Chris Seeks To Clarify If Personal Injury Via Vaccine Counts Towards UC

Christopher Chope Conservative, Christchurch

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether vaccine damage payments made in respect of covid-19 vaccines are treated as payments for personal injury and qualify for a twelve-month disregard in the calculation of entitlement to Universal Credit; and if he will make a statement.

Guy Opperman The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions

The Vaccine Damage Payments made to individuals who have been severely disabled as a result of a vaccination against certain diseases, including Covid-19, will be considered to be a sum awarded to a person due to personal injury. For the purposes of any claim for Universal Credit, this sum awarded will be disregarded as capital for 12 months following the award of the payment. In that period it is expected that the injured person will place this sum into an appropriate trust fund, or use it to purchase an annuity to support them. If these funds are placed into a personal injury trust then the capital value of that trust and any income received from the trust will be disregarded for the calculation of their Universal Credit entitlement indefinitely. If the payment is used to purchase an annuity, then payments received from that annuity will be disregarded for the calculation of their Universal Credit entitlement indefinitely.

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