Covid-19 Vaccine Damage Bill

Shaun Bailey Excerpts

Friday 10th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sir Christopher Chope]

On the requirement that this House has made that all care workers in care homes should be vaccinated even if they have a genuine desire not to be—they may be fearful of the consequences, although consequences are seen in only a minority of cases—it should surely be for the judgment of each individual whether they will take the risk of having a vaccination or not. Obviously we know that, even if people are vaccinated, it does not mean that they are immune from covid-19, and it certainly does not mean that they are incapable of transmitting it to somebody else. Those issues need to be weighed up.

To go back to the hon. Gentleman’s challenge, he seems to be suggesting that those hapless families—10,000 of them, or maybe more—who have suffered real, serious damage as a result of doing the right thing should be left hanging around for years wondering whether they will be eligible for any compensation. That is totally the wrong message. The Government should be sending the message that, “If you do the right thing, you will be looked after by the Government if something goes wrong.” In a sense, that is what we do with the military covenant. People enter the armed forces of our country and, if something goes wrong, they expect the Government to look after them, and we do. We should be doing exactly the same for those who have suffered vaccine damage, instead of talking around the subject in the way that the Minister’s reply to the petition suggests is Government policy.

[Shaun Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is being generous with his time. I have been listening intently to what he has to say, but I am conscious of the narrative. How do we ensure that, on the one hand, people who suffer severe disablement as a result of the vaccines get that support and payment, but on the other hand, we do not create a culture of hesitancy where people do not uptake vaccines or, equally, do not produce vaccines because of the fear that they might cause mass severe side effects? I am conscious of hearing his views on that.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

I am trying to address that point. We cannot ignore the fact that there is fear out there about vaccination. We cannot suppress reports of coroners saying that somebody has died as a result of having a vaccination. I know from my own personal knowledge of people who have suffered—people who were in really good health and then had their first vaccine. I know of one person in particular who then had a stroke and was in hospital for some time with that, and then had severe heart problems and even had to be referred to Harefield Hospital. Those are not just anecdotes; those are facts known by people across the country.

The Government may not be too keen to promote that information, but failing to do that is actually counterproductive. Those facts are out there—we know that—so we need to say to people that if they are in that small minority of people who suffer those adverse consequences, we will look after them 100% without expecting them to get lawyers engaged and all the rest, which is agonising for their families and loved ones. That is what I think we owe them. We do that in a number of other fields for people who serve our country, and I would like to equate them to people who get vaccinated, do the right thing and act in the public interest.

By being vaccinated, we are collectively able to contribute to better public health for all. It is because people are doing it for the benefit of the state that the other side of the coin should be a guarantee that, if something goes wrong, the state will help them. It is the Government’s reluctance to deal with that part of the equation that is so distressing, because it feeds into people being vaccine-hesitant. If somebody comes to my surgery and says that they are nervous about having a vaccine for themselves or their children, I cannot say, “Well, don’t worry. If, in the most unlikely event, something goes wrong, you’ll be fully recompensed.” I cannot say that to them, but if I could, they might be more likely to take the risk. That is the issue.