Dame Diana Johnson

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this afternoon, Mr Stuart, as you are my constituency neighbour in East Yorkshire. I thank the hon. Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) for securing this debate, and I pay tribute to him for his work on the APPG on pandemic response and recovery and all his campaigning work over so many years. It was interesting that he referenced his first speech on this topic in 2021—persistence is certainly one of his qualities. I am always willing to meet hon. and right hon. Members. This has been a very good debate on an important topic. My hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West (Dr Cooper), who speaks with great authority as a public health consultant, set out some of the good work that happened during the pandemic as well as the international perspective that we need to be mindful of. The right hon. and learned Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Sir Jeremy Wright) is a doughty campaigner on behalf of his constituent Kate Scott. He made an eloquent speech—as he always does—and I agree with him about the issue of timeliness. My hon. Friend the Member for Blackley and Middleton South (Graham Stringer) took us back to some of the key decisions that were made during the pandemic. The hon. Member for Great Yarmouth (Rupert Lowe), who delivered a speech that I sadly felt was anti-vaccination, did not recognise the public health benefits of vaccinations. The hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Bradley Thomas) spoke very movingly about John Cross and his family, as well as the fight that they had and the need for reform of the vaccine damage payment scheme. I will meet the right hon. Member for Tatton (Esther McVey) as soon as possible, as well as the family she spoke of. During the pandemic, Members on my side of the House did our best to offer constructive opposition to the previous Government, and this Government are committed to learning every lesson from the covid inquiry. We are extremely grateful to the noble Baroness Hallett and her team for the thoughtful and thorough advice they have offered us so far. At the end of next week, we will mark 80 years since the National Health Service Act 1946, which paved the way for the introduction of the NHS two years later, became law. That will be a chance for us to remember and pay tribute to all those who served the public with such courage and professionalism during the pandemic, not least our social care workers, whose contribution has been overlooked for too long. Turning to module 4, we are also grateful to the small army of researchers, clinicians and regulators who worked around the clock to ensure that vaccines were deployed at speed, having gone through the rigorous safeguards of a clinical trial. But while it recognised the success of the vaccine programme, the module 4 report also sets out a series of recommendations and areas for improvement. For example, future vaccination and therapeutics programmes must—of course—have people’s trust, be guided by the best available evidence and remain available to all who need them. The inquiry also notes that safety monitoring must continue to evolve, with improvements to health data infrastructure. The Government published our response to those recommendations earlier this month. We are taking action across the board to improve vaccination uptake, pandemic preparedness and the strength of UK life sciences, especially through our pandemic preparedness strategy. If the last pandemic taught us anything, it was that UK life sciences not only are vital for UK growth but play a central and strategic role in how we respond to health threats. We propose to establish an advisory group with our partners in industry, building resilience across our supply chains. Vaccination uptake is not where it needs to be, especially for children. That is why we need stronger engagement with communities, particularly those communities where uptake is lower than average. As the Minister for Public Health and Patient Safety, I am especially concerned by the re-emergence of measles and other diseases that we thought had been banished when I was a girl. I want to respond to my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West on targets. We still have the World Health Organisation target of 95% coverage. I am determined to ensure that the protection that vaccines afford remains available to the many, not the few. I have also been clear that there must be strong collaboration across our United Kingdom, because diseases do not stop at Offa’s Dyke or Hadrian’s Wall. We are strengthening the way we monitor outbreaks, while improving access to linked healthcare data across all four nations. I now turn specifically to recommendation 5 of module 4 and the vaccine damage payment scheme. This is an important financial support for anyone who has become severely disabled following a vaccination. Fifty-three million people followed the example of Her late Majesty the Queen and took the jab to protect themselves, their loved ones and their communities. This country has a global reputation for an uncompromising approach to safety, and vaccines are authorised only once they have met robust standards of effectiveness, safety and quality. However, in rare and devastating circumstances, some people have gone through the nightmare of losing a loved one or suffered severe adverse outcomes following vaccination. Those people did as they were asked, in good faith, and through no fault of their own they have become disabled or worse. We can never turn a blind eye to the tragic instances in which things go wrong, and we must continue to be honest with the wider public that no vaccine is completely free of risk. This afternoon, I have listened very carefully to the concerns raised about the current scheme, the support available to those affected, the experiences of those who have made claims and the time that it has taken to respond to these concerns. People who experience severe outcomes deserve appropriate support. This is not just about the welfare of those families, important though that is. As the right hon. and learned Member for Kenilworth and Southam said, it is about public trust in our wider vaccine programme, because people must be confident, when stepping into the clinic, that the state will be there for them if things go wrong. The hon. Member for Christchurch asked me when we started to review the VDPS. I want to be very clear on this, because I know that previous Ministers have stood up and given answers on it. The Department has been considering options for reform and will now initiate a period of open engagement with those affected. We are going beyond the case for reform and turning now to the detail that must underpin any reforms. The hon. Member for Bromsgrove and a number of other Members have asked me whether the Government accept that the 60% disability threshold is too high and whether we will consider changing it. The Government understand the concerns raised about the 60% disability threshold by the inquiry. The inquiry’s recommendations will be central to our ongoing work as the Government consider a range of options for potential reform, including introducing multiple levels of payment. Last week, I met injured people and bereaved families. I understand their frustrations about how long this is taking when successive Governments have kicked the can down the road.