Covid-19: Response and Excess Deaths

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Thursday 18th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

As we have just witnessed, feelings are very strong on this issue, and large numbers of people have suffered directly or indirectly as a result of having covid-19 vaccines. For most people—the vast majority—the covid-19 vaccines were very good news, and they made an enormous contribution to the public health of the country, but that does not mean that we should turn a blind eye to those for whom the vaccines were bad news. In the earlier debate today, I reiterated my request that the Government take effective action, through the vaccine damage payment scheme, to ensure that those people for whom the vaccines were bad news receive proper compensation.

As the hon. Member for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen) reminded us, the maximum payment under that scheme is £120,000. That figure has not been updated in line with inflation since 2007; had it been updated, it would now be about £200,000. Why do the Government not update it? Relatively small numbers of people are involved, but it seems as though there is reluctance on the Government’s part to face up to the reality that, for a small proportion of people, the vaccines were bad news.

When we had this debate initially, soon after the roll- out of the vaccines, the Government were unequivocal in saying that the vaccines were safe and effective, and with no qualification at all. Subsequently, AstraZeneca issued essentially a warning notice to practitioners, which said that they should be cautious about the roll-out of some of the vaccines to some patients. People who wish to make claims against the vaccine manufacturers and/or the Government—civil claims to supplement the £120,000 that they have already been awarded—are finding it difficult to get access to lawyers to pursue their claims, particularly if those claims arise from vaccines administered after AstraZeneca issued its first warning against the safety of its vaccines in certain circumstances.

A large number of people across the country look to the Government to intervene, first, to ensure that the vaccine damage payment scheme is updated, and secondly, to ensure that the people who applied under that scheme have their claims dealt with in a reasonable timeframe. Many of those claims are not. There are more than 9,000 claims, and 4,000-plus have not even been resolved yet. The delays extend to 18 months or more. The consequence for many claimants is that they are unable to begin their civil action, but a civil action has to be brought within three years of the cause of action arising if it is not to be affected by the limitation period.

I have asked the Prime Minister—I had a meeting with him, and have raised this at Prime Minister’s questions —whether the Government will intervene to ensure that the three-year limitation period does not apply to people still waiting for a determination of their claim under the vaccine damage payment scheme, if they wish to go on and sue the Government or the manufacturers. It is a matter of simple equity and justice. I have yet to have a substantive answer from the Government. I am due to meet the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care next week, and I hope that by then she will be able to assure me—she is a lawyer, as well as a Secretary of State—that nobody will be denied justice as a result of the Government’s delays in administering the vaccine damage payment scheme.

I very much share the disappointment of the hon. Member for North West Leicestershire, who introduced this debate, that module 4 of the public inquiry has been postponed. Last August, there was a preliminary hearing, and there was some potent advocacy by the lawyers representing the victim groups who wanted to give evidence in module 4. That evidence will be extremely compelling when it is heard by the inquiry. It was a big disappointment to those groups, to me and to others that module 4 was postponed. We have been told that it has been postponed until January next year. The reasons for that seem rather weak and feeble, but the inquiry is independent. Evidence that was to have been given in July will now not be heard until January next year. The implications are serious for those seeking compensation for their suffering, but it is also significant for that other group of people.

That is because module 4 deals not just with vaccines but with therapeutics. There is a big issue about therapeutics, because Evusheld, the therapeutic that was meant to be available in particular for those who were immuno- suppressed and not able to take the vaccines, was never approved by NICE. A second version of Evusheld was being brought forward, but that has also still not been approved.

My constituent Bernard Mathysse has written to me in recent months to draw my attention to a letter sent on 26 March to the Prime Minister by a group of charities concerned with the issue. It calls for the Government to intervene and ensure that an early decision is made on what can be done to help immunocompromised people who cannot access the vaccines in any event. My constituent says that

“France has given emergency authorisation to Evusheld 2, and has got it into patients within a month of authorisation”.

He believes that other European countries will do the same. The United States has given Pemgarda—another drug—emergency authorisation, and so on.

Why can we not get a commitment from the Government to ensure that Evusheld is available to clinically vulnerable people? My constituent also wrote to me in July 2023 expressing the need to fast-track an essential pre-exposure prophylaxis drug. The consequence for him is that he and his wife have been in effect shielding for about four years: they meet friends only outside, they do not travel on public transport or go by aeroplane, they ask the family to test before a visit, they mask indoors, and they have to assess every situation to gauge the risks involved. That obviously means that they have a much restricted and isolated life, to their detriment, but that could be resolved if the Evusheld issue was taken seriously by the Government. If module 4 had been heard this summer, perhaps Baroness Hallett, as an interim recommendation, could have said, “The Government must get on with that.”

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

I am hugely enjoying my hon. Friend’s speech. I, too, have a constituent who is immunosuppressed and, unbelievably, still shielding, which is putting huge pressure on the family. Does not the slowness of the decision over this therapeutic stand in sorry contrast with the rapid decision taken on vaccines in the first place?

[Sir Christopher Chope]

Exactly. One of the inhibitions there may have been on the Government’s part was that, to justify the use of emergency vaccines, it was necessary for them to believe that there was no alternative. Of course, if those alternative measures had been recognised as a suitable way of providing some protection to individuals against covid-19, that would have undermined the vaccine manufacturers’ case that they needed emergency authorisation for their vaccines without going through the normal testing procedures.

The continuing slowness of the Government in responding to requests for licensing of Evusheld reinforce the feeling out there among many people that something funny is going on here and that, if we had come forward with those therapeutic measures at the beginning, many lives would have been saved, such an extensive vaccination programme would not have been needed, and the Government would have saved a lot of money. There is an issue there, but that is why the part of the motion that regrets the postponement of that element of the covid-19 inquiry is important.

We can debate academically or in political circles the issue of the excess deaths, but it is interesting that the Government concede that there have been excess deaths. The House of Commons Library’s briefing produced on 15 April for this debate says:

“The government has acknowledged an increase in the number of excess deaths in England and Wales and has attributed these to a combination of factors, such as the prevalence of heart disease, flu and heart disease.”

The emphasis is on heart disease, but many people feel that the increase in heart conditions and disease has been exacerbated by the very vaccines that people were persuaded to take to protect them against covid-19. According to an article last year, Dr Thomas Levy said that, on his estimate,

“vaccines are causing heart injury in at least 2.8% of people who receive the covid injections.”

He estimated that

“a minimum of 7 million Americans now have hearts damaged by covid ‘vaccines.’ And although there’s no way of being certain at this time, he said, it’s within the realm of possibility that over 100 million people in America have some degree of heart damage from the injections—not myocarditis but heart damage that will be detectable with a troponin test.”

There may be a link between the propensity of vaccines to damage people’s hearts and what the House of Commons Library, interpreting the Government figures, concedes is an issue of excess deaths attributable to heart disease.