Universal Credit: Vaccine Damage Payment Awards

17. If he will review whether vaccine damage payment awards should be disregarded for the purposes of universal credit.

My hon. Friend is a great champion for his constituents in Newcastle-under-Lyme. It was a pleasure to meet him recently and discuss his particular constituent’s case. I can assure him that I will review the issue.

I thank the Minister for meeting me to discuss the case of Mrs Ward. As we all know in the House, the vaccines are incredibly important and largely effective in stopping covid, but there have been a few cases in which there are side effects, and we should acknowledge that. We have a vaccine damage payment scheme for such cases, but universal credit does not disregard payments made under that scheme, although it does for some other payment systems. That means that Mrs Ward, who has been bereaved, has the additional indignity of having her payment means-tested, whereas someone who was not on universal credit would receive the payment in full. I thank the Minister for the review, and may I ask for a timeframe for when people such as Mrs Ward can have answers about this?

My sympathies go out to Mrs Ward and her family in the circumstances that my hon. Friend has outlined to me, both in private and in public today. I can assure him that this matter will be reviewed. It is clearly a cross-Government matter, but it will be resolved by the summer at the latest.