The latest available figures reveal that the Government’s Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme (VDPS) has compensated just 1.2% of claimants. Almost 2,000 claims are still being processed by the NHS management scheme—and in some cases, many claimants are being made to wait more than 18 months. In addition, more than 400 claims have been made on behalf of someone who has died since 23 November 2021, the date when the NHS Business Services Authority took over the scheme. Of those 411 claims, just 27 have been successful.
The statistics have been revealed in answers to questions asked by Sir Christopher Chope MP, who is seeking to right the wrongs for those harmed by Covid–19 vaccinations. In an exclusive interview with UK Column, Sir Christopher said in April 2022 that many of his Tory colleagues shared his concerns about the Covid injections but were unwilling to put their heads above the parapet, while opposition MPs were turning a blind eye to the entire issue.
Speaking to me in a fresh interview for UK Column, Sir Christopher—the MP for Christchurch in Dorset since 1997—has now said:
There are a lot of opposition colleagues who almost seem to be in denial still about the link between covid vaccines and ill health.
Among the Conservatives, there are an increasing number who will support the campaigns which we are running, including campaigning to get compensation through the courts if we cannot get payments through the Government’s Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme.
Lawsuits
He said litigation was already in its early stages against some pharmaceutical companies and centred around the issue of blood clotting. But rather than focus on the science of what was in the Covid injections, Sir Christopher said he was spending his time and energy on helping those who have been harmed. The 76-year-old parliamentarian said:
The whole essence of politics is focus, and my focus has been on trying to put right the harms, as far as one can, through the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme for those who had the jabs and ended up suffering, in some cases death and in other cases severe illness and injury.
There are chinks of possible good news, in that the Government seems to be willing to look at revising upwards the maximum £120,000 for compensation. And it seems to be willing to consider extending the limitation period for the beginning of claims, as the three-year limitation period will begin to kick in early next year, and for people who haven’t had a resolution of their (VDPS) cases then, they potentially are going to be excluded from being able to bring action.
We need more people in Parliament to put pressure on the Government on these issues. And the NHS needs to start addressing these issues earlier rather than later, and stop causing so much suffering for the hapless victims of problems they have created.
Foot-dragging
He said the waters were being muddied by some who were suggesting that those suffering with long-term damage from the injections were actually suffering with long Covid. Sir Christopher described how he was pressing the Government to adopt a similar approach to that in Germany, which had a university clinic state-funded to help those harmed by the injections as well as those with long Covid, thereby separating the two issues.
Sir Christopher said the Germans were ahead of the British in accepting that the Covid injections were not “absolutely safe” and recognised the need to fund research in this area. He also said there had been a positive shift in relation to the British mainstream media’s addressing of the issue:
The Daily Express started off with a series of good exposés. The Daily Mail has done quite a lot, and the Daily Telegraph has been doing some stuff. And there are other journals now willing to take contributions from independent authors on this issue.
So it is getting out in the mainstream media—but a lot of it is online with publications like The Conservative Woman, which has been doing an enormous amount on this.
On television, GB News is something of an outlier in relation to bringing to the public’s attention some of the individual cases of people who have been severely damaged.
As of February 23 this year, there were 1,612 VDPS applications which remained unresolved for more than six months after the submission was made—amounting to 41% of the total applications. When asked if the VDPS was dragging its feet in regard to claims, in light of the numbers still being processed, Sir Christopher said:
Where we have made progress is that the Government has now conceded that some people have suffered damage to their health as a direct result of vaccines and, indeed, that some people had died as a direct result of vaccines.
It took a very very long time to wring that information out of the Government. I think it was only in an adjournment debate back in the spring that the Minister grudgingly seemed to concede that these bad outcomes were directly related to the vaccines, although she was still using language that the outcome was not as we would have desired, rather than saying people had died or suffered serious injury as a result.
We have made some progress in that people are not now being told they are mad. There is now an acceptance of a link between vaccines and vaccine damage for quite a lot of people.
And, indeed, that has been reflected in the number of claims that have been successful, and from other claims that haven’t been successful but where the causation has been established but [also] where the extent of the disablement was less than 60% which is the threshold which triggers compensation.
Risks ahead
When asked if he feared a future Labour-controlled Government could undo some of his campaigning work, Sir Christopher said:
My main hope between now and the next general election, in particular through the general election campaign, is that people who know about these issues, either being affected themselves or their families, will start confronting parliamentary candidates and asking them specifically where they stand.
Parliamentary candidates are at their most receptive and impressionable when they are faced with the reality of the ballot box. I see this as a big opportunity for our campaigners for proper compensation for the victims of vaccine damage—and for people who have expressed concerns about compulsory medication going beyond what is reasonable—to have a chance during a general election to bring these issues up with their own individual candidates. It’s a big opportunity to concentrate the minds of aspiring politicians.
Sir Christopher said he and colleagues shared particular concerns in relation to the World Health Organisation Accord and how the format could be changed so that WHO regulations would be mandatory rather than for individual countries to opt in or out of. He said:
The debates we have had in Parliament have drawn attention to the very dubious way the WHO is run, the way the bosses of that organisation seem to be under the influence of the People’s Republic of China, how there doesn’t seem to be much accountability, and how—without any evidence right at the beginning of the covid pandemic—the WHO suddenly changed its view from having been against lockdowns to being in favour of lockdowns, and on top of that in favour of mass compulsory vaccination.
He also mentioned that the WHO appeared to be a political organisation rather than an evidence-based one and that some people suggested it seemed to be unduly influenced by organisations such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Sir Christopher added:
As the UK, we are a sovereign nation and should not be signing up to a situation where we will lose control. That is a threat with some amendments that are still to be debated and voted on.
Sir Christopher was asked about tech giant censorship—which he himself has suffered, with a Parliamentary speech being taken down from YouTube. Sir Christopher said the biggest concern was that the likes of Google and Meta (Facebook) could filter information to suit their own political agendas. He added that online platforms should, like newspapers, be responsible for their content and should be held accountable for it.
Figures
In statistics provided by Maria Caulfield MP, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department of Health and Social Care, in response to Sir Christopher’s questions about the VDPS, it was revealed that:
- As of 23 February 2023, the number of applications related to Covid–19 vaccines was 3,887. Of these, there are 48 awarded claims (1.23%); 890 rejected claims (22.90%), of which 849 were medical rejections and 41 were invalid applications; and 1,612 applications unresolved for more than six months (41.47%).
- As of 20 June 2023, since 1 November 2021, the VDPS has received 5,809 Covid–19 vaccine related claims. Of these, the following are outstanding:
- 31 were received more than 18 months ago,
- 374 were received more than 12 months ago,
- and 1,076 were received more than six months ago.
- As of 20 June 2023, since 1 November 2021, the VDPS has received 411 Covid–19 vaccine-related claims on behalf of someone who has died. Of these claims, 27 claimants have been informed they are entitled to a Vaccine Damage Payment, and 291 claims have not yet reached an outcome.
- As of 22 June 2023, 157 VDPS claims have failed where causation on the balance of probabilities was accepted but the degree of disablement was assessed at less than 60%.
Main image: Official portrait of Sir Christopher Chope MP by Chris McAndrew | licence CC BY 3.0
