Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme: Covid-19

Richard Holden Excerpts

Tuesday 6th September 2022 Westminster Hall

[Sir Jeremy Wright]

I am sorry to hear about the hon. Lady’s constituent and I agree with her. It is important that we do something differently for what she rightly says is a relatively small number of cases. If she bears with me, I will come to the exact point she makes about disablement, as it seems to be a deficiency of the scheme.

I have mentioned the VDPS and, of course, all help for those injured by vaccines is welcome. However, in my view there are three things wrong with the scheme and I will say something about each of them. The first is that it simply takes too long to pay out. The VDPS is a no-fault scheme, but it requires, not unreasonably, a causative link between vaccination and injury to be established. The problem is the time it seems to take to establish that link in the minds of the scheme’s administrators, even in cases such as that of the Scotts, where consultant opinions are clear and unequivocal. The Scotts’ application under the scheme was submitted on 3 June 2021, and was finally approved on 20 June 2022. According to the latest figures that I have—it may well be that the Minister has more up-to-date figures—there are 2,407 applications to the scheme related to covid-19 vaccines, and cases are currently being processed at the rate of 13 a month. At that rate, it would take more than 15 years to process all the cases.

[Mr Richard Holden (North West Durham) (Con)]

My constituent Lisa Shaw, a BBC presenter in the north-east, died after getting a blood clot as a result of the vaccine, leaving her young son without a mother and her partner, Gareth, absolutely devastated. Gareth came to see me in my constituency surgery a very long time ago—months and months ago—and he is still waiting. A lot of the people in this situation will have huge financial commitments and maybe families; if they have not died or are disabled, maybe they are unable to work. Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that speed is of the essence? It has taken decades to resolve recent scandals, such as the contaminated blood scandal. Is it not right that we need to learn the lessons of those scandals and get these payments out to people as quickly as possible?

[Sir Jeremy Wright]

Yes, I agree entirely with my hon. Friend, who puts it very well. It is important not just that we have the right scheme—I do not believe yet that we do—but that, as he says, when that scheme is in place, it pays out quickly. It is clear that the scheme in place at the moment is not doing that, and it simply is not acceptable or feasible for families in severe financial distress to have to wait the length of time that they are being asked to wait. And the example that he gives is a good one.

That example is also important in another respect, because there is something else that the Government need to do. In relation to those cases where vaccine injury is fatal, as was the case with my hon. Friend’s constituent, the Government need to protect entitlement to benefits, as they have done with other similar schemes but which they are currently not doing in relation to payouts under the VDPS. Whether that is universal credit or some other benefit, that post-death entitlement needs to be protected in a way not currently allowed by the law.

The second problem with the VDPS is that it requires a 60% level of disablement. The first thing to say about that is that the percentage of disablement can be hard to quantify in these cases, as Jamie Scott’s consultant made clear in her opinion. However, the second thing to say about it is that 60% is a very high bar. There can be significant injury or disablement that does not meet that threshold but is still life-changing. The VDPS is all or nothing: it pays out the full amount or nothing at all. In other words, someone adjudged to be 59% disabled as a direct result of vaccination would receive no compensation at all under the scheme. That cannot be right.