§ Mr. WigleyTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many vaccine damaged children are excluded from the vaccine damage scheme(a) due to the 80 per cent. disablement threshold and (b) because their application was made over six years after the vaccination date. [29266]
§ Mr. DenhamThe administration of the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme is the responsibility of Peter Mathison, Chief Executive of the Benefits Agency. He will reply to the right hon. Member.
301WLetter from Peter Mathison to Mr. Dafydd Wigley, dated 24 February 1998:
The Secretary of State has asked me to reply to your recent Parliamentary Question asking how many vaccine damaged children are excluded from the vaccine damage scheme a) due to the 80 per cent disablement threshold and b) because their application was made over six years after the vaccination.The information is not available in the format requested. Data is not collected about the age of people who apply for a payment under the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme (VDPS). However, the majority of claims do relate to children.Such information as is available is shown in the table below. The data refers to all VDPS claims rejected for the reasons shown.
1992–93 1993–94 1994–95 1995–96 1996–97 Overall disablement is at least 80% but the vaccine damage is assessed at less than 80% nil 1 1 1 nil Overall disablement is substantially less than 80% and the cause has not therefore been fully considered 2 4 5 14 12 Application made more than six years after vaccination 18 22 17 19 22 I hope you find this information helpful.