the false imprisonment of postmasters as a result of the Horizon system. In both cases, after long resistance, the Government were eventually forced into accepting compensation schemes. If they are interested in tackling the developing scandal over covid-19 vaccine damage victims, they can and must act now.

I fear, however, that the Government have no will so to do, because they are still in denial about the whole issue. Why do I use that expression? I do so because at a meeting on 21 April last year, I asked the then vaccines Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Erewash (Maggie Throup), whether she accepted that some people had died as a direct result of having received the covid-19 vaccination. She declined to answer the question at the meeting and said that she would write to me. She did not do so, so I then had to put down a parliamentary written question—UIN 2325. She ducked that question.

I will therefore ask the same question again to the Minister today, my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Maria Caulfield), bearing in mind that we now know that more than 50 coroners’ verdicts have confirmed that people have died as a direct result of covid-19 vaccines, and that her Department has been making awards under the 1979 Act to families who have been bereaved on the basis that their loved ones died as a direct result. Will the Government therefore unequivocally say today that they do accept that some people have died as a direct result of having received a covid-19 vaccination?

Was it not bizarre that all the Prime Minister could say on Wednesday, when told about Jamie Scott spending four weeks in a coma and remaining seriously disabled as a result of a covid vaccine, was:

“I am very sorry to hear about the case”?

Then, in an extraordinary non sequitur, the Prime Minister added:

“In the extremely rare case of a potential injury from a vaccine covered by the scheme, a one-off payment can be awarded.”—[Official Report, 22 March 2023; Vol. 730, c. 330.]

However, Jamie Scott’s injury is not a potential injury, but a real and substantial one. Nor was it caused by any old vaccine; it was caused by a new experimental covid vaccine.

Sadly, Jamie Scott’s case is not unique. I have received hundreds of distressing letters and emails from both victims and bereaved relatives, who are desperate for the Government and the NHS to listen. Several are from my own constituency. I will quote briefly from one letter, received on 18 March, from a 24-year-old, previously employed in a good job in financial services. He had a Pfizer vaccine booster in February 2022 and says:

“Within days of the dose, I started experiencing nasty symptoms that resembled those of an autoimmune disease. The symptoms include nausea, headaches, skin rashes and other immune issues. Despite numerous Doctors visits, blood tests, X-rays and medicinal prescriptions, Doctors have been unable to help ease symptoms at all. Symptoms have worsened with time and I have been unable to work over the past seven months or so. I have been unable to receive any disability benefits and have been left to use my entire life savings to fund my food and bills.”

An expert rheumatologist has now confirmed the link between my constituent’s symptoms and the Pfizer vaccine. My constituent asks me—and I, in turn, ask the Minister—will the Government admit that there are cases where these vaccines have caused reactions in people? Will they promise to provide further support and research funding for how these conditions can be managed and, hopefully, resolved?

My constituent is but one of so many who have suffered, and continue to suffer, because they did the right thing, on the advice of the Government, and received their jabs. The Express, the first mainstream newspaper to start giving the issue some publicity, began its crusade for justice for jab victims with four pages in one of its editions last week. On 15 March, its leading article, entitled “Injection of faith needed”, spoke for many when it said: “We must take care of the small number of people who suffered side effects as a result of their jabs. Innocent people who have suffered terribly must not be denied the damages they deserve. This is a matter of justice.”

The current situation is that over 4,000 claims have been made under the 1979 Act. Over the past five months, new claims have been running at the rate of 250 per month. Some 2,800 claims remain outstanding, and only a surprisingly and disturbingly small number have so far been successful. I shall now try to shame the Government into action by contrasting their head-in-the-sand approach to vaccine damage victims with what is happening in Germany.

On 12 March, Professor Dr Karl Lauterbach, Germany’s Federal Minister for Health, gave a disarmingly candid interview to the Germany TV news channel ZDF. The Minister is a scientist and physician of note, and had previously been professor of health economics and epidemiology at the University of Cologne and at Harvard. As the adviser to then Chancellor Angela Merkel at the beginning of the covid pandemic, he took a very hard line and publicly said on numerous occasions that the vaccines must be taken and that they were “without side effects”. He has now admitted in that interview that what he said about them being “without side effects” was a gross exaggeration. That is disarmingly frank, is it not?

He conceded that one in 10,000 of those vaccinated against covid-19 in Germany had experienced severe adverse effects. He described these “unfortunate cases” as heartbreaking, confirming that some of the severe disablements will be permanent. He added, “It’s really tragic”. The Minister said that Germany does not yet have drugs for treatment and that care entitlements are defined very narrowly, but he recognised the need to get faster at recognising vaccine injuries as the understanding of adverse events increases. He promised significant extra resources and said that he was in discussions with German Treasury Ministers to address issues around post-vaccine syndrome.

Sadly, our own Government do not even recognise post-vaccine syndrome. I have asked them whether they would report on what has been happening in University Hospital Marburg in Germany, where much work is being done on the diagnosis and treatment of post-vaccination syndrome. I suggested that it might be useful for them to have some discussions with the hospital. In answer to a parliamentary written question on 16 November—UIN 88798—I was told that there are

“no current plans to do so.”

I ask my hon. Friend the Minister to reconsider that position, because it is important that we should get into alignment with Germany, whose health system is much more successful than our own. Germany has moved from wanting to get everybody vaccinated, although that was all done “voluntarily”, to recognising now that it must do its best to look after those for whom the vaccine was bad news.

What has happened over the past two years in Germany is that more than 300,000 cases of vaccine side-effects have accumulated in the Ministry’s own system, and more and more people are lodging compensation claims against the state, which, based on the contracts that Germany signed with the EU manufacturers, is liable for any vaccine-related damage. Meanwhile, the subject of vaccine injuries has begun to be openly discussed in the German mainstream media. Let us hope that we will see a bit of that developing in our own country, because one of the frustrations of the victims of these vaccines is that there seems to be much reluctance in the mainstream media to engage on this issue.

Now we have a situation in which the German Federal Minister of Health is saying, “let’s see if we can get some help from the pharmaceutical companies to voluntarily help compensate those harmed by the vaccines.” He then goes on to say that that is because the profits have been “exorbitant”. Just a year ago, he had said that the pharmaceutical companies would not get rich on the vaccines, but it is one of the privileges of Ministers across the world to be able to eat their words when the facts change.

In my submission, the Government here need to completely change their approach and become much more realistic, accommodating and, dare one say it, compassionate towards those who did the right thing by the public interest and accepted the vaccines.

May I ask my hon. Friend a whole series of questions? It will not be possible for people to follow all of the questions I want to ask, because I do not have time to read out all of them. Are the Government aware of the 2017 case in the Court of Appeal where the Court said that, for VDPS purposes, loss of faculties had no real relationship to the kind of injuries set out in schedule 2 of the relevant statute relating to calculating the percentage of disablement? Schedule 2 calculates physical disability—for example, an amputation below the knee could be calculated at 60%. The Court decision was that that should not be some kind of straitjacket, but it seems that it is being used as a kind of straitjacket in the assessment of covid vaccine claims.

Will the Minister confirm that the Government are following the decision made by the Court of Appeal? Will she also reconsider the amount of the £120,000 payment? Its value has been eroded by inflation since 2007. Can she explain why there are still no plans to align the disablement threshold for the VDPS with that in the England infected blood support scheme, under which it is possible to get £100,000 without any evidence of disability? There does not seem to be any alignment between that scheme and the VDPS.

The Government said that within 56 days of receiving any prevention of future deaths report from a coroner, they would report back on it. The only such report made to the Government relating to this issue was delivered on 13 October. Will my hon. Friend explain why there has still not been a response? In the light of what is happening in Germany, will she agree to set up specialist clinics to look at post-vaccine situations? How many people are now working on vaccine claims, and does she see any prospect of the enormous backlog being reduced quickly?

There are lots of questions there, but they are only a small sample of those that I have. I look forward to members of the APPG raising further questions with the Minister when she comes to our meeting.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Maria Caulfield)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) for securing this important debate. I met him earlier to listen to many of his concerns on the issue. We know that, unfortunately, there have been some rare instances in which individuals have suffered possible harm following a covid-19 vaccination. Of course, my sympathy goes out to them and their families. The Government are keen to help those who feel that they have been affected by this issue; that is why I have agreed to meet the all-party parliamentary group and Members from across the House who have concerns on the issue.

The vaccine damage payment is a one-off, tax-free payment to individuals who have been found, on the balance of probabilities, to have been harmed by any vaccine, including covid vaccines. It was established over 40 years ago, and provides support to those who have experienced severe disablement that could have been, on the balance of probabilities, caused by a vaccine against one of the conditions listed in the legislation. The NHS Business Services Authority took over the scheme in November 2021 to try to improve the process, and speed up the response to and assessment of applicants. Assessments are done on a case-by-case basis by experienced, independent medical assessors, who have undertaken specialised training in vaccine damage and disability assessment. That is partly why the process can take so long. I will touch on the other reasons.

My hon. Friend raised concern about the payment of £120,000. I have listened to his point; indeed, it was raised at Prime Minister’s questions this week. It is important to note that the amount is a one-off, lump-sum payment. It is not designed to cover lifetime costs for those impacted. It is in addition to other support packages, such as statutory sick pay, universal credit, employment and support allowance, attendance allowance and personal independence payments. Also, it has increased since the scheme was put in place; it was just £10,000 in 1979. The amount has been raised several times, the current level having been set in 2007. The amount will be kept under review. I will take away the points that my hon. Friend made in this debate and in our meeting beforehand. As he is aware, a successful claim under the scheme does not preclude individuals from bringing a claim for damages through the courts. There are a number of claims under way, and I cannot comment on those specifically.

My hon. Friend also touched on the 60% disability threshold, which was lowered from the initial 80% threshold in 2002, to remain aligned with the definition of severe disablement set out by the industrial injuries disablement benefit, so that there is consistency across the board. Only 67 of more than 4,000 rejected claims were rejected as not being eligible for the scheme, on the basis of not meeting the 60% disability threshold. Claims are usually rejected for other reasons, so the threshold is not affecting a significant number of claims. We do not see the threshold as a big barrier to those who want to make a claim but, of course, we will keep it under review as the scheme progresses.

The BSA took over the scheme in November 2021, because we found that claims were taking a while. A key issue was getting access to patient records. NHS BSA has done a huge amount of work in that short space of time. On average, it is now taking around six months to process a claim, whereas it was previously taking significantly longer. The BSA has put in place digital modernisation processes that allow for a quicker, easier and faster application process. It has also put in place a strategic research agreement so that patients who make a claim can give consent on application, which enables the team to request the patient’s records from hospitals, GPs and other organisations to be able to determine the claim.

While the new process has bedded in, NHS BSA has introduced quality standards. Although everyone has the right of appeal if their claim is rejected, we want to get it right first time. Making sure those quality assurance processes are in place means that we determine eligible claims first time. The last thing we want is for people to have to appeal because the initial assessment was not correct.

We have also increased staff numbers. The scheme had four members of staff when it sat with the Department for Work and Pensions but, because of the sheer number of claims, more than 80 people are now taking part in the process to assess claims quicker.

I hope I have been able to reassure my hon. Friend, but I will touch on some of the issues around vaccine safety in my remaining couple of minutes. I recognise that he has concerns about the vaccine, and that is why we have instigated further research. There is £110 million going into the National Institute for Health and Care Research to fund covid vaccine research, and that includes vaccine safety and the robust monitoring of adverse events. We have also allocated £1.6 million to researchers at the University of Liverpool, to understand the rare condition of blood clotting with low platelets following vaccination.

[Andrew Bridgen]

Will the Minister answer the question I asked in the Chamber last week? Why has the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency decided to stop publishing updates to the yellow card scheme relating to covid-19 injuries?

[Maria Caulfield]

I am happy to write to the MHRA to get a response for the hon. Gentleman on that point, but I hope he will be reassured that the Government are investing in research on vaccine safety both at the University of Liverpool and at the National Institute for Health and Care Research, because we want to reassure people about the safety of vaccines.

On the VDPS, I want to reassure those making claims that the Government want to support them through the process. I have not touched on it much in my response, but I am keen to reassure those who feel they have suffered and who are struggling to get healthcare for their symptoms that we are looking at this.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Bridgen Excerpts

Thursday 23rd March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Hollinrake]

The hon. Gentleman raises an important case. The UK is a signatory to the OECD’s declaration on international investment and multinational enterprises, a voluntary set of standards intended to promote responsible business conduct worldwide. My Department is the UK’s national contact point on these guidelines, allowing anyone who thinks there are problems to make a complaint, which will then be investigated. I am very happy to work with him on that basis.

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Ind)]

Will my hon. Friend update the House on any recent discussions that he or his Department have had with the Home Office on the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill?

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I regularly meet Home Office colleagues, including this week to make sure this legislation is fit for purpose and will do what it says on the tin: tackle economic crime.

Post Office: Horizon Compensation

Andrew Bridgen Excerpts

Thursday 23rd March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his work as Chair of the Select Committee. There is a clear process in the GLO scheme for a claim being submitted and then settled. There is claims facilitation if a case cannot be settled, and an independent panel following that. Through those processes, there should be a mechanism to get fair compensation. If he has evidence of people who feel they are in the situation that he refers to, I would be keen to meet him to discuss those cases.

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Ind)]

I thank my hon. Friend for his statement. I started campaigning on this issue only weeks after being elected to the House in 2010 when I was approached by two of the victims of this scandal, my constituents Mr and Mrs Rudkin. Thanks to the diligent work of Ron Warmington and his team of forensic accounts at Second Sight, by 2015, I and other Members of this House with an interest, the Post Office and, importantly, the Government were well aware of the overwhelming evidence produced that showed these convictions were at least unsafe and that there had been a huge miscarriage of justice. That was in 2015. Will the Minister tell the House why it has taken a further eight years to get to a position where convictions have been overturned and compensation is now beginning to be paid out to the victims? How will we hold to account those who are responsible for this prolonged injustice against the sub-postmasters?

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I thank my hon. Friend for his work; he is a long-standing campaigner on this issue. He is right to point to the work of Second Sight, which was pretty critical to our getting to this point. The work of Members across the House in drawing attention to these issues shows Parliament at its best and what it is capable of doing, and I pay tribute to all Members of this place and of the Lords who have done that.

As I said, it took too long initially for the Post Office to hold its hands up and say that things were wrong. It had to be held to account in a court, which resulted in the settlement in December 2019. I agree that we need this as quickly as possible. It is also important that we get these schemes right. We want to make sure we get the compensation right the first time, and that is why it has taken a little bit of time, but we are in a much better place now. We are keen to get these payments out by August 2024, and ideally a lot quicker than that.