Contaminated Blood Products

Debate between Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick and Huw Irranca-Davies

Wednesday 9th September 2015 Westminster Hall

[Ms Ritchie]

I thank the hon. Lady for her helpful intervention. The bottom line is that none of these trusts has provided adequate help or succour for those who have suffered immeasurably. These people need an acknowledgement of liability and a sum of money that will enable them to live independently and with dignity. Such a sum should be supplemented with ongoing payments to recompense them for years of lost income and for the physical and emotional trauma that the contraction of these viruses has caused.

[Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)]

I support my hon. Friend and welcome this debate. Will she stress that, although we are giving voice to people in this debate, we are unable to give their names because of the continuing stigma? Those people include the “The Forgotten Few”, some of whom are constituents of mine, who are co-infected with HIV and hepatitis C. They and their families have lived for many years with not only the financial hardship but the stigma. In every debate on this subject I have been unable to name them, but they deserve justice as well.

[Ms Ritchie]

I am grateful for that helpful intervention, which characterises the real emotional trauma and pain that people who have been given contaminated blood products have had to endure for many years. The uncertainty needs to be addressed as well. The only body and the only people who can address the problems endured by those affected are the Government.

There is concern that the compensation resulting from the consultation could come directly out of Department of Health funds. Nobody who is suffering as a result of contaminated blood products wants anyone else with any other type of illness to suffer because of a lack of resources. Dedicated funding should come out of the Government’s contingency funds for people who suffer from this ailment, because these are special circumstances.

Groceries Code Adjudicator Bill [Lords]

Debate between Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick and Huw Irranca-Davies

Tuesday 26th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

The hon. Gentleman has intrigued me. Let us say that a larger operator over the turnover steps forward to the adjudicator with evidence that does not affect it directly but affects a series of smaller suppliers right down the chain. Does he seriously suggest that the adjudicator should not be able to take action on that? I trust the adjudicator to follow the evidence and identify the power relationship if the supply chain is being abused. If the evidence comes from a larger operator, all to the good. I want the adjudicator to step in and take the right action.

[Ms Margaret Ritchie (South Down) (SDLP)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that there is a need to protect all within the food supply chain? I represent a constituency in Northern Ireland and I am conscious of the dysfunctionality in that chain in relation to food prices, but also now in relation to food provenance and labelling.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

The hon. Lady is right. She speaks to the spirit and the letter of the amendments, to which I will now turn my attention. Amendments 34 and 35 are critical in view of what has passed before our eyes in the time since the Bill left Committee.

As hon. Members will know, last week Sodexho, one of the biggest catering firms in the UK and indeed in Europe, which supplies processed meat to schools, hospitals and our armed forces, withdrew all its frozen beef products after discovering adulteration with horsemeat. This is where the race to the bottom and the aim to be the cheapest of all lead us, when the cost of horsemeat going into mince is a quarter of that of good British beef, without appropriate regulation—and enforcement of that regulation.