Infected Blood Inquiry: Additional Report

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Thursday 24th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Finn (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for this opportunity to ask questions on the additional report of the Infected Blood Inquiry. I thank Sir Brian Langstaff for his continued work to get justice for the victims. Like him, the Official Opposition want to see fair compensation provided without delay to every person who is eligible—and the key words are “without delay”. I welcome that the Infected Blood Compensation Authority—IBCA—has accepted most of the recommendations made by the inquiry and we support the Government’s decision to instigate a review of the IBCA’s delivery of the scheme. The Government are also right to accept the seven sub-recommendations and engage with the community on those recommendations that they are not yet able to accept.

The critical factor in this issue is time. We know that many victims of the infected blood scandal have sadly died before receiving compensation. Ministers and officials must work tirelessly to ensure that victims receive the compensation that they deserve as soon as possible. In the other place, Ministers were clear that their top priority is to move quickly. Can the Minister confirm that the complexity of changes that will be made to the IBCA scheme will not stand in the way of timely payments? What assessment have the Government made of the complexity of the scheme after these changes, and the impact of that complexity on the timeliness of compensation? Under the previous Government, engagement with the infected blood community led to a broad push for timely compensation and it was thought by some that keeping the scheme simple would maximise the chances of delivering compensation more quickly. Can the Minister confirm whether this has been borne out in her own and other Ministers’ engagement with the infected blood community?

The Government have committed to bringing forward regulations following their acceptance of a number of recommendations. These are to be introduced as soon as parliamentary time allows. Can the Minister please confirm that these regulations will be laid on our return in September and taken through the House by the end of the year? We and the victims have waited long enough, and they cannot be expected to wait any longer than that.

The Government have also accepted the recommendation on a grievance mechanism. It is important that lessons are learned and we support the Government’s acceptance of this recommendation. Can the Minister confirm how Ministers will ensure that the grievance mechanism is properly staffed, and how its performance will be monitored? Finally, how will Ministers ensure that the grievance mechanism process does not lead to any delays in compensation for victims?

The additional report also contained criticisms of the IBCA, which raised concerns about its ability to maintain trust. Reports that the IBCA proposed a gagging clause during the process of agreeing the arrangements for lawyers to support individuals with the assessment of their compensation are worrying. The report also found that the numbers who have received compensation to date are profoundly unsatisfactory. We need to see urgent improvements.

I do not want to conclude my remarks without specifically raising the experience of the victims of unethical research practices, especially those who were pupils at Lord Mayor Treloar school. The additional report recommends that the IBCA should be authorised to make payments where it is satisfied that an individual was a victim of unethical research practices and that these decisions be based on the wider definition of research. The report also recommends that the Minister consider whether the compensation should be increased. We are pleased that the Government have listened and committed to consult. Can the Minister confirm when this consultation will be concluded and that the consultation will not result in any delay in compensation for victims? Questions have also been raised on the timeline of memorials for the young victims from Treloar. These are heartbreaking cases, so when can we expect work on memorials to be concluded?

It is essential that victims of the infected blood scandal receive fair compensation as soon as possible. We will continue to call for that, and press Ministers and their officials to address the criticisms and issues urgently to make progress so that we can achieve a better outcome for the victims.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, for the second time in a fortnight, your Lordships’ House is debating a report from a judge telling the Government, in no uncertain terms, that the compensation schemes are not working properly and are an affront to the suffering that the victims have faced. The first, of course, was the Post Office Horizon scheme a fortnight ago.

From the Liberal Democrat Benches, I echo the thanks of the Conservative Benches to Sir Brian Langstaff for continuing to speak truth to power and for holding the Government to account. Today, the Government are responding to Sir Brian’s additional report, following his urgent session, in which he took moving evidence from the infected and affected victims and organisations. His report is blunt. He also said that he reserves the right to reconvene the inquiry at a further date, to further assess whether this Government have not just taken on board but changed the delivery process to ensure that all victims are treated fairly, speedily and with humanity. I am not aware of another judge having done that recently.

Ministers seem not to understand that every challenge—having to prove things again and again during the compensation process—revictimises those who have suffered already over many years. That should not be necessary. As usual, Ministers say the right words, but, as I said in the debate on the Post Office Horizon Statement, that is like the old bank adage on a rejected cheque: words and figures do not agree. Can the Minister say when the victims and Parliament will hear the results of the consultations and the consequent decisions by the Government on Sir Brian’s recommendations that they are not accepting in full today?

Sir Wyn Williams made an important point in the new Horizon report, which I and others have said repeatedly in Parliament: when will we have a truly independent body to manage inquiries and compensation schemes? IBCA is not truly independent; it is staffed by people who have come from various government departments, many of whom were involved in the process on the other side of the table, when victims were told repeatedly that there was nothing to be done and nothing to be seen.

However, this applies not just to this scheme or the Post Office Horizon one. As we heard earlier, it also includes Hillsborough, Windrush, the Manchester bombings, the nuclear test veterans, the medical scandals that cannot even get to first base—such as those around vaginal mesh implants and sodium valproate, which means that babies are still being born with deformities—and many others. I ask this Minister: will she and all the other Ministers managing these compensation schemes, including the so-called arm’s-length ones, get together to consider Sir Wyn’s recommendations?

I have a series of questions about the Government’s response. However, I will start by thanking the Government for the recommendations that they have already accepted: the HIV start date; the effective treatment award for those with hepatitis B or C; and, especially, the 31 March cut-off date for bereaved partners receiving support until their affected claim can be started—they are all vital. The Government have also recognised that the estates of deceased affected victims should now be able to pass on their compensation as those of infected victims can.

In the comments to Sir Brian’s report, the Paymaster-General says very clearly that the timescales are not changing. Sir Brian made it plain that it was unacceptable that the affected victims would not even start to be approached until the end of this year. Can the Minister therefore explain why this timescale is clearly not being speeded up? It makes a mockery of “working at pace”. How long will it take for IBCA to design and introduce a process for registration, as opposed to victims waiting for a call, as they might do for the lottery?

Newspapers have reported that, this time last year, IBCA consisted of just a couple of staff and computers. What is the headcount now, and what plans are there to ramp up the number of staff to speed up the processes?

The review of IPCA is expected to begin in August. When will Ministers report back to Parliament on its results? I do mean Parliament and not just the Public Accounts Committee. The Government have agreed to look again at some of the recommendations, such as the calculations of past care and financial loss—where the current process downgrades the commitment of home carers, many of whom have had to give up work for decades to look after their loved one—and the compensation scheme for victims of unethical research. The experience of the latter is among the most horrific of any scandal that this country has seen in the past 50 years.

Forgive the cynicism, but “looking again” gives no assurance that the severe wrongs done to the affected and infected victims will be remedied. Can the Minister say how long “looking again” will take?

To conclude, the Liberal Democrats are pleased that there is progress in the Statement and the report. However, Sir Brian, the many infected and affected victims, and Parliament will be watching to see whether this Government deliver—and swiftly—on their moral obligations to the victims of the infected blood scandal.

[Baroness in Waiting/Government Whip (Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent) (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful, as ever, for the contributions of the noble Baronesses, Lady Finn and Lady Brinton. Their responses were, as they have always been in previous debates in this House, measured, reasonable, productive and challenging where we need to be challenged. I truly believe that this debate and the debates that we have had thus far on this issue show your Lordships’ House at its best.

Sir Brian’s further report set out a constructive way forward for the Government and IBCA to take, with one key message coming through loud and clear: the Government must build back trust with the community by truly involving them in how we move forward. In his report, Sir Brian says that

“there may yet be a prospect that some trust can be restored, though it will require more than goodwill, more than warm words, and more than statements of intent to secure it”.

I know that those words resonate with this House; they should be the model of how the Government drive this work forward. I hope that the Statement shows that we are planning to do just that by taking the actions we can now and engaging the community on how we can best achieve other changes to make a scheme that works for all of them.

I turn to specific points and questions raised by the noble Baronesses. If I am unable to cover them all, I will obviously reflect on Hansard and respond to anything in writing over the summer. I have a series of bits of paper and messages coming through, because there is one specific point from the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, that I do not know the answer to; I expect it imminently.

The noble Baroness, Lady Finn, discussed memorialisation. The Minister for the Cabinet Office has appointed Clive Smith as chair of the infected blood memorial committee. The Government are confident that he will progress the memorialisation work quickly, while bringing the community together. Given his history, we are very pleased that he has accepted this role. He has set out his intention to appoint a vice-chair to represent the whole blood transfusion community, and that post will be appointed in due course.

I turn to the mechanisms for concern about the scheme. In line with the inquiry’s recommendations, we seek to introduce a mechanism that individuals may use to raise concerns and to aid the continuous improvement of the scheme, working with IBCA to do so. We will respond shortly.

I will answer the questions as they were taken. It is the end of term, and I want to make sure that I get this right, so I ask the House to bear with me.

The noble Baroness, Lady Finn, said that we will continue to work tirelessly. I think that everybody across your Lordships’ House accepts that we need the Government to work at pace to deliver for members of the community. I hate the phrase “at pace”, but if it has ever been required, it is for these people at this point.

On the complexity of changes, I reassure all noble Lords that any changes will not stand in the way of timely payments. We seek to move as quickly as possible. IBCA will continue to make payments, as it does under the current scheme. No one will have to apply for additional enhancements on top of that, but IBCA will then give additional funds if they are found to be necessary. No one will have to reapply based on the schemes that we bring forward.

Both noble Baronesses asked me about timing. We will bring forward the new statutory instruments as quickly as possible. Those for phase 3 will be completed by the end of the year; I hope that they will pass through your Lordships’ House before Christmas, subject to the usual debates. Additional statutory instruments will then be brought forward next year, after appropriate consultations have been made with the community to make sure that we are getting this right for them.

I was asked for an assessment of how we have adopted this scheme that was established under the last Government. The last Government and this Government have had to consider a bespoke versus a tariff scheme. We have adopted a tariff-based scheme to make sure that people receive payments as quickly as possible. That was always going to have some associated challenges, as the victims of this horrendous scandal may not have felt that they were going to get fully recognised within each tariff. But it was the most effective way to get money and compensation as quickly as possible to those people who deserve it.

With the special category mechanism and the other additional changes we have announced this week, we are trying to make sure that the tariff scheme is as a broad as possible to provide support, but it is not a halfway house and there are initial tariffs to reflect changes.

I will have to write the noble Baronesses about the grievance mechanism, staffing and monitoring. I will come back to them.

When it comes to victims of unethical practices, everyone who has been touched by this horrendous, heartbreaking scandal will have their own stories of heartbreak and the things that touched their heart most. I think I speak for every Member of your Lordships’ House when I say that when we have talked about Treloar’s and the children and their heartbreak, you cannot help but cry knowing what has happened to them.

Victims of unethical practices have to be appropriately compensated—I say compensated, but you cannot compensate for what happened to anybody affected by this scandal. There is not enough money in the world to make up for what has happened, but we need to make sure that appropriate schemes are in place so that what has happened to them is truly recognised.

On consultation not leading to delays, we are very clear: we need to consult. The report was clear that people had

“been heard but had not been listened to”.

We need to make sure that people feel they have been heard and listened to, and therefore there is a balance here. While we move forward with the existing scheme, we need to make sure that for changes to the scheme there is genuine consultation and people feel listened to. It will not lead to delays, but we are going to make sure that the consultation is done properly.

There are two different levels of review being undertaken. The first is of IBCA, which will start in August. Without doubt, we will be discussing the findings of that review in your Lordships’ House. We have also asked the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee in the other place to analyse this to make sure that we are doing the appropriate work. That review starts in August. The Minister for the Cabinet Office is currently reflecting on the best way to initiate a true consultation exercise with members of the community. We hope to formally start that process in October, making sure we get it right so that people feel that we are moving forward appropriately.

The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, asked me about a statutory compensation body. I responded to this issue when we were discussing Horizon recently, but more broadly in terms of how we respond to public inquiries. We have brought forward the dashboard, and we are bringing forward additional changes so that we have a list of recommendations made by public inquiries to make sure that we are implementing them. The noble Baroness raises a really important point which is under active discussion at the moment, and I hope that at some point we will be able to discuss it in more detail.

In terms of timescales not changing, I want to reassure your Lordships’ House that this is about backstops, not targets. IBCA has started increasing the number of people in the infected community whom it is contacting. While there are deadlines, there are backstops we hope to bring forward as quickly as possible, while making sure that we get it right. The infected community is to be expedited on the terms that have been laid out. Obviously, the affected community has slightly different issues because it is a much wider group of people. We will move forward quickly.

I had hoped that I would get the noble Baroness an answer about how many people are actually at IBCA, but we do not have the headcount to hand, so I will write to her. That is what I was waiting for.

In terms of the long look ahead, we are clear that there is a huge job of work to do, and I want to do it with all Members of your Lordships’ House. I am determined that we continue to work collaboratively to progress this work and continue in the spirit that has characterised our debates on this issue. Now is not the time for this Government to be defensive. This is about all of us working together to ensure that the next steps we take work for everybody, to get us to a point where, as Sir Brian says,

“the detail of the scheme matches up to its intent”.

To be clear, these are not small changes we are proposing. The decisions we have announced are currently estimated to cost a further £1 billion of public money in further compensation payments. It will take time to achieve them, particularly with those that we wish to put to consultation in the community. However, the inquiry’s further report was clear that the actions we take next must show that we have

“not only heard, but listened”

to the community. Involving the community in the decisions that matter to them is the only way forward.

Before we move on to Back-Bench questions, I reiterate my thanks to the noble Baronesses on the Front Bench and to colleagues who are about to speak. Their tireless work has ensured that we have got to this place. While we are all sad that our friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell, is unable to be with us today, she, the noble Baronesses, Lady Featherstone, Lady Finlay and Lady Brinton, my noble friend Lady Thornton and the noble Earl, Lord Howe, have been tenacious and determined. It is their collective work on behalf of the people who had no voice and no platform that has allowed us to deliver for those touched by this appalling scandal. I for one am grateful for all their efforts.

Health and Social Care Act (Northern Ireland) 2022 (Consequential Amendments) Order 2022

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Monday 5th September 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Murphy of Torfaen (Lab)]

It will not be quite so short and uncontroversial next week—I suspect the Minister will have a few more hours on his feet than today—but on this one he is absolutely right. It is something we support.

It reminds us that there is of course an Assembly, which passed these changes some time ago. It also reminds us that this is an attempt to ensure that the health service in Northern Ireland is more efficient than it was. From a very good point of view, it shows the rest of the United Kingdom that health and social services go together. This operates well in Northern Ireland—it always has—and I am not quite sure why we do not take a leaf from the Northern Ireland book. It is something we admire.

What we cannot admire is the fact that there are no Ministers in Northern Ireland running the show, so far as health is concerned. We all know that there is a serious problem with waiting lists in Northern Ireland at both primary and secondary healthcare levels. There are huge difficulties in staffing, finance and so on. The problem is that there is no political authority in Northern Ireland to deal with these huge issues.

In a day we will have a new Prime Minister, and we might have a new Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. I hope that we do not have a new Minister for Northern Ireland in the Lords and that the Minister retains his position, because he knows a huge amount about the issues and the place, but there has to be even greater impetus. I know we have the protocol Bill and the legacy Bill coming up—these are all difficult issues to address—but, at the end of the day, unless we have a functioning Government in Northern Ireland only one other thing can happen. Ultimately, it will have to be direct rule. It would be a complete disaster if that had to happen, but you cannot leave civil servants running the show in Northern Ireland any longer, particularly with regard to health, so there is an impetus for the new Government and new Prime Minister, and possibly new Secretary of State, to resolve the impasse in Northern Ireland. We all know why it is there—I will not go into any of that—but I am sure that all Members in this Committee, particularly those from Northern Ireland, understand the significance and importance of having a Minister of Health who can operate as other Ministers can in a liberal parliamentary democracy.

I am sure that our belief, right across the House, is the same: let us restore the institutions, have Ministers and have an Assembly that is running, as in Scotland and Wales. Let us resolve those problems by proper, deep negotiation.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I will intervene from the Liberal Democrat Front Bench on this one. I could see the alarm in the Minister’s eyes that a Westminster health and care spokesperson might try to intervene on an order to do with Northern Ireland health and care. I assure him that it is as technical as his contribution at the beginning. We have no problem at all with the statutory instrument in front of us today.

I want to make one point, which I hope the Minister will take back. The noble Lord, Lord Murphy, may be aware that the Health and Care Act is the first real attempt by a Government in this country to combine health and social care, so Westminster, on behalf of England, is finally getting its act together and combining the two—which, whatever opposition we had to elements of it, we certainly welcomed. In March, during its passage through your Lordships’ House, a number of amendments were ruled out of order because they referred to some of the UK-wide legislation that the Minister referred to in his opening. We were told that an agreement had been struck by the Government with all three devolved nations, which had already taken their legislation through, and therefore that amendments we wished to lay could not be laid.

They were very minor and technical, so I will not go into them here. However, if we are going to talk about the importance of devolved responsibilities and try to mend some of the complex technical issues around legislation that crosses into UK-wide legislation, those working on Bills, certainly in your Lordships’ House, need to know at a much earlier stage where those discussions need to be had. It would have helped the transition of the Health and Care Bill, which was enacted on 28 April—some two months after the Act we are discussing was enacted—because there were things we would have liked to change and would have raised much earlier, had we been aware that there were issues.

[Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Lab)]

My Lords, I support this very technical order. Like the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, I make a plea yet again for negotiation between all parties and both Governments to get the institutions up and working to look at the areas where there are problems or impediments, including in the protocol, and any other issues.

The most important thing that the people of Northern Ireland require is a functional Government who are delivering for all of us on health and social care, the economy, infrastructure and job creation. In relation to this, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Murphy. There are chronic waiting lists in Northern Ireland for specific disciplines. There are also waiting lists to get on to waiting lists, which can cause such consternation for individuals who are ill. That has been the situation for quite some time.

I do not disagree with the assimilation of the Health and Social Care Board into the Department of Health and the five health trusts. As a former MP I had experience of dealing with the Health and Social Care Board and the health trusts. I could never fully understand or appreciate the difference in their workload, because the health and social care board commissioned the services and acted as the prescriber of what services were required. Notwithstanding that, that is a job better done by the Department of Health.

In relation to that, maybe the Minister would have talked to the current caretaker Minister, Minister Swann, who served as Health Minister for the last nearly three years, about what savings are projected from the assimilation of the Health and Social Care Board into the department and trusts. Will those savings be ploughed back into the delivery arm of the trusts so that people can access services in the medical and clinical areas to which they are entitled?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Caine (Con)]

As I said to the noble Baroness, I am perfectly happy to do so. I appreciate that no MLA is able to stand up in the Assembly and ask those questions at the moment, so I am happy to look into the matter and come back to her.

I welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, to her place. She correctly identified my look of alarm at the fact that a Westminster health spokeswoman had come into a debate on Northern Ireland matters. She will be aware that I played no role whatever in the passing of the health and social care Act, so I must confess to a certain degree of ignorance of some of the matters she raised. Again, I am happy to look into them for her.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

I was making a generic point for Ministers to take away that, where these things emerge, I suspect it would be useful if there were some wider discussions, at least with the Front-Benchers involved with the relevant Bills. It is somewhat frustrating three-quarters of the way through a Bill to suddenly be told that amendments cannot happen, but I am absolutely not asking the noble Lord to deal with that on its own. We respect devolved authority and think it is really important, but we all have to learn how to work together. In this Bill, for once, it was the Westminster side that was left out until after other things had happened.

Fire Safety: Lakanal House Fire

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Tuesday 27th June 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, it is not true to say that safety standards are set by the industry. They are set by the Government in consultation with the industry and the public sector. We take advice from many sources and we will do so again through the public inquiry that is now being set up. It is important that we do not prejudge this and that the public inquiry acts in a judicial way. It will be judge-led and will look at all the evidence before we come up with conclusions. That is the purpose of the inquiry.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, the coroner in the Lakanal House case actually cited some of the wider issues with the maintenance and refurbishment of buildings as well as their outer envelopes. I am slightly bemused that the Minister has said both today and yesterday that work has not yet started on the revision of part B regulations, because on 3 March 2015 the then Minister for Housing, Stephen Williams, announced that not only would the review start but that it would report back to Parliament in 2016-17 with a revised document. Can the Minister explain why this was stopped after the 2015 election and what interim steps will be taken before the result of the inquiry to make sure that we do not have to wait a long time before urgent changes can be made to these regulations?

International Women's Day

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Thursday 3rd March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brinton]

My Lords, I rise to speak for the first time in some trepidation and in awe of the excellence of the debate and the many unwritten conventions by which this House regulates itself. The welcome I have received from noble Lords and from the attendants, doorkeepers, officers and staff of this House has been generous and supportive, and I thank those who helped my family on the day of my introduction. I particularly want to thank everyone involved in the briefing and induction process for new Peers. It makes this new girl feel that any ignorance is hers alone.

I have a particular interest in education through my time as a Cambridgeshire county councillor with the education portfolio, then as the skills champion and deputy chair at the East of England Development Agency, and my 20 years working in higher education, including as senior bursar of Lucy Cavendish College under the presidency of my noble friend Lady Perry, who was referred to by my noble friend Lady Trumpington.

This debate honours the centenary of International Women's Day, and I start by marking the contribution of my cousin, the late Lady Stocks of Kensington and Chelsea. I remember from the early 1960s this doughty—and, to be frank, to an 8 year-old, scary—lady whose debates at Sunday lunch were always impressive. At an early age, she showed me that women could do anything they set their mind to. Unusually for a primary school girl, I understood the importance of Cross-Benchers and the role of Life Peers.

I was later shocked to discover—children often fail to understand that their elders were once young—that this eminent Peer of the realm had started her own career as a rebel. One hundred years ago she was a suffragette marching to Parliament to demand that women should be given the vote. She dedicated her life to the education of women and she showed me, in the words of John Stuart Mill, that women must,

“stir up the zeal of women themselves”.

I suspect that she also helped to create the rebel in me, occasionally to the amusement of my much-loved late father, Tim Brinton, formerly of another place.

Globally, women still bear a disproportionate burden of the world’s poverty. A UNIFEM report last year said:

“Statistics indicate that women are more likely than men to be poor and at risk of hunger because of the systematic discrimination they face in education, health care, employment and … control of assets”.

I would like to focus on a smaller group of women. Those with disability are known to be further stigmatised and experience even greater poverty, less education and worse health than their non-disabled peers. I will give just one example. In rural Tanzania, as many as one in 10 pregnant women develop obstetric fistula after an extended labour. Tragically, 90 per cent of these women lose their babies and are then confined to home with the debilitating results—uncontrolled leaks and resulting health and hygiene problems. Women find themselves outcasts in their own community. Obstetric fistula can be treated by a simple, free hospital operation and rehabilitation in Tanzania, but it was difficult for the health professionals to identify women who needed help because they were invisible. Without treatment, the women became disabled and unable to take any part in their society, all for the want of transport to hospital.

As a result of lateral thinking and using modern technology, Comprehensive Community Based Rehabilitation Tanzania, an NGO that works with CBM UK, the disability charity of which I am a trustee, developed a scheme called M-PESA with the phone company Vodacom. Regional representatives locate women with obstetric fistula and alert the NGO, which transfers money via a text message on a mobile phone to pay for a woman’s bus fare to the hospital. This really is a case of “for the want of a nail the kingdom was lost”, or, to turn it positive for this project in Tanzania, “for the want of a bus fare, a woman’s life is returned to her, and her family”. Projects such this, funded either by private or public funding, lie at the heart of the best in world development, and I am encouraged that maternal health is one of the key objectives of this week’s DfID review. However, I hope that the guidance is not drawn so tightly that low-cost projects like this, which are truly life changing, are excluded in future because a bus fare might not count as maternal health.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Gould of Potternewton, for instigating this debate, and I look forward to many more. I am humbled that I am able to play a small part as a servant of this House and look forward to contributing in future.