Meningitis B Vaccine

Debate between Helen Grant and Peter Heaton-Jones

Monday 25th April 2016 Westminster Hall

[Peter Heaton-Jones (North Devon) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Ben Howlett) and the Petitions Committee on securing this incredibly important debate. I also pay tribute to the many families and charities whose tireless work has been instrumental in bringing us to this stage.

Two months ago, I was visited at my surgery in the village of Braunton in North Devon by my constituents Anthony and Jodie Cross. Mr and Mrs Cross told me about their daughters, Millie and Lydia, who both contracted meningitis B as young children. Millie was seven months old when she suffered from the disease. She went to hospital and was successfully treated, but on the day she returned home from hospital, her sister Lydia, who was nearly three, became ill. As the illness tragically developed, both of Lydia’s legs were badly damaged by septicaemia and had to be amputated below the knee.

That was nearly 12 years ago. Lydia has gone on to become a remarkable young woman and, with her family, a doughty and brave campaigner. Nothing illustrates that better than Lydia’s own words. She wrote an article for my local newspaper, the North Devon Journal, in May 2014, when she was just 13 years of age. Her words sum up better than I could what a remarkable young woman she is and how she has fought this disease so bravely. She says,

“I became a double below knee amputee when I was two due to meningitis and septicaemia. Sometimes having a disability is really hard but then other times it doesn’t really bother me. People may not realise how everyday things that they take for granted are much harder for me to do. I love all sports but I do get upset when I can’t participate because my legs really hurt, or I have sores where they’ve rubbed. I started to really enjoy blade running but due to infections and needing the bones trimmed in my legs, I haven’t been able to do it for months now. Hopefully, soon though, I can get back to training with the North Devon Athletics Club…I can then get my blades altered with new sockets and really train and focus on hopefully going to the next Paralympics in Rio, where I’d like to compete in the 100 metres (fingers crossed). I’m desperate to get back to doing it again. It’s really annoying when you have the determination to do something but your ‘disability’ stops you.

I’ve probably had about seven bone trimming operations and my most recent one was about seven weeks ago. It’s painful, but more annoying because I can’t wear my prosthetic legs for about six to eight weeks afterwards. I’m also unable to attend school—Braunton Academy—during this time so I do a lot of school work at home, but I really miss seeing all my friends. I’ve got an amazing group of friends. They treat me just as Lydia (their mad friend), not a girl who’s an amputee and I love that. I’m happier when people don’t treat me differently because I’m only missing the bottom part of my legs and I’m just the same as any other teenager (loud, annoying, always sleeping in and very untidy)…

Even though I’m only 13, I’ve been able to have the most amazing opportunities, that I’m sure I wouldn’t have had if I hadn’t become an amputee. But the one I’m most proud of is being the youngest patron for Help For Heroes, which is such a huge honour. I’ve met many of our wounded heroes who have lost far more than me… and…are my inspiration and friends. Even though I’m a teenager and an amputee which makes me ‘different’, I still consider myself very lucky and I am definitely very happy. I’ve got an amazing family and friends and I wouldn’t change anything about my life because that’s what makes me ‘me’.”

I thought it was worth reading that quite extraordinary article to the House at some length, because it sums up better than I could why we are here today.

Clearly, this is a matter of huge public interest and concern. When Mr and Mrs Cross came to see me, they told me about the growing petition seeking an extension of the men B vaccine to all children up to the age of 11. Today, that petition has in excess of 820,000 signatures—the most received by any petition since the new process was launched. I agree with hon. Members that it is good that we have changed our procedures in the House to allow such a petition to be debated in this way.

In considering the matter today, it is of course important to put the medical and scientific evidence front and centre. We should base our decision on that and that alone. Our decision must be evidence-based, which is why I agree wholeheartedly with my hon. Friend the Member for Bath that we should ask the JCVI to conduct a thorough review of the medical evidence. It is an important principle that Ministers should not make what amount to clinical decisions. Most Ministers—indeed, most MPs—are not scientists or doctors, although there are notable and extremely respected exceptions to that rule in the Chamber today, to whom we have listened very carefully indeed. We must take account of the expertise and advice of the JCVI, which is why the right approach is to thoroughly review the scientific and medical evidence.

This Government have shown that they are willing to act on this issue. As we have heard, a men B immunisation programme for infants under the age of one was introduced in September 2015, in line with the JCVI’s recommendations. In addition, the Government have requested that the JCVI research the evidence for extending the men B vaccination programme up to the age of two. Those are both welcome steps, and I hope they show that we are pushing on an at least partially open door and that the Government are willing to listen. I know that the Minister is listening today, and I look forward to hearing her summing-up.

The elephant in the room is the cost, which has been referred to, and it cannot be ignored. There is only so much money available in the Department of Health budget—I made that very point two weeks ago in a debate in the House on the need for compensation for those affected by the contaminated blood scandal.

[Mrs Helen Grant]

On cost, does my hon. Friend agree that the earliest possible safe introduction—“safe” being the important word—of a competing product to Bexsero could help patient access by reducing market prices and increasing availability?

[Peter Heaton-Jones]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I was much taken by comments that two of my hon. Friends made about cost. My hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) made a powerful point in suggesting that we should be looking elsewhere for contributions towards the funding—it should come from those who, frankly, have decided to do harm to themselves rather than from small children who are in no way to blame for the position in which they find themselves. My hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) said—I wrote this down, because I thought it was telling—that we should consider very carefully the cost of not vaccinating, and I am sure the Minister will have taken that important point on board.

Cost is an issue to consider, which is why it is important that we look at the scientific evidence and carefully take on board what the experts from the JCVI and elsewhere say about this issue, as I know we will. We need to get this matter dealt with soon, because time is of the essence. Families are being affected as we speak, in the same tragic way as, in North Devon, Mr and Mrs Cross and their daughters Millie and Lydia have been. Their bravery, selflessness and hard work in pushing this issue forward, along with that of many other families and campaigners, is the reason why we are here today. I say to the Minister that we should listen to them, and we must not let them down.