My Lords, I speak from these Benches to support both amendments in this group. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, introduced his Amendment 164 on vaccine damage payments, explaining that the current law as set out in the Vaccine Damage Payments Act 1979 is now over 40 years old. The amendment asks for a judge-led review on what parts of the Act need to be updated, especially the maximum payable as a result of vaccine damage.
The amendment proposes a small and focused review that will assist those who have been damaged by vaccines and will help the NHS, Government and Parliament ensure that the legislation is fit for purpose in the 21st century, especially for the families of those damaged by the Covid vaccine and of the very few who died. They may be an infinitesimally small percentage of those who have been vaccinated but their lives have been turned upside down because of doing the right thing.
Amendment 180 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, is an important pillar of delivering the recommendations from her First Do No Harm review, which outlined routes to assist those who had been harmed by an avoidable harm as a result of using certain HPTs, sodium valproate or pelvic mesh.
The victims of this avoidable harm are not to blame for it either, but are living out the consequences, including needing additional care for the rest of their lives. I know that the Government have been very supportive of the First Do No Harm review. I hope that they can be persuaded that now is the time to introduce schemes that will help these people. While I fear that there may not be movement on these two amendments today, I hope that the Minister can outline when there is likely to be progress on these two financially modest but essential areas that could right some long-term wrongs.
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