HC Deb 15 February 1979 vol 962 cc1376-94

6.24 p.m.

Mr. Jack Ashley (Stoke-on-Trent, South)

I beg to move amendment No. 3, in page 1, line 12, leave out 'of' and insert 'in proportion to the severity of the disablement and in accordance with the scales laid down in subsection (4), but not exceeding'.

The Chairman

With this we may take the following amendments: No. 5, in page 2, line 20, leave out '80' and insert '20'

No. 6, in page 2, line 23, at end insert 'the payment in the case of 80 per cent. or more disablement being £10,000, in the case of 60 to 79 per cent. being £7,500, in the case of 40 to 59 per cent. being £5,000, and in the case of 20 to 39 per cent. being £2,500;

Mr. Ashley

I am grateful for the opportunity of speaking to these amendments. They are designed to grant percentage payments to children who are damaged less than 80 per cent. by vaccines. The Bill specifies that children must be damaged 80 per cent. or more before they can receive payments of any kind. I believe that to be an arbitrary figure, and I hope that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will reconsider it.

I recognise that there must be a dividing line somewhere. I know that the mobility and attendance allowances have one level on which the Bill may be based. Nevertheless, there are other examples which I believe should more realistically be used for determining the level in the Bill.

If a child is at all damaged by vaccination it is right that he or she should be paid proportionately to the damage suffered. The example that I quote is not of the mobility allowance or the attendance allowance; it is of the industrial injuries scheme. Under that scheme there is provision for payment to be made for disablement from 20 per cent. up to 100 per cent. I suggest that that is the right basis on which to proceed.

I know that money will not fully compensate for disability, and finding the right basis for payment is difficult. Nevertheless, as the Government have so far not made a specific commitment to an overall scheme, I hope that my right hon. Friend will reconsider his decision, accept the amendment and give a welcome and justified payment to all children who suffer more than 20 per cent. damage from vaccines.

Dr. Gerard Vaughan (Reading, South)

The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ashley) has an immense reputation for his care and feeling for disabled people, particularly children. Much of the credit for the Bill lies with the hon. Gentleman and Mrs. Fox. Therefore, it was only to be expected that he would table amendments of this kind.

The amendments seek to widen the range of cases brought within the payments scheme and to make the scheme more sensitive to the amount of damage suffered by a child. The Opposition, who understand very well what he has in mind, question whether this is the right Bill or the right occasion and whether these amendments are the right way of dealing with the matter.

The amendments raise the whole question of the aim of the Bill and the purpose of the £10,000. Is it compensation for damage? If so, we feel that it should be a larger sum and that it should be more flexible.

I suggest that children who are not perhaps the most severely damaged may need the largest amount for their future care. The most severely damaged child, talking in terms of future needs, may need a lesser amount.

We went over this ground when we discussed thalidomide damage. At that time many lawyers were thinking of so much for one limb, twice as much for two limbs and three times as much for three limbs. The hon. Gentleman was one of those who explained to the lawyers that that was not satisfactory and that there should he two kinds of payment—a lump sum to cover damage generally and a further sum in trust to cover future needs.

I was disappointed to hear the hon. Gentleman say that he thought the sum should be scaled down for the lesser amounts of damage. Our view is that a child with perhaps 60 per cent. or 50 per cent. damage would need the greater amount of money for his education, for his mobility and to help him to work. What is this money supposed to be for? We understood that it was a lump sum in recognition of the fact that these unfortunate people have become damaged as a result of Government policy. It is a recognition that the Government have some responsibility for what has happened.

It is curious that the Government have considered only those people with 80 per cent. or more damage. On that score, it would seem only just to widen the scheme to all cases of vaccine damage and that anyone with a significant amount of damage should be eligible for a lump sum in terms of Government recognition and responsibility. We understand why the Government have arrived at a lump sum idea. It has our support. But, even at this late stage, we would ask the Government whether there would not be more justice if the scheme were extended to all cases of vaccine damage. We would also ask the Secretary of State to repeat his assurance that this is a one-off operation, which will not prejudice applications to courts and will not prevent any decisions being made under the Pearson committee's recommendations on liability and such matters. It should be regarded purely as a single payment to help people while we are still examining the wider issues.

On that basis, we cannot support these amendments. We hope, however, that the Government will view sympathetically the application of the payment of these lump sums.

The Secretary of State for Social Services (Mr. David Ennals)

I join the hon. Member for Reading, South (Dr. Vaughan) in paying tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ashley). There is no doubt that he and the Association of Parents of Vaccine-Damaged Children and Mrs. Fox, its chairman, were instrumental in bringing this issue to the attention of the House and certainly to myself and my right hon. Friend. I warmly congratulate my hon. Friend and the association for the part that they have played in terms of the progress of the Bill.

I want to reiterate strongly some points that I made when I announced that the Government would legislate and also what I said on Second Reading. We are not talking about compensation. This is a form of payment that we decided we wanted to introduce quickly. Perhaps it should have been done earlier. But having been seized of the urgency, we felt that we should make a payment that would help families and children to deal with some of the problems that faced them. It has always been in that spirit and the wish to help severely disabled children that the Bill was introduced.

It was astute and ingenious of my hon. Friend to have found a way to introduce this proposal in Committee. I am aware that the same view was, and, probably, still is, taken by the Association of Parents of Vaccine-Damaged Children. When the Government first decided that they would be able to bring forward this legislation, I discussed the matter with Mrs. Fox, who clearly felt, and wrote to me expressing her hope, that there should be a graduated scheme, such as that proposed by my hon. Friend.

I have to say that I agree with the hon. Member for Reading, South. I cannot accept the amendment. It would greatly increase the complexity of the scheme. From the outset, we have tried to keep it as simple and uncomplicated as possible. Delays would be caused if the scheme was changed in the way suggested. There would be many cases in which a slight difference in assessment of the extent of disablement would make a significant difference to the size of payment.

Accurate assessment of disablement is more difficult when the disability is only slight or moderate, particularly when a greater or lesser degree of mental handicap is involved. As my hon. Friend knows, the damage is often mental damage. His proposal would certainly lengthen procedures.

Dr. Vaughan

Will the Secretary of State explain his grounds for not including all vaccine-damaged children? What made him decide on 80 per cent. rather than 70 per cent. or 60 per cent.? I can understand the difficulties over the assessment, but it would seem fairer if he included the whole range of children.

Mr. Ennals

That would bring in a very large number of children. I could not give the number of those involved if the level of disability were reduced to 20 per cent. It would be a very much larger number than at present. It would involve a much greater sum of public expenditure unless we were to pay to everyone, not on a graduated basis, a much smaller sum.

I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman's sugestion that those with a lesser disability may have greater need for help than those with a greater disability. I submit that it is the other way round. Those with the greatest disability pose the greatest problems for their families and perhaps need the support that this extra finance will bring them more than those with a lesser disability.

Because we were trying to bring in quickly a Bill that would also be simple and uncomplicated and not so costly that it would eat into other expenditure priorities, we decided that it should deal with the severely disabled. Obviously, we were waiting for the Pearson report before deciding what to do. When that report did not produce a simple solution, we had to do so. It is worth recalling that the Pearson proposals about strict liability in tort were also confined to cases of severe vaccine damage. So there is logic in what we are doing, although we have not reached conclusions on the main recommendation made by Pearson.

I doubt whether anyone would expect the scope of severe disablement to include someone who is only 20 per cent. disabled. I respect my hon. Friend's wishes to extend this scheme as widely as possible. In many respects, I would have liked to go along with him. The more families and disabled children we could help the better. But that approach would have substantially changed the nature of this simple Bill. I am sorry that I cannot accept my hon. Friend's proposal.

Dr. Vaughan

Is it the Secretary of State's intention to extend the scheme later to the lesser groups if more finance becomes available?

Mr. Ennals

I have never looked on this Bill as an interim measure, because "interim" means something leading to something else. We have not decided what attitude we will take to the basic proposals in the Pearson Commission report. The hon. Gentleman will recall that during our debate in November, we looked at the possibility of introducing a disablement benefit that would start with children but might include adults, based on the severity of disablement regardless of the cause of that disability. This scheme could be regarded as an interim towards that possible solution. I have not entered into any commitment that the scope of this Bill will be changed at a later stage, but it is always open to the House so to decide in its wisdom.

Mr. Ashley

I am grateful for the kind words of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and those of the hon. Member for Reading, South (Dr. Vaughan). Despite their appreciation of my remarks, I would like to criticise what the hon. Member for Reading, South said. I understand that he is not prepared to support this amendment. As he remarked, the amendment is designed specifically to widen the number of people who would benefit.

I do not think that the hon. Gentleman can therefore say that he does not support my effort to widen the categories and, at the same time, demand that the Government should widen them still more. He should either support my contention that more children should be included or say "We ain't having it." The hon. Gentleman is being contradictory.

I want every vaccine-damaged child to receive a payment. I chose the figure of 20 per cent. because of the precedent of the industrial injuries scheme. I go along with the idea that all children should be paid something. If I had the support of Conservative Members, I would vote against the Government because I believe in the amendment. I have no sense of rancour towards the Government, because I believe that they should be warmly congratulated on their splendid initiative. However, being deprived of the support of Conservative Members, I am helpless. I acknowledge that helplessness, but I will not accept the hon. Member for Reading, South criticising me.

The Secretary of State has won the battle. Good luck to him. He knows that I will come back again and again. The fault lies with Conservative Members for failing to attack the Government as I have.

I did not touch upon the Pearson Commission report because I was watching your eyes, Mr. Murton, and I saw them glitter when hon. Members went slightly wide of the amendment. I propose to refer to the Pearson Commission on a later amendment and to press the Secretary of State about the report. I want a much wider scheme which includes not only a cash payment but a pension for vaccine-damaged children. I say that now just in case the hon. Member for Reading, South catches the early editions of tomorrow's newspapers and makes it appear that I am concerned only with the cash payment. I am not.

Once again, I offer my warm congratulations to the Secretary of State on bringing in the Bill but express my regret that he cannot accept the amendment. I shall press him later for a proper pension scheme for all vaccine-damaged children.

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. Graham Page (Crosby)

I beg to move amendment No. 7, in page 2, leave out lines 24 to 26 and insert— ' (5) The Secretary of State shall not make an order or any regulations under this section unless a draft of the order or the regulations, as the case may be, shall have been laid before Parliament and approved by a resolution of each House.' I wonder if it might be convenient for the Committee to deal with amendments Nos. 11 and 12 at the same time, as they deal with a similar point.

The Chairman

If the Committee has no objection, so be it.

6.45 p.m.

Mr. Page

I am obliged to you, Mr. Murton. Amendment No. 7 deals with the powers of subordinate legislation granted by the Bill. It is a strange principle of our legislation that in almost every Bill—and this is no exception—we have to recognise the divine right of the Secretary of State to legislate without interference from Parliament.

In clause 1, the Secretary of State takes the power to add to the list of diseases for which the £10,000 payment may be made and takes to himself the right to prescribe the circumstances in which a disease resulting from contact will also attract that payment.

Under clause 1(5), the Secretary of State's order will be subject to the annulment procedure in either House, but it is well nigh impossible to have a prayer debated on the Floor of the House. It is also most improbable that it will be debated in Committee, and, even if it is, the debate is completely ineffective.

We have here an example of ministerial arrogance in the seizure of power to legislate. Even the most modest, considerate, constitutional and coy Minister, such as, for example, the Minister with responsibility for the disabled, suddenly develops a lust for legislation when he has conduct of a Bill. The right hon. Gentleman is shaking his head, but I admit that I did that when I was in office. It is a practice when one is in office to try to seize the power to legislate. Various arguments are put forward in support of the Minister making an order that will not be considered by the House. He says, for example, "Leave it to me. It will be technical. We must be flexible. The gentlemen at the Elephant and Castle know best" and so on.

There are those who believe that it is right to legislate by passing a skeleton Bill in which Parliament merely expresses its intentions and either Ministers put flesh on it by statutory instruments or the courts do so by leading cases. The Secretary of State has partly subscribed to that principle in the Bill. There are six or seven instances of subordinate legislation being prescribed in the Bill and in all but one of those cases the orders are to be subject to the ineffective negative procedure.

The only exception appears in the first part of clause 2(6). I assume that, when the Secretary of State or his draftsmen got to that stage, they had a twinge of remorse and decided that they had better be seen not to be hogging it all to the Secretary of State. They therefore threw in an affirmative resolution procedure so that hon. Members would realise that they know that there is such a thing. I am not sure why that exception was chosen. There are other equally important provisions which are not subject to the affirmative procedure. I am particularly concerned about those included in my amendment because some of the others are not so important. The regulations under clauses 4 and 5 are procedural and are quite appropriate for the negative procedure.

I suppose that in making that assertion I am writing my own rules about what orders should be subject to the affirmative procedure and which should be subject to the negative procedure. It is a pity that we have no specific rules on which Ministers may judge, when instructing their parliamentary draftsmen, whether an order should be under the affirmative or the negative procedure. One can be excused for thinking that frequently the only criterion is the expediency of the Government Department involved.

I think that it will be generally accepted that when a Bill has as its foundation a carefully compiled list of circumstances—in this case a list of diseases—and empowers the Secretary of State to add to the list, the addition to the statute should be through affirmative resolutions in both Houses. We see in the list of diseases the foundation of the Bill. If further diseases are added, we shall be adding further foundation stones on which the structure of the Bill is to be erected. This is a case in which Parliament should be ensured of the opportunity of a debate, an assurance which it does not get through the negative procedure being put into the Bill.

There is another reason why an order under clause 1 should be subject to the affirmative procedure. If one adds to the list of diseases, one adds to the liability of the taxpayer, through the Exchequer, to make these payments. By the addition of a disease there will be an additional burden on the public purse and that, again, should come before Parliament under the affirmative procedure. The same considerations apply to the regulations under subsection (2), the circumstances where the development of a disease occurs by contact. There, again, an order will add to the basis of the Bill, the diseases upon which it is based and the circumstances under which those diseases will attract payment; and it will add to the liability of the Exchequer to meet those payments.

I will briefly fit amendments Nos. 11 and 12 into my argument. In clause 2(2) there is provision for modifying the conditions of entitlement when a new disease is added to the list. As I understand it, that modification can be done only in an order adding a new disease to the list. Then in subsection (4) there is provision for either a reduction of or an addition to the conditions of entitlement. In subsection (6) there is a provision that, if it is an addition, the order must be under the affirmative procedure, while if it is a reduction of the conditions it must be by negative procedure. But the modifying conditions must be contained in an order adding a disease to the list. Therefore, on the argument which I have put in connection with clause 1, they should all be under the affirmative procedure; all the more so if they reduce the conditions of entitlement, because such a reduction increases the number of occasions on which payment has to be made, and so increases the liability on the public purse. On that ground alone, they should come before the House under the affirmative procedure.

Mr. Robin Hodgson (Walsall, North)

I rise to support wholeheartedly what has been said by my right hon. Friend the Member for Crosby (Mr. Page). The negative procedure is entirely unsatisfactory. We have just had a long and most interesting debate about the Porton Down laboratory. where one of the most exciting prospects for the laboratory is in the field of genetic manipulation. We had some health and safety genetic manipulation regulations produced before a Statutory Instruments Committee last summer. On Wednesday 26 July they were voted down by nine to one, with only the Minister's colleague the Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science voting in favour. Ten minutes ago his colleague the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security proudly said that these regulations came into force on 1 August last. It was clearly the wish of the House, by nine to one, that those regulations should not be made; but they were made. Therefore, the negative procedure is not worth the paper it is written on.

I thoroughly support what my right hon. Friend has said and I cannot too strongly express the view that to use anything other than the affirmative method means that the House is powerless and that we have handed cheque, pen and blotter to the Minister to do whatever he wants in the future.

The Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security (Mr. Alfred Morris)

While I well understand the desire of the right hon. Gentleman to ensure that there is effective parliamentary control over subordinate legislation, I believe the forms of control, or the instruments mentioned in clauses 1 and 2 of the Bill as drafted, strike a correct balance. Moreover, I hope that on reflection, after I have replied, the right hon. Gentleman will agree with me. Meanwhile, I know that he will accept that as an author on the subject I have a very keen and personal interest in parliamentary scrutiny and control.

As the Committee knows, this Bill is concerned with a very limited number of payments. Initially, as we say in the explanatory memorandum, we are concerned with perhaps about 600 cases in respect of 30 years of vaccination, and thereafter with a handful of cases each year. The provisions in the Bill for modifying the scope of the payments scheme by statutory instrument are in practice unlikely to have any substantial effect on the number of payments either way.

The main reason for including these provisions to enable modifications to be made by order is that the Bill's general object is to provide for payments in respect of disablement which is due to vaccinations carried out in the course of the routine public policy immunisation programme. That programme is not contained in any statutory document. It is determined by Ministers in the light of the advice of the appropriate advisory body, namely the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation.

With a vaccine damage payment scheme on the statute book, the Committee would surely expect that, if and when a new disease was added to the immunisation schedule, it should be covered by the payments scheme as soon as possible. The view we have taken, therefore, is that it is not necessary to apply the affirmative resolution procedure to the process of adding a further disease to the list in clause 1(2), or to any modifications of the conditions in clause 2(1).

The Bill, however, provides that if an order is made which is restrictive, either by specifying the date at which a particular vaccination is no longer within the scope of the scheme or by proposing other more limiting conditions than are at present in the Bill, for example, as to the maximum age at the date of vaccination, the affirmative procedure has to be used before such an order comes into effect. We believe that this is the right approach, as I will try to show in more detail.

The right hon. Gentleman's amendment would make two changes in parliamentary control over statutory instruments under clause 1. First, it would replace the existing subsection, which applies the negative procedure to orders under subsection (2) (i), extending the scope of the Act to any additional diseases for which public policy vaccinations might be provided in the future, by a provision requiring the affirmative procedure. Secondly, it would apply the affirmative procedure to regulations under subsection (3) which would define the circumstances in which payment could be made to a person disabled as a result of contact with a vaccinated person. Such regulations, as the Bill stands, are subject to the negative procedure by virtue of the general provisions in clause 8(2)(a) of the Bill.

The right hon. Gentleman has argued that subordinate legislation on these two matters amounts to an extension of the scope of the vaccine damage payments scheme and that it should thus be subject to express parliamentary control. The two provisions are, however, of very different weight. In practice, orders under subsection (2)(i) would be made only if at some future date the Government decide, on the advice of the appropriate advisory body, to extend the scope of routine public policy vaccination to additional diseases. As such a change does not happen very often, when it does occur the decision will, in any case, receive public attention, both as a matter of health policy and as a matter of additional Government expenditure, and it would be announced in circulars to the medical profession and in leaflets.

Once it had been decided that vaccination against some new disease was the best course, there would seem to be little room for argument that provision for payments under the Bill should be made in respect of damage arising from such vaccinations as for all other diseases subject to the vaccination programme. There seems to be no real argument for making the decision to provide such payments subject to affirmative procedure when the decision to give the vaccination itself would not be subject to such procedure.

7.0 p.m.

The provision about contact damage in clause 1(3) is of a different character. The Bill is so drafted that the provision about contact damage is ineffective unless regulations are made as to the circumstances in which contact damage is to qualify for payment. It will be necessary, therefore, to make regulations under this provision before any payment can be made. We do not at present know whether a payment will fall to be made under this provision, but, if there is a case, the circumstances will have to be very minutely defined. This is the reason for not having the details in the Bill but providing for them to be laid down in regulations and, given the specific and beneficial and rare nature of the contingency to be covered, there is in our view no case for an affirmative resolution procedure by any of the normal criteria.

I ought to add that I think that the amendment is in any case technically defective, in that the inclusion in the right hon. Gentleman's proposed new subsection (5) of the method of parliamentary control over regulations under subsection (3) conflicts with the general provision as to regulations contained in clause 8(2).

I turn to amendments nos. 11 and 12. These two amendments would substitute control by the affirmative procedure for control by the negative procedure over orders under clause 2(4)(a) —that is to say, orders which provided that one or more of the conditions of entitlement set out in subsection (1) of that clause need not be fulfilled.

Subsection (1) contains the basic conditions for entitlement, as to vaccination in the United Kingdom and within certain dates, and under the age of 18—except in the case of rubella or poliomyelitis, or in cases of vaccination at the time of an outbreak. It also contains the requirement that the disabled person was over two at the time of the claim or at the date of death. The Bill enables these provisions to be amended by statutory instrument. Any instrument which made the conditions more restrictive would already be subject to the affirmative resolution as the Bill stands. The right hon. Gentleman's amendments would ensure that no modification whatever could be made without an affirmative resolution.

All these provisions are in the Bill, as I have already said, so as to enable minor modifications to be made if, for example, because of changes in vaccination policy, the present conditions are found to be inappropriate. If one of the listed diseases ceased to be in the routine public policy programme, it would no doubt be appropriate to introduce a new provision terminating cover in respect of that disease from a current date as is done in the Bill from 1 August 1971 in the case of smallpox. This would, as I have said, require the affirmative procedure under the Bill as it stands. On the other hand, if the vaccination programme was extended to cover vaccination over the age of 18 in cases other than rubella or poliomyelitis, a relaxation of the provisions in the Bill would be likely to be appropriate, and, as this would be an entirely beneficial move, the need for an affirmative procedure is not in our view really apparent.

If it is necessary to make an order so as to provide for any case where smallpox vaccination has been administered since 1 August 1971 in the course of an outbreak of that disease, this would again be a specific provision which would need to be precisely defined in the order and which would affect only a very small number of cases, beneficially. It does not seem to the Government appropriate to make such an order subject to the affirmative procedure.

I trust that, in the light of this detailed explanation, the right hon. Gentleman and the Committee will accept that we have struck the right balance, in all the circumstances, in terms of the proper degree of parliamentary control, which the right hon. Gentleman is rightly concerned to effect. I hope, therefore, that the right hon. Gentleman will be prepared to ask leave to withdraw his amendment.

Mr. Graham Page

I am grateful to the Minister for that explanation of the negative procedure in respect of the power to make additions to the list of diseases in clause 1.

However, the Minister based his whole argument on the fact that there will be an addition to that list of diseases only if there is an extension of routine vaccination. That is nowhere to be found in the Bill. No court considering the validity of an order under the Bill would look to the Minister's words to see whether that was the intention of the Minister in the Bill as drafted. We must examine the Bill as it stands, and as it stands any disease could be added to that list.

If it is a disease to which the routine vaccination is applied, that itself is a controversial issue. Surely the Minister realises that vaccination is still a controversial issue. There are many who believe—and who would certainly believe if it were extended in some other way to some other disease—that it should not be extended. They would wish the matter to be fully debated by their parliamentary representatives. It is an example of a case in which the affirmative procedure should ensure debate.

The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ashley) accused the Conservative Party of not supporting him on a previous amendment. I accuse Labour Back Benchers of not supporting the control of Parliament over the Executive. This is a typical case in which there is no need to deny Parliament the right to debate this matter on an affirmative resolution.

I am surprised that the Minister, as the author of a very good book on the control of Parliament over the Executive, could stand at the Dispatch Box and advance the arguments he did. He said that such orders would be detailed and would apply to only a few people. However, they may be controversial and may be precedents for something very much bigger, even though they may apply to only small cases.

I said earlier that we so often hear the argument that certain orders will he technical, suggesting that the House will not understand them and that only a Minister can fathom them. That is what I meant by arrogance in the lust for legislative power without the interference of Parliament. I am sure that the Minister has no such thing in his character because he is not that sort of Minister. He is a considerate man and has always had great respect for Parliament and four our control over the Executive.

The Minister said that the amendment was technically wrong because it did not comply with a later provision in the Bill. That does not make an amendment technically wrong. A later clause can be amended, if necessary. It only means that one has to insert in the later clause an exception relating to this amendment.

However, I cannot press this matter, because of what the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South said earlier. He accused my side of the Committee, and I now accuse his side of not supporting me in seeking more control by Parliament over the Executive.

Mr. Alfred Morris

I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Page) for his kindly reference to my work in approaching the important subject of parliamentary control. I did not intend to chastise him for the defects of one of his amendments. I know that his concern is to bolster parliamentary control. The right hon. Gentleman knows my interest in this subject. I have suffered no change of view since I was an Opposition Member, nor will I experience any embarrassment in re-examining the book which was mentioned earlier.

Parliamentarians from both sides of the House contributed to that work. All of us, along with the right hon. Member for Crosby, are rightly concerned to protect parliamentary scrutiny and control. If there is no public health vaccination programme, there will be no vaccination. Hence, there will be no damage in the first place. That essential point must be considered. In our argument tonight, I hope that the right hon. Member for Crosby will accept that I was attempting to give a full and reasonable reply, and that he will now agree to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment negatived.

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Dr. Vaughan

We Conservatives have made it quite clear that we strongly support the intentions of the Bill and, there- fore, we are happy to support clause 1. I think that the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ashley) knows that perfectly well. We have consistently said that all cases of vaccine damage should be compensated. I do not think that the hon. Member was doing us justice when he used us as an excuse for not putting his amendments to a vote. The point that we were trying to make was that if this is not to be compensation but is to be a token recognition of damage, in justice perhaps it should be extended to include all cases of vaccine damage. That is surely something on which the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South would support us.

Mr. Ashley

I am very happy to rise to that point, Mr. Murton. Of course, I would have pursued this matter to the vote had I had support from the Conservative Benches. I feel that all vaccine-damaged children sould have been compensated, and I chose the 20 per cent. level in my amendment because this was a precedent in a scheme which could be followed.

I was staggered when I learnt that the Conservatives were not voting against the Government. If I now vote, I vote alone, and I do not believe in silly and unnecessary gestures. I do not believe in gesture politics. Let me couple with that my pleasure in this clause standing part of the Bill. I am delighted to support clause 1.

Every time I criticise the Government, I do not want it to be taken in isolation. I congratulate the Government on registering this clause, but on the question of voting for my amendment the fault lies with the Conservatives. Had they beeen prepared to vote against the Government on my amendment, I should have voted against my own Government on all my amendments. They are very small things, which do not attack the Bill as such. I think that the Bill is splendid, and I am delighted that it has been brought forward.

I do not want to be drawn into a general condemnation of the Bill. I shall keep on pressing that point, because I want to emphasise it and make it very clear that I believe that it is a splendid Bill. My amendments are very small. It so happens that they affect a very small number of people. None of us knows how many people are damaged less than 80 per cent. My right hon. Friend the secretary of State said that he did not know, and I accept that. None of us know. I am simply trying to do what I believe to be right, and I know that my right hon. Friend respects that.

I am not being awkward with the hon. Member for Reading, south (Dr. Vaughan), who has rendered very fine work for disabled people, but I am making it very clear that had I been supported by the conservative Opposition I would most certainly have voted for my own amendment.

Mr. Graham Page

I was teased mercilessly by a previous Speaker of the House for arguing, on one occasion, that a comma was in the wrong place, As a matter of fact, a new order had to be brought in later to put the comma in the right place. I defy being teased on this occasion by referring to line 24 on page 2, where subsection (2)(i)—little Roman (i)—is mentioned. What it obviously means is subsection (2)(i)— italicised (i). It is used again in the next clause. I hope that the printer will take note that at the moment that line is nonsense and that it really should refer to an (i)not (i).

7.15 p.m.

Mr. Ennals

I did not quite follow the argument about "italicised (i") and the "Roman (i)", but no doubt Hansard will, and attention will be paid to the extremely important point that the right hon. Gentleman has raised.

I do not want to take long replying to this short debate on clause stand part. My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ashley) referred to gesture politics. We get a lot of gesture politics these days, but the Bill is not gesture politics; it is a decision to make provision which probably should have been provided long ago, which we finally decided should be dealt with effectively.

I listened to the interesting exchange about my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South feeling alone and wishing to have Conservative support, and the right hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Page) feeling alone and wishing to have Labour support, and I do not want to intervene in the argument between them. amendment in order to complicate the But I did find a certain element of hypocrisy in the position of the hon. Member for Reading, South (Dr. Vaughan). I very rarely criticise him. He has the fascinating habit, every week—it is usually on a Friday—of demanding my resignation. It is most amusing. He says the warmest and most friendly things, thinks that I am doing a marvellous job and bringing forward exactly the right legislation, but his weekend speeches are empty except for one phrase, which demands my resignation or my sacking, as the case may be.

Returning to the subject to which I was referring, there was a certain element of hypocrisy, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, south said. The hon. Member for Reading, South said that we really ought to be dealing with far more children, although he did not table saying that we should being under the provisions of the Bill far more children who are disabled as a result of vaccine damage, he is intending one of two consequences. Either he is suggesting that they should be paid much less than we are offering to pay, or he has another new proposal to add to the list of additional public expenditure. He has not made it quite clear what the situation is. That is the element of hypocrisy in this matter. But I do not want him to resign. I wish him to continue in his Opposition role as long as time permits.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 1 ordered to stand part of the Bill

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