Infected Blood Inquiry

Baroness Neville-Rolfe Excerpts

Tuesday 20th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Allan of Hallam (LD)]

My Lords, Sir Robert Francis’s study into a framework for paying compensation starts with powerful testimony from those who were given infected blood products and those around them whom this affected deeply. Members in another place shared moving stories of their constituents in responding to this Statement last week.

This all points to the absolute urgency of getting compensation to the people who we are morally obligated to help, as Ministers now have agreed. We need to keep coming back to the timetable for establishing the full scheme and press the Government to move as quickly as humanly possible. I certainly echo the point from the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, that we need a timetable to give people certainty.

There has been considerable political turmoil this year, but it is good to know that the machinery of government kept working and has now been able to deliver the interim payments that Sir Brian Langstaff asked for in July. It would be helpful if the Minister could reiterate for the record what I understand the policy to be: that there are no circumstances under which any of those interim payments could be required to be paid back and that they could go up from £100,000 once the final scheme is in place, but they will never go down. That reassurance needs to be repeated for those applying to the scheme.

Could the Minister also ensure that recipients of compensation are properly protected as they claim for and receive these payments? We know that, sadly, there are some less moral people out there who will seek to take advantage of those entitled to compensation in any such scheme, either through excessive charges to support them through the claim process or by defrauding or seeking to defraud them once they have received the funds. What steps are the Government taking to ensure that we minimise the risks of financial exploitation of claimants during and after the claim process?

Sir Robert’s report included a recommendation for an arm’s-length body to be set up to manage the compensation scheme. This seems sensible as a way to build confidence from all parties concerned and shows lessons being learned from previous schemes such as the Windrush scheme, where there was a breakdown in confidence which damaged the scheme. Are the Government looking at how such a body could be set up? Are they doing that now under the committee that I understand is being led by Sue Gray in the Cabinet Office, to ensure that setting up such a body does not itself become a source of further delay if this is what the inquiry eventually recommends?

[The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Baroness Neville-Rolfe) (Con)]

My Lords, I start by saying that this is an unimaginably awful matter causing heartbreak and pain to all those directly and indirectly affected. It is a deeply shaming episode, as the noble Baroness rightly said. It dates back many years to the 1970s and 1980s and is a tragedy that has affected all Governments. We have to resolve it and move forward. The noble Baroness did not mention the need to ease the stigma and to be more vocal about the awful experiences of those involved and their loved ones, especially a long time ago when HIV/AIDS was less well understood.

The noble Lord, Lord Allan, asked about the interim payments, which we have all welcomed. It was an amazing effort by the machine once those were recommended to make them all by the end of October. They can only go up; they cannot come down. I think that was the reassurance he was seeking.

The noble Baroness had a number of questions. I think the first was on whether we can commit to publishing a full timetable for compensation. Clearly, that is something we would like to do. As she will understand from the Statement, it was the Government’s intention to publish our response to the compensation framework, and timings and so on, alongside the study, but the sheer complexity and the interdependencies have meant we are not able to set a timetable or, to answer one of her other points, to respond on all of the other recommendations in Sir Francis’s extremely good and perceptive report on compensation until we have the report from Sir Brian. I understand that that is expected next summer—I cannot say anything more explicit—and clearly, we will need to respond. The plans we have put in place will ensure that we are ready to respond.

The group led by Sue Gray was referenced, and that is progressing work on many fronts. This is a priority for government, so she is bringing together Permanent Secretaries—obviously the prime group of the Treasury, HMRC, the Cabinet Office and DHSC is leading on that, but it also involves the DWP, DLUHC, the devolved nations and others, as necessary. Preparations are being made so that, once the complexities are resolved with Sir Brian’s report, we will be able to move quickly.

Clearly the Government want to work with the people affected. I should take the opportunity to say how amazing the APPG has been, and I thank Dame Diana and Sir Peter Bottomley, and I know that in this House the noble Baronesses, Lady Finlay and Lady Meacher, have been involved. Both Sir Brian and Sir Robert have also consulted, and as we get closer to paying out more compensation, there will be more work with the various groups—I am glad to see the noble Lord, Lord Allan, nodding. To pick up some of the wording of the report by Sir Robert, the schemes have to be collaborative, sympathetic and as free of stress as possible for these people who have had unending disappointments. But they also have to be simple and easy to access, and consistent with our fight against fraud and scammers. I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Allan, made that point; again, it is high on our agenda.

We are working across government to ensure that we can deliver on the recommendations of the report. As I have already explained, it is a high-level, cross-government working group; it meets monthly and it is gearing up, thinking about the IT systems and how we ensure that we contact people who might want to seek compensation once we know the precise framework, and make sure that everyone can respond. Publicity is very important with these public issues, and noble Lords across the House can help with that, so that people know what is happening.

The final point I do not think I have covered is whether there should be an ALB, which is one of the recommendations in Sir Robert’s report. We are of course giving that careful consideration. It is clear how important it is that any vehicle for delivery of a compensation scheme carries the trust of the victims—I cannot make that point strongly enough—but it also has to achieve the objective of delivering compensation in a speedy and efficient manner. There are also issues regarding legislation and so on, which the Gray group is looking at.

To conclude, we are doing everything that we can within the constraints that I have described, and which the Paymaster-General, who spoke in the House last week, was very honest about. We will make progress statements to the House so that we do not repeat the difficulties of the past. We are absolutely determined as a Government to give this priority and get it sorted. This has been a serious failure and we have to compensate those who have had such a ghastly time.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I declare an interest: I was a Health Minister 43 years ago and am someone who has been told that they may be a potential witness in this inquiry.

Along with those who have served in another place, we have all met those who have suffered from these tragic errors and waited so long. We want to see an early resolution. I urge my noble friend the Minister to give sympathetic consideration to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Allan, following up the recommendation from Sir Robert Francis, that there should be an arm’s-length body to administer compensation with independence of judgment and accountability to Parliament. That seems to be a crucial factor in maintaining confidence in the system.

Finally, are there some lessons to be learned by government from this tragedy? The fatal errors were made in the 1980s, the inquiry was established in 2017, it will be 2023 before we get the final recommendations, and then there will be payments. Are there lessons to be learned about the sheer timescale of the inquiry in order to minimise the distress that will be caused in future?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

I thank my noble friend. I think I have said probably as much as I can about having an arm’s-length body, but clearly it is helpful to have Sir Robert’s advice on this important matter. No options are ruled out, and that is certainly one of the recommendations that we are looking at very seriously.

Independence in making sure that everybody gets the compensation they need and ensuring trust in the system are lessons that need to be learned. I like my noble friend’s challenge that we always need to learn lessons from mistakes that are made in government; coming from another world, it is something that I always try to do. Across all parties, we have been slow to take grip of this awful issue.

Having said that, it was the Conservative Government who set up the inquiry into infected blood in 2017. We then commissioned Sir Robert Francis to do a compensation study. The force of that study led Sir Brian—they are both involved in this; they work together—to recommend, on 29 July 2022, that an interim payment should be made. By October, we had paid that interim payment to all those he recommended should receive it. We have also ensured that it is exempt from tax and disregarded for benefits.

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)]

My Lords, as the Minister said, this is a tragedy. It is almost unimaginable what the families affected by this have gone through and are going through. My question is very simple and follows on from what two noble Lords who have spoken said. Do the Government anticipate that all the people who have suffered infection will get an interim payment, or is it limited?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

The interim payment is confined to those Sir Robert suggested it should be paid to—those who were infected. There was an ongoing scheme over a number of years to make payments to those affected—there were around 4,000 of them, so we knew who they were—and their bereaved partners. It was limited, as you will see if you look at Sir Robert’s report, because he felt that the complexities of deciding who else should receive compensation were too difficult, and that we should therefore come back to the wider group when we had Sir Brian’s report.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I think the whole House is grateful to the Minister for accepting that there have been too many long delays on this over the years. On the third page of the Statement, there is a reference to possible delays in working with the devolved Administrations. I gently point out that, this year, we have had two Bills going through your Lordships’ House where work was done speedily with the devolved Administrations. The Minister knows one of them very well—the Procurement Bill—but there was also the Health and Care Bill, where Members of your Lordships’ House were not allowed to lay amendments because of pre-agreement with the devolved Administrations. So it is certainly possible to work at pace. If the spirit of the Government is willing to move this forward, will they please prioritise these sorts of discussions, including with the devolved Administrations, to overcome the hurdles?

I worked with a theatre group that performed at Treloar School every summer. Of about 89 haemophiliac children who were at the school in the 1970s and 1980s, only a quarter are still alive, and of course, some of them are dying. They are psychologically scarred, not least because they were children away from home and had no say in the treatment that they were given, which everyone believed was a miracle cure. Factor 8 was going to be the change of life for haemophiliacs. Instead, for many of them it has become death.

I echo the questions raised by other noble Lords. It would be helpful for the Government to confirm a date by which they will come back with clear proposals. Generous though it is, this Statement just pushes things further into the long grass. To paraphrase another well-known saying, compensation delayed is compensation denied. In this case, it is also about justice being delayed and justice being denied.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for those comments, which underline the scale, gravity and dreadful consequences of this. It is very important that we dwell on that point. It is important to those who have been affected that they understand our sympathy as well.

Obviously, we hope and expect to get the report next summer. We will then move as fast as we can. It is clear that those of us now working in the Cabinet Office are giving this a very high degree of commitment. I assure the noble Baroness that we are also trying to work closely with the devolved Administrations. She knows that I mean it because we worked together on the Procurement Bill. It will be a UK-wide scheme, which is a good thing, but she will know there were disparities in the support scheme payments that were made. The DHSC acted to remedy that in a parity exercise, ensuring that Northern Ireland was aligned. That is an example of how we have been working with the devolved Administrations. When I answered the question asked by the noble Baroness opposite, I made it clear that the devolved Administrations were part of efforts to anticipate the findings that will come through and ensure that we are well prepared.