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Mr. David Willetts (Havant): Hon. Members on both sides of the House do, indeed, welcome the changes, and I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Eccles (Mr. Stewart) who has led the all-party campaign on the issue. I also pay tribute to Olivia Price, the chairman of the Vaccine Victims Support Group, who is coming tomorrow to lobby Parliament on the issue, for the fourth time since 1997. The Opposition welcome the statement and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Mr. Pickles) has already made clear, we recognise the need for a generous and sensible settlement for the grievance.
I have one question for the Secretary of State about his proposals. We have read that he has been involved in negotiations with the pharmaceutical industry about the possibility of its contributing to such a scheme, as happens in some other countries. The right hon. Gentleman made no mention of the pharmaceutical industry in his statement, and it would be interesting to know how those discussions proceeded.
The hon. Member for Eccles rightly observed in a previous debate on this subject that
- good policy is not made on the hoof, but this one has been around the paddock far too many times.--[Official Report, Westminster Hall, 6 June 2000; Vol. 351, c. 1WH.]
- to conclude our review early in the new year.--[Official Report, 2 December 1998; Vol. 321, c. 817.]
Now we are told by the Secretary of State--[Interruption.] I shall remind the House of this, because it is very important. The Secretary of State now says that he will legislate at the earliest available opportunity. I make it clear to the Secretary of the State--and the Leader of the House and the Chief Whip, who are in their places--that we will co-operate in legislation at the earliest available opportunity and if he tables a simple Bill to amend the Vaccine Damage Payment Act 1979, which is a simple Act that should not be complicated to administer, we will ensure that it has full and fair passage
through the House. The challenge to the Secretary of State, after so much delay and so many promised reviews, is whether he will legislate before the next election.
Mr. Darling: When we consider the children with whom we are dealing, I do not think that the issue should be the stuff of knockabout politics.
The hon. Gentleman asked me one question of substance, the answer to which in part explains why the results of the review have been announced today. We did approach the pharmaceutical industry to see whether it would co-operate in part-funding a trust to be set up to make payments to the children affected by vaccine damage. The response from the industry was not enthusiastic and it struck me that it would take several years to resolve the matter. I felt that, rather than wait for discussions that might take months or years, it would be better for the Government to act to improve the vaccine damage payment scheme.
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his welcome for the scheme. It was good of him to give it. Arguably, the children concerned have been waiting for 20 years for this statement. I believe that the Government are doing the right thing, and I hope that when we introduce legislation we will receive co-operation from Opposition Members on both Front and Back Benches.
Mr. Ian Stewart (Eccles): I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his statement today. He has a record of being able to take hard decisions, but when we spoke to him and to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health recently, I pointed out to them that the hardest decision in the whole matter was the decision that the parents had to take when they chose to have a child born without impairment vaccinated. The first thing that we must say is that the vaccine programme has been a great success. It has reduced the number of cases from several thousand in 1979 to a handful a year now. We must say loudly and clearly to the public that the vaccine programme works--
Madam Speaker: Order. I realise that the hon. Gentleman has done a great deal in this campaign, but I must remind him that he is not speaking in an Adjournment debate at the moment; he is putting questions. There are other Members who want to ask questions, so I hope that he will put his question right away.
Mr. Stewart: Thank you, Madam Speaker.
Will the Secretary of State join me in acknowledging that his statement today will be welcomed by the parents groups and the families? This is not just about the individual who has been damaged; it is a whole-family issue. The proposals go a long way towards providing the immediate help that those families need. Will my right hon. Friend join me in telling the families that the issue is not finished here, and that this statement is about the payment scheme only? The issue of compensation now needs to be addressed, and will be addressed by the all-party group and the parents groups.
Mr. Darling: First, I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Eccles (Mr. Stewart) for the work that he
has done in the all-party group. Anyone who says that Back-Bench Members cannot make a difference is wrong. My hon. Friend has shown, along with his colleagues in the all-party group, that Members of Parliament can play a valuable role in helping the Government to formulate policy. I am grateful to him also for acknowledging that the Government announcement today will go a long way towards helping families who have lost out in the past. I hope that all the parents concerned will accept that we have made a number of changes which I hope will make a real difference to the problems and difficulties that they face.
Dr. Peter Brand (Isle of Wight): On behalf of the Liberal Democrats, I welcome the Secretary of State's statement, which illustrates why we worked so hard for a change of Government--although I am sorry that it has taken us a little while to get this far. I join in the congratulations to the hon. Member for Eccles (Mr. Stewart) and thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Ross, Skye and Inverness, West (Mr. Kennedy), who put the issue on the agenda a couple of weeks ago. I particularly welcome the recognition of the need for backdating some of the payments. In many instances, we are talking not about children but about grown people and their carers. The Secretary of State has recognised that there is a need for no-fault compensation in this aspect of public health policy and NHS activity. Will he now explore the possibility of introducing no-fault compensation in other areas of national health concern?
Mr. Darling: On the hon. Gentleman's last point, nothing in what I said today makes the case for no-fault liability. That was raised by the Pearson commission in the 1970s and rejected by the then Government in 1983. Successive Governments have not changed the position so far as that is concerned. The vaccine damage payment scheme is a separate matter and is focused on a particular problem affecting a particular group of people. I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman is mistaken on his last point.
I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman's general welcome for the statement. The matter has been on the agenda since we came into office. We announced the review in 1998 and, last year, we announced an increase of some £27 a week in the amount of payments that go to severely disabled young people, as well as access for the most severely disabled people to disability living allowance. Today's announcement is a further step along the road to ensuring that we help people who have suffered a great deal over the years.
I am also grateful to the hon. Gentleman for reminding us that this is the first time that the payments are to be backdated. Some 900 recipients will receive between £58,000 and £67,000 a year as a result of what I am proposing today.
Mr. Kevin Barron (Rother Valley): I thank my right hon. Friend for his statement. Does he agree that, no matter what is said by Opposition Members today--mealy-mouthed or otherwise--thousands of families will thank the Government for proposing changes to the
scheme and that families affected by vaccine damage can look forward to better care from the state in the future than they have received in the past?
Mr. Darling: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for what he said. He is right in saying that many families have waited too long for this scheme to be put on a proper footing, but we have now done that.
Perhaps I could correct an earlier slip of the tongue, when I referred to an annual payment of between £58,000 and £67,000. I should of course have said that that amount is a lump sum.
Mr. John Maples (Stratford-on-Avon): At least two families in my constituency will very much welcome the Secretary of State's announcement today. Cases such as theirs are appalling: perhaps it is because they are so few and so random that they are so sad.
My question concerns the top-up payments. In both the cases with which I am familiar, the families received the £10,000 interim payment in 1979 for injuries that occurred in the 1970s. How will the top-up payment be calculated in relation to the period of time that has elapsed since then?
Secondly, the child in one of my constituency cases has subsequently died, but her parents spent half their lives nursing her until she was 25. What will happen in cases such as that?
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