| Draft Vaccine Damage Payments Act 1979 Statutory Sum Order 1998 |
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Mr. Ross Cranston (Dudley, North): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Minister on introducing the order. I should also mention Baroness Hollis, who has shown courage in this matter and who has met vaccine-damaged children and their parents on a number of occasions. A damaged person has to surmount serious hurdles under the Vaccine Damage Payments Act 1979 to qualify for the uprated payment of £40,000. Provision requires tests of medical causation, which are difficult to establish, and the 80 per cent. test of severe disablement. Qualification also involves the six-year period mentioned by my hon. Friend the Minister. That aspect is sometimes very difficult. The six years can elapse before action is taken because the parents are constantly reassured that nothing is wrong. It is difficult to qualify for the £40,000 payment, and for previous payments under the original Act. The uprated £40,000 payment in the order and other payments are modest in relation to the damage's effects on the disabled person and on his or her family. A parent wrote to me about how vaccine damage can ruin a child's life and that of family and siblings. The original payment of £10,000 has been uprated, but the £40,000 provided by the order should be compared with the losses suffered by children and parents, as well as with provisions made in other countries. As I understand it, countries such as Germany and Sweden apply a test of compensation for losses. Britain has never adopted that approach, but has said constantly that the payment is not compensation. Countries that do adopt it consider factors such as the loss of income that can be attributed to the damage. The £40,000 payment is still not sufficient to compensate for the enormous losses suffered by the families and children in question. The argument in support of the limited nature of the payment seems to be premised on the assumption that it is possible to claim damages in the courts. That seems to have been Lord Ennals' assumption when introducing the legislation on Second Reading. He said:
It seems to have been expected that civil proceedings would be brought. That has not in fact proved to be the case. Lawyers have found it difficult to mount such cases. There are a number of problems, including the obtaining of legal aid, the problem of evidence and the difficulty of establishing causation--often the necessary records are not available. Generally, those who are successful in getting the vaccine damage payment do not get additional payments. I welcome the order, and the fact that it is part of a wider review. I hope that within that wider review additional methods of compensation will be considered. In the past, the idea of a trust fund has been floated, and there has also been mention of a possible levy on manufacturers. I hope that those other methods of providing compensation for these serious losses will be considered. Finally, I make the political point that the Act was introduced by a Labour Government in 1979. The previous Conservative Government introduced two uprating orders, but did not properly address this serious issue. I know that my hon. Friend the Minister, and other hon. Friends, will do so.
4.45 pmMr. Mark Oaten (Winchester): I, too, welcome the Minister and thank him for his detailed introduction to his views on the issue. Liberal Democrat Members welcome the increase from £30,000 to £40,000, which is a sensible and practical measure. It is good that is being upgraded after six years. Nevertheless, £40,000 is a very small amount of money, and I hope that when the review gets under way something will be done about that. I particularly welcome the Minister's restatement of the Government's intention to review vaccine damage payments. Will he provide a time scale for that review? When will it be complete, and when will he be able to explain the steps that the Government will be taking as a result of its findings? There is much anxiety among parents whose children have been affected, and the situation has been in existence for a number of decades now. Will the review cover the problem of compensation levels? About 800 payments have been made under the current scheme, but very few of those have led on to any form of compensation. They are clearly proven cases, because the vaccine damage payment has been made, but the inability to convert that into compensation to individuals is a matter for concern. Will the Minister address that point? The current payment scheme revolves around children who are 80 per cent. disabled. That is a very limiting criterion to place upon the making of payments. Will the Minister confirm that the review will examine the question of the percentage disability? It sounds harsh to put matters in those terms, although we recognise that a line has to be drawn somewhere. However, 80 per cent. seems to be a particularly harsh place to draw that line. Will the Minister also refer to legal aid? Many parents have experienced problems in that respect. Three recent cases have fallen foul because legal aid has been withdrawn. It is evident that help is needed. I should like to ask about the root causes that have led to the current situation. Are there grounds to investigate the manufacturers' role in the early stages of the development of vaccines? Parents would welcome a more thorough investigation of that issue. Liberal Democrat Members welcome the increase in the order and the establishment of the review. I look forward to the Minister's response to my questions.
4.48 pmMr. Peter Snape (West Bromwich, East): I shall not detain the Committee for long. I should like to raise a relevant constituency matter and to refer back to some of the points that have been raised. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Minister on introducing the order so early in the lifetime of the Government. While listening to the Oppostion spokesman, the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Mr. Duncan), I reflected that it took the previous Government six years, at a time when inflation was at a higher level than it is now, to inflation-proof the payment. The first inflation-proofing did not take place until 1985. It is of great credit to the Government that within a year of taking office we have the order before us for debate. I underline the point made by the hon. Member for Winchester (Mr. Oaten) that 80 per cent. is an extraordinarily high figure. I remind the Committee that because of the length of time taken by the previous Government to uprate the benefit, the vast majority of the 800 or so parents who received the payment did so at the original figure--£10,000. Only a small number of parents have received the higher payment, welcome though it is. I said that I would refer to a case from my constitutency; it concerns Mr. Timothy Demers, who lives in Essex Avenue, West Bromwich. I was interested to hear my hon. Friend the Minister say that it was possible, despite receiving the payment--Mr. Demers's family received the original £10,000--to take legal action under existing civil law. But it is not always possible to do so, because, as has been said, often the relevant documents are not available. That is exactly what happened in Mr. Demers's case. Sandwell, the local health authority, said that the original documents, many of which were presented to the tribunal in Nottingham that awarded Mr. Demers the orginal £10,000, had since gone missing. The only explanation that the tribunal could offer for those missing documents was that normally these things happen when the person concerned falls into four categories: first, he or she moves to a different area, although I do not see why that should make an enormous difference; secondly, the person concerned goes into the armed forces, which certainly did not happen in this case; thirdly, he goes into a mental institution, which again, did not happen in this case; and, fourthly, the person concerned dies. None of those circumstances was relevant to my constituent, but because of the lack of documents, he has not been able to take the civil action to which my hon. Friend the Minister referred earlier. I realise that asking in Committee for such cases to be reopened is not fair on Ministers, but I point out that although hon. Members on both sides of the House are anxious to ensure that their constituents receive the justice to which they are entitled under these Acts, out there, in front of tribunals when the cases are investigated, it does not always happen in that way. Having said that it is not fair to do do it, if I send my hon. Friend the papers anyway, I hope that he will undertake to consider Mr. Demers's case, which typifies what has happened over the years. The matter affects not only my constituents but many other people. It is fair to point out that in the 1970s, the previous Labour Government introduced the original Act as the result of a royal commission report. It was envisaged only as an interim measure and, welcome though it is, it does not alleviate the problems that many families have now. All of us get older; some perhaps show it more than others. Mr. Duncan: Yes. Mr. Snape: I am grateful to the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton for pointing out that some of us do show it more than others. It will happen to him in due course, I have no doubt. What worries the families of those concerned is, ``What happens when I die?''--a phrase that hon. Members hear time and again. Although the payment is welcome, it will not keep the person concerned when his immediate family has passed away and we should consider that matter seriously. The families appreciate what the Government have done already, but they want a reasonable lump-sum payment. We have all read about cases of personal injury compensation in which payments of £1 million and higher have been awarded. No one suggests that the level of compensation should be set at that level in many of these cases, but a long-term payment would at least alleviate families' fears that when they pass on, their relative who is affected by vaccine damage will have no immediate family member to turn to. Such fears are genuine and relevant and I hope that my hon. Friend and his fellow Ministers will consider that anxiety during and after the review by Baroness Hollis. If the review's recommendations are aimed in the direction that we hope for, we will all be grateful. My constituent is already grateful for what his family has received. I speak on behalf of the families and, I am sure, other members of the Committee, in saying that much more must be done in the long-term.
4.54 pm
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| ©Parliamentary copyright 1998 | Prepared 24 June 1998 |
