Vaccine Damage Payments Act

Debate between Tom Clarke and Russell Brown

Tuesday 24th March 2015 Westminster Hall

[Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)]

A few colleagues are here this afternoon, Mr Caton, but our all-party parliamentary group for vaccine damaged people has more than 120 members, so I suspect that some of them will be dropping in and out as the afternoon progresses.

I am delighted to have secured today’s debate and I am pleased that we have been joined by the families of vaccine-damaged people, some of whom have seen their children grow from having been vaccine-damaged in infancy to men and women who are now in their 40s and 50s. However, when I say I am delighted to have secured the debate, after attempting to do so regularly since early January, the fact is that the all-party group, of which I am the chairman, really wanted at some point to meet the Minister, so that she could hear what the families go through on a daily basis with their—it is a bit difficult to say “children”, because, as I said, some of those children are now in their 40s and 50s. However, I want to share some of those experiences and difficulties, and I know that colleagues in the Chamber today will want to do likewise.

The all-party group supports families in their view that the Vaccine Damage Payments Act 1979 is now out-of-date and should be reformed. Let me be absolutely clear: from the very first meeting that I attended in the ’90s of the then all-party parliamentary group for vaccine-damaged children, the families have been resolute in their support for the Government’s vaccination programme, and they firmly believe in the concept of herd immunisation.

The Pearson commission was a major inquiry into civil damages in the 1970s. It recommended that the Government should accept liability to pay full compensation for vaccine injury on the basis that vaccine injury is the very occasional price that society pays for the benefit of defeating disease through national vaccination programmes.

At that time, vaccines were not such a major part of the public health programme as they are today. During the intervening years, vaccines have greatly grown in importance and use. It was always intended to be a temporary measure—a £10,000 payment on account pending the outcome of the Loveday case. Now the award is £120,000, but that is not adequate compensation for someone who is seriously and profoundly disabled.

It is not adequate to say that consumers should sue as an alternative. No civil claim has ever succeeded for vaccine injury in this jurisdiction. That is not because people in the UK are different from elsewhere in the world; it reflects the fact that our legal system is not claimant-friendly. The situation has got much worse since legal aid has been abolished. It is now impossible to take on a multinational pharmaceutical corporation, as the costs of a claim are so high that no one could possibly afford it. Court fees have just been increased by some 600%, so it costs £10,000 just to issue a claim, which has not helped the situation.

It is in the interests of society that the rate of uptake of vaccines is kept high to achieve that herd immunity. That needs an effective safety net, so that consumers are assured that in the event of a serious disablement, they will be looked after. The system needs to be reformed to be more consumer-friendly, so that on close calls on causation, consumers or patients are given the benefit of any doubt, as we see in the USA. In the last four years, no awards of any compensation have been made for vaccine injury, despite hundreds of applications. The system is not working.

[Mr Tom Clarke (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (Lab)]

I use this opportunity to apologise to you, Mr Caton, and to my hon. Friend, because I have to leave soon to be at Downing street at 3 o’clock to present a petition with people with learning disabilities about things, such as Winterbourne View home, that ought not to be happening. I apologise that I have to leave, but I congratulate my hon. Friend on his wonderful work, and the all-party group. Above all, I congratulate the vaccine victim support group and the indomitable Olivia Price on the fantastic fight that they have conducted over many years. I hope that they get the success and the response that my hon. Friend and this debate invites.

[Mr Brown]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his intervention. Those of us who know him realise that he is a champion for those less fortunate in society, and especially for the disabled. I recognise that he has a family member who was vaccine damaged as a child.

Why is the coverage of the scheme so patchy here in the UK? Adults are almost all excluded—why should that be? All seasonal flu vaccines and all hepatitis vaccines are excluded—why? That is not an effective safety net.

Recently, more than 70 people suffered narcolepsy as a result of the swine flu vaccine. That is a very serious condition, but the Department for Work and Pensions has refused to accept that it amounts to a 60% disability and has appealed against a tribunal finding that it is a severe disability. The Department should fight consumers less and support them more.

Awards of compensation for vaccine injury should be available—that is compensation measured by the amount of loss actually suffered, not an arbitrary amount. Reform could be a win-win, in that we could promote social justice and ensure an increase in the rate of vaccination that will benefit society as a whole.

Amendment of the Law

Debate between Tom Clarke and Russell Brown

Thursday 22nd March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)]

The Chancellor’s Budget statement yesterday was for the entire country, but for so many individuals, households and communities, it will result in many different outcomes. I want to concentrate on the impact that it will have on my constituency and the Dumfries and Galloway region as a whole. Yesterday, local people were looking for indications of potential growth in the economy and potential creation of jobs.

In the past 20 months unemployment in my constituency has risen month after month. It is a sad reflection that youth unemployment is at its highest level since 1996. Dumfries and Galloway is a rural constituency, which means that the two largest employers are the national health service and the local council. The shedding of jobs in those two specific areas has now been going on for four years, and for those who think that everything north of the border is fine under a Scottish National party Government, let me tell them that that is four years of cuts in the public sector. Yet the block grant that we all talk about—that Barnett formula, the Barnett consequentials—has been reduced only in the financial year that is about to come to an end. So there has been a lot of pain in Scotland that sometimes people do not read about in the wider UK press. The pain of loss of income spreads into the local economy. It spreads on to the high street. I regret to say that some of the pressure on households in my constituency is down to the fact that it is very much a low wage economy.

So the Budget statement cannot be taken in isolation, although that is what we are here to discuss today. We need to look at what has happened and what is about to happen. My hon. Friend the Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) said that the welfare cuts would have an impact. That is happening at the moment. Let no one be under any illusion that only the current coalition Government have introduced welfare cuts and reforms. Our Government did on three occasions. They were trying to make those adjustments that said to people, “Work does pay. There is an opportunity there, despite any disability that you have. There is help and support to get you back into the workplace, perhaps not doing what you did in the past but it is there if you wish to seize the opportunity.” The big challenge will be in the next two weeks when so many households lose working tax credits. With the reductions in service provision through the voluntary sector that my local area has experienced, with welfare rights budgets being cut and with Citizens Advice services being cut, I am finding that more and more constituents are coming to my office for help and support.

Let me give the entire House a warning: colleagues had better batten down the hatches, because they are about to be inundated with households that are about to lose their working tax credit. The increase in tax allowance announced yesterday, which will mean £2 or £3 a week, will make not one iota of difference to households that will potentially lose £50, £60 or £70 a week. In no way whatsoever can the increase compensate for that.

The other point is that people will need to move from working 16 hours a week to 24 hours in order to avoid losing their tax credit. How on earth will that happen when people have voluntarily reduced their working hours over the past couple of years just to hold on to their jobs? Unfortunately, many of those people will be unable to keep a hold of their tax credit.

The granny tax grab, as it has been described today in the press, the changes to the age-related personal allowance, which when introduced took 680,000 pensioners out of tax altogether, is being done at the wrong time, if indeed it has to be done at all, with low interest rates and maturing annuities not delivering what people had expected.

In a rural locality fuel prices are vital, so I want to ask the Minister what has happened to the fair fuel stabiliser. FairFuelUK expected more from the coalition Government, who need to be honest about what has gone wrong. We were all inundated with e-mails from constituents about the report commissioned by FairFuelUK. I asked the Economic Secretary last week—she did not leak anything to me—what she and her officials thought of the report, but she said that she could not speak to me about it because the Budget was just a few days away. I would like to hear what Treasury Ministers and officials make of the report, because I have doubts about a 2.5p reduction in fuel duty creating 175,000 jobs; it verges on some sort of economic fantasy.

I would have loved to have seen, as I am sure would most of my constituents, an announcement yesterday of a temporary reversal in the VAT rise, because £450 extra for families would have been of real benefit to them and it would also have helped motorists. I am, and always have been, totally opposed to any kind of regional variations in these matters. I sat on the Committee that introduced the national minimum wage back in 1998 and—the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills is no longer in the Chamber—even then there were Liberal Democrat Members who wanted regional variations in the national minimum wage. It is not acceptable.

[Mr Tom Clarke]

Does my hon. Friend recall that the hospitality and tourism industries, which I know are very important in his constituency, were warned that the national minimum wage would cost them jobs, and does he agree that the opposite was the case?

Women’s Aid

Debate between Tom Clarke and Russell Brown

Wednesday 14th March 2012 Westminster Hall

[Mr Clarke]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making an extremely significant point. On average, a woman will be assaulted 35 times before reporting it to the police. It is the case that 30% of domestic abuse either starts or escalates during pregnancy. Domestic abuse can account for up to 25% of all recorded crime.

Let me outline current practices and why they should be cherished. What is the present position in terms of access to benefits? The present position permits organisations such as Women’s Aid to go through proper procedures to ensure the safety and health of women who come to them. Here, as they recognise, is the tragedy: many women who are experiencing domestic abuse blame themselves for what is happening to them. Clearly, it is not their fault. The only person to blame is the perpetrator carrying out the abuse.

Monklands Women’s Aid, in its last annual report, shone a light on the scale of the problem. The contact made with Monklands Women’s Aid involved 4,310 women, 1,202 children—from birth to 12 years—and 1,056 young people aged from 13 to 19. If such an organisation did not exist, we would need to invent one.

As I have discovered, if a woman requests refuge, a risk assessment is carried out to ensure that the service and refuge will meet her needs. A home application and benefit check is completed for the user. A doctor is then put in place to assess the health of the woman. If necessary, women are taken to hospital immediately. Social workers, community psychiatric nurses or various support networks are contacted, with the woman’s permission, for continued support. If the woman wishes, the police are called. Throughout the process, workers from Women’s Aid offer continued support. If children are involved, relevant schools and nurseries are contacted and provision put in place to make the transition for the woman as seamless as possible. A children’s service is put in place as part of the outreach programme. When women are leaving the refuge, support workers help them to move to their new tenancy and offer much needed help and support.

Institutions such as the NHS and police services can do only so much in providing support to women who are in desperate need of help and protection. The refuge is the foundation for all services provided by this organisation, and it signifies the basis of a new life for many women. It is still desperately needed by many women in emergency situations—when their lives or their children’s lives are at risk. A refuge is a haven that, on multiple occasions, has saved lives.

In all candour, the proposed reforms by the Government are worrying. All the services that I have described will effectively be wiped out, thus leaving Women’s Aid with the sole service of signposting women to other support services—if they still exist.

[Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)]

Before my right hon. Friend moves on to what may lie ahead for women in the future, may I remind him that when a woman seeks a Women’s Aid refuge, it may be the first time in their lives when they, as the partner of someone who has abused them, find themselves without money? The first port of call will be the Department for Work and Pensions. All too often the delay in securing money through the benefit system is bad, so much so that some 30% or 40% of women find themselves, out of sheer frustration, going back to the marital home and to the abuser, which is no answer to their problems. The system is already far too slow to respond to the needs of women.

[Mr Clarke]

My hon. Friend bases his contribution on experience, and he is absolutely right. He has outlined the problem that many have faced and sadly might face again, so we must take it seriously.