§ Mr. Ashleyasked the Secretary of State for Social Services how many children have now received the £20,000 vaccine damage payment.
§ Mr. WhitneyOne award of £20,000 has been made and will be paid shortly.
§ Mr. Ashleyasked the Secretary of State for Social Services (1) if he will give for each year since 1979 (a) the number of vaccine damage payments made, (b) the real value of each payment based on 1979 prices, (c) the total cost to his Department of the payments made, in real terms based on 1979 prices, (d) the total cost to his Department of the payments scheme, including the cost of the payments and the administrative cost; and if he will give the figures in prices current at the time, in 1979 prices and in 1985 prices;
(2) what has been the total cost of the vaccine damage payments scheme since its inception; and if he will give separate figures for the cost of the payments and the administrative costs.
§ Mr. WhitneyThe following table gives the information available. Information on cost could not be related to each of the payments concerned according to the date of payment except at disproportionate expense. Instead, the payments have been revalued by the average GDP deflator for that year.
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Financial year 1978–79 1979–80 1980–81 1981–82 1982–83 1983–84 1984–85 Totals £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ Estimated administrative cost at 1978–79 prices 240,000 221,600 175,100 87,700 69,100 55,000 56,500 905,000 Cost of payments at 1984–85 prices 107,200 5,394,700 3,268,000 794,600 436,700 418,000 360,000 10,779,200 Estimated administrative cost at 1984–85 prices 428,600 395,800 312,600 156,600 123,400 98,200 101,000 1,616,200
§ Mr. Ashleyasked the Secretary of State for Social Services how many applications there have been for the £20,000 vaccine damage payment; and what is the forecast departmental expenditure for vaccine damage payments in the current financial year and the subsequent three years.
§ Mr. WhitneyThirty-four claims were received in the period between 18 June, when my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services announced the increase in the level of payment for successful new claims, and 18 November. It is estimated that payments will total £240,000 in the current financial year. The present estimates for expenditure in 1986–87, 1987–88 and 1988–89 are £360,000, £420,000 and £450,000 respectively. However, the incidence of expenditure cannot be reliably predicted and the estimates will be subject to revision from time to time.
§ Mr. Ashleyasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what has been the total number of applications for vaccine damage payments since the inception of the scheme in 1979; how many have been refused by his Department; how many have been rejected by tribunals; and how many have been successful.
§ Mr. WhitneyAs at 8 November 1985, 3,139 claims had been received. An initial decision on 3,133 of these claims has been made by the Secretary of State, resulting in 397 awards and 2,736 disallowances. Of the 1,373 disallowances which have been reviewed by a vaccine damage tribunal, 415 cases resulted in an award and in the remaining 958 cases the disallowance was confirmed.
Awards following vaccine damage tribunal decisions 1983 1984 1985* Tribunal Decisions Awards Per cent.successful Decisions Awards Per cent. successful Decisions Awards Per cent successful Belfast 1 — — 2 1 50 — — — Cardiff 4 2 50 1 — — 2 1 50 Edinburgh 11 5 45 2 — — 4 — — Leeds 4 3 75 2 1 50 5 3 60 London 23 9 39 13 4 31 10 2 20 Manchester 10 6 60 4 3 75 6 3 50 Nottingham 8 7 88 10 5 50 8 7 88 * Up to 8 November
§ Mr. Ashleyasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if, pursuant to the reply, Official Report, 26 November, columns 545–6, he will categorise the vaccine damage payments made for a vaccination stated by the claimant to have included a pertussis element, according to the year in which the parents recalled that the child was vaccinated.
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§ Mr. Ashleyasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will categorise the number of rejected applications for vaccine damage payments according to the reason given for their rejection.
§ Mr. WhitneyUp to 8 November 1985, the latest date for which statistics are available, the information is given in the following table.
Claims for vaccine damage payments: disallowances Numbers Disallowances on non-medical grounds 132 Disallowances on medical grounds Disablement of 80 per cent, or more accepted but vaccination not accepted as cause 1,629 Disablement less than 80 per cent, and vaccination not accepted as cause. 227 Disablement less than 80 per cent, but vaccination accepted as cause 14 Disablement substantially less than 80 per cent., cause not fully investigated 319
§ Mr. Ashleyasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will give, for each of the last three years for which figures are available, the number of cases heard by each of the vaccine damage tribunals; and if he will give the percentage that was accepted by each tribunal in each year.
§ Mr. WhitneyThe information requested is as follows.
§ Mr. WhitneyI regret that this information is not readily available and could be extracted only at disproportionate expense.