Vaccine Damage Payments Act

Luciana Berger Excerpts

Tuesday 24th March 2015 Westminster Hall

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Caton. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Mr Brown) for securing this important debate and for his work as chair of the all-party group for vaccine damaged people. His tireless campaigning on behalf of his constituents, and others who have been affected by vaccine damage, is commendable.

I also thank all hon. Members and right hon. and hon. Friends for their contributions throughout the debate, which are testament to the strong feelings about this issue on both sides of the House. My hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) talked about the challenges experienced by her constituents. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) made a large contribution and I was specifically interested in hearing what he said about the emotional trauma experienced by families. The hon. Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden) both talked about their constituents’ experiences of the HPV vaccine.

Vaccinations are crucial to our NHS as a way of preventing disease and the spread of infection. The research and discoveries made every day by the scientific community lead us closer to disease prevention that could not have been imagined when the Vaccine Damage Payments Act 1979 was passed. The improvements in vaccine uptake in recent years have resulted in a greater proportion of children being vaccinated now than ever before.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries and Galloway made clear the purpose of today’s debate is not to question the importance of the national vaccination programme to the health of our population; instead, it is to bring to the House’s attention those occasions on which vaccinations have gone wrong, with deeply distressing and life-changing consequences, and the challenges surrounding the support system in place for those people who are sadly affected.

I recently attended a meeting of the all-party group in Parliament and at another meeting I met a group of parents and their daughters who had been affected by the HPV vaccination. The stories I heard in both meetings highlighted that, in the event of such tragedies, it is vital that people who suffer from vaccine injury can expect to receive support to ease the burden on them and their families. They certainly should not have to battle to get what they are entitled to.

At those meetings, the deep sense of injustice felt by many of the families who live every day with the burden of disability caused by vaccine damage was clear. In response to my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South East, I should say that I hope that the parents and people affected believe that I was at that meeting to listen to them. I very much appreciate that they feel that they are not being listened to, on top of the challenges that they have faced over many years.

As we heard, the vaccine damage payments scheme was established under the Vaccine Damage Payments Act in 1979 to provide tax-free lump sum payments to people severely disabled as a result of vaccination against specific diseases. Despite the gradual expansion of support under numerous Governments and some important reforms made in 2000 following a review of the scheme, the system has many challenges today. We have heard many compelling reasons for reform.

Since the scheme was first introduced, the number of payments made has fallen dramatically. As my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries and Galloway said, since 2010-11 no vaccine damage payments have been made at all. That may be down to vaccines and vaccine safety, but it is troubling that, despite hundreds of applications from people whose disability was sufficient for them to be considered to have a strong enough case, not one payment has been made. I hope that the Minister will explain why such a gulf exists between applications for support and actual payments made. I hope she will share her view on why the number of payments has gone down to zero in recent years.

I understand that there is a robust qualification process and that, to qualify for compensation, a person must be assessed to be 60% permanently disabled for life. In considering cases, it is right that medical advisers have regard to whether informed medical opinion suggests that there may be a causal link between the claimed adverse event and vaccination. I appreciate that the line must be drawn somewhere, but will the Minister share with us whether any flexibility is built into the system to allow a person assessed as being very close to the 60% qualification point—perhaps they are 59% permanently disabled—to receive support under the scheme? Surely a person suffering such a level of disability has a substantial need, which the scheme is intended to accommodate. It seems unjust that, by just missing out on the threshold, they would receive no payment at all under the scheme, so it is left to the family to shoulder that burden.

Has the Minister considered the case for reforming the minimum level of disability required for a person to qualify? We have heard today that, even when a person does qualify as having a serious disability, the Government have fought against such decisions. Take the case of people who suffer from narcolepsy as a result of the swine flu vaccine, which we have heard about today. Despite a causal link with the vaccine having been established and a tribunal having concluded that that should be considered a “serious disability,” the Department for Work and Pensions appealed against the decision. Will the Minister share with us why the DWP would go against such a decision? Will she clarify how her Government reach a decision on whether to appeal against a tribunal decision?

As we have heard in the debate, there are many other anomalies in the coverage provided by the Act. I note the recent additions this year of the rotavirus and influenza vaccinations to the list of specified diseases to which the Act applies. Despite that, it does not provide a comprehensive safety net. Will the Minister explain the review process that takes place before a vaccine is included on that list? Why are some vaccines, such as pandemic influenza and hepatitis A and B vaccines, excluded? The current scheme focuses largely on the childhood immunisation programme, but it covers people over the age of 18 for certain diseases. We have heard the word “patchy” used today, which is a fair assessment.

I was concerned to learn that 814 applications had been rejected on non-medical grounds because they were made either out of time or outside the scheme’s scope. The scheme allows for no extension to the time limit, even when the applicant did not have knowledge of the scheme or did not know that they might qualify for a claim. To refuse someone the support they need on the grounds that they have not made the deadline seems inflexible. Does the Minister have plans to build more flexibility into the rules about the time frames in which applications need to be made?

There are other anomalies. In the event that a child under two dies from an adverse reaction to a vaccine, their family are not eligible to receive any payment under the scheme. The logic for that is unclear. Why should the family of a child who dies after their second birthday be more deserving of compensation than one whose child died a day before? I would welcome clarification from the Minister on whether she plans to review that.

In a written answer to me at the end of last year, the Minister said that the Government had

“no plans to make changes”

to the 1979 Act. Has she reconsidered that position since then? If not, does she have any plans to review that decision?

The debate has raised issues that need to be tackled if we are to ensure that we have a comprehensive support system for vaccine damaged people and to promote confidence in the uptake of vaccines. The support scheme put in place by the 1979 Act was of its time and intended to be an interim solution. However, it has become—albeit with some changes over the years—a permanent one.

People need to be assured that, in the unlikely event that something goes wrong, they will be looked after. My hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries and Galloway made a powerful case for reform, which I hope the Minister will take away and give her full consideration. I look forward to her response.