Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Quin and Diana Johnson

Thursday 7th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Jeremy Quin)]

It was a privilege to appear before the infected blood inquiry on 25 July. You, Madam Deputy Speaker, referred to birthdays earlier and I believe that that was the birthday of the right hon. Lady, but she shared it with us in the inquiry—she was there in person for the hearings. At the inquiry, I shared the work the Government are undertaking to consider the interim recommendations and I look forward to receiving the final report in the autumn.

[Dame Diana Johnson]

It was good to see the Paymaster General, the Prime Minister, the Leader of the House and the Chancellor at those reconvened hearings. Sir Brian Langstaff made it very clear that his interim report on compensation was the last word that he was going to make on compensation. The Government have also accepted the moral case for compensation. What progress has now been made on Sir Brian’s recommendation on extending the interim payments to those who were not included in the first tranche of interim payments last year?

[Jeremy Quin]

As the right hon. Lady knows, we are working through this. There is more work to be done. It is a mammoth undertaking, as she knows, and we are looking forward to the final report and putting our response into that context.

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[Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

I am going to have another go: why is it that the Minister has not been able even to implement recommendation 17 of the second interim report, which is to set up a bespoke psychological service for those infected and affected, when other nations of the United Kingdom have been able to do that? Why has England been left out? Why have the Government not been able to do that?

[Jeremy Quin]

That issue is being taken forward, as the right hon. Lady knows, by the Department of Health and Social Care. I know it has made substantial progress on exactly such a scheme, and I look forward to it making an announcement in due course.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Quin and Diana Johnson

Thursday 11th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Quin]

We are all struggling over the opportunity to endorse what my hon. Friend says, because it is absolutely right and we do not say it enough. A huge amount of hard work is done by civil servants at local and national level. We appreciate the work undertaken by them and I very much welcome her bringing it to the Chamber today.

[Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

T6. The Paymaster General and I have been having a parliamentary tussle to get some basic factual information about the steps the Government are taking following the recommendations in Sir Brian Langstaff’s second interim report. Five hundred people have died since the inquiry was set up. On average, one person dies every four days. This group of people have very little trust in the system, which has let them down for so many decades. I know that the Paymaster General is a decent and compassionate man, so I ask him to step away from the Government non-speak and to provide the basic factual information that has been requested to that group of people, who are waiting desperately for the Government to act quickly.

[Jeremy Quin]

I take enormously seriously what the right hon. Lady says on this issue, on which she has campaigned long and hard and very successfully. We are now in the final stages, as she knows. We have received the second interim report on compensation, which we did not anticipate until February, but it has arrived and I am delighted that it has. It is real stuff to get our teeth into while we wait for the final report. We are doing a lot of work at pace.

To reassure the right hon. Lady, I chaired a meeting with Ministers from across Government last week. I have a bilateral meeting next week and I anticipate having more ministerial meetings, which I will chair, the week after. She has asked me to set out every single internal meeting I have on this subject, which is not normal in the formulation of policy. I do not intend to list every single meeting that I have internally or with other Ministers, but I assure her that we are working at pace to come up with a constructive response to the report.

Infected Blood Inquiry Update

Debate between Jeremy Quin and Diana Johnson

Wednesday 19th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Quin]

I thank my hon. Friend for recognising that there is a great deal of work to be done. I have already referred to the point about the register. Were we to adopt the clear recommendation from Sir Brian about an interim payment that goes more widely than the last scheme, that would require a registration scheme. I appreciate that that would take time, and it needs to be established at an early stage if that recommendation is accepted. I will return to update the House as appropriate, which I hope will certainly be before the summer break.

[Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for his statement, but really, after thousands have died, decades of campaigning, a five-year public inquiry with more than 500 people dying during that period, a review of compensation frameworks by Sir Robert Francis which was delivered to the Government last February, a first interim report from Sir Brian Langstaff, and now a second interim report from Sir Brian Langstaff setting out the clear case for compensation, enough is enough. Sir Brian Langstaff is clear in his report that the scheme need not await the final report to begin work. He states:

“It will clearly take political will to act quickly but the circumstances here warrant it,”.

Will the Minister explain to me, and to the thousands of people who will be watching this statement, what exactly is the problem? Why is there not the political will from this Government to deliver justice to this group of people?

[Jeremy Quin]

The right hon. Lady has been a constant and incredibly effective champion for those affected and infected. It was about time, but it was this Government who instituted this inquiry. We have made a huge amount of progress in having an inquiry, and in having clear recommendations on compensation from Sir Brian. We want to act at pace and we want to act swiftly, but it is also vital that this is done properly. There is a huge amount of work. The nature of the report and the recommendations Sir Brian makes are unprecedented for an unprecedented circumstance, but that requires detailed work and detailed analysis. We will bring forward a response as soon as we can. As I say, we are focused on the inquiry’s conclusion, but that does not preclude coming forward before then if we are able to do so and we decide that that is the right course of action.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Quin and Diana Johnson

Thursday 16th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

5. What progress his Department has made on providing compensation payments to infected blood victims.

[The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Jeremy Quin)]

I thank all those who attended the meeting of the all-party parliamentary group on haemophilia and contaminated blood chaired by the right hon. Lady last week. The Government acted on an interim compensation proposal for those infected in the autumn, paying out more than £450 million, and have accepted that there is a moral case for compensation. I am truly delighted that Sir Brian Langstaff has announced his intention to produce a second interim report, which, as I understand it, will be published before Easter. That will help the Government to meet our objective to be able to respond quickly when the final report is published in the autumn, although I do not wish to understate the complexity of the work involved in addressing the impact of the scandal.

[Dame Diana Johnson]

I thank the Paymaster General for attending the meeting with the all-party parliamentary group; we very much appreciated his input. What also came out of that meeting was a desire from those who have been infected and affected to have further information about what the Government are doing in preparation for the reports from Sir Brian—the final report particularly —later this year. I wonder whether the Paymaster General will set out how he feels he can best engage with those infected and affected in the coming months to show that progress is being made and set out a plan for that involvement with those infected and affected.

[Jeremy Quin]

The right hon. Lady makes a reasonable challenge. She has battled on this issue for many years. I am focused on that interim report from Sir Brian. We have already had the benefits of the Sir Robert Francis study, which I am sure has informed the work of Brian Langstaff and his team. When we see the interim report, it will be incumbent on us to give an immediate reaction—a reaction as soon as is practical—to it, and then to set out what we will be doing to build towards the final report, which, as I say, will be published in the autumn. I know that it has been a long wait for those infected and affected. It is not over yet, I am afraid. There is an awful lot of work to be done, but we are approaching the endgame as these reports come through.

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[Jeremy Quin]

Some of the precision of that would be better answered by my colleagues in the relevant Department, but what I will say to reassure the hon. Gentleman is that the Infrastructure and Projects Authority learns with every single project that we do. I have discussed this with the IPA, and there will be a huge amount of learning from the planning that has already gone on as to how we can make certain that future projects learn from experience and are more cost-effective. That was the case with how we have built schools: right across the Government service, we are finding ways of learning and applying that more regularly.

[Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

I am going to have another go. Will the Paymaster General agree to a series of update meetings with those infected and affected by the contaminated blood scandal in the months leading up to Sir Brian Langstaff’s final report? That is a specific question.

[Jeremy Quin]

The next point in this process will be the second interim report, and when that is published, I will meet the right hon. Lady and her colleagues from the all-party parliamentary group if that is helpful. That is about two weeks away, in the Easter recess.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Quin and Diana Johnson

Thursday 8th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Quin]

It is indeed critical, and we commissioned the compensation framework study to ensure that we could be ready to respond quickly to the inquiry’s recommendations. It was a pleasure to meet the co-chairs of the all-party parliamentary group on haemophilia and contaminated blood, from whom we may hear shortly. Work is ongoing, and I hope to give the House a further update as soon as possible on how that work is progressing and how we will continue to take it forward.

[Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

I thank the Paymaster General for meeting the Father of the House and me last week. May I remind him how difficult it has been to build trust with this group of people who have been infected and affected and have been treated so badly over so many decades? The Government promised a statement to the House in response to the review by Sir Robert Francis KC of the framework for compensation. Can the Paymaster General specify a date on which we will be given that statement?

[Jeremy Quin]

Let me first acknowledge all the tireless work done by campaigners—those infected and those affected—and by those who supported them in the House and outside, including the right hon. Lady and the Father of the House, my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley). These are dreadful circumstances, and we are determined to be ready for Langstaff’s report, which, presumably, will be published midway through next year. That is why Sir Robert Francis was commissioned to undertake his study.

I think that, in part, our actions in making the interim payment—thus meeting the interim recommendations in full—speak for themselves, but I understand the right hon. Lady’s point. I look forward to updating the House as soon as possible about the work we have done and will continue to do, and to updating it further on the progress towards the completion of Langstaff’s report.

Home Secretary: Resignation and Reappointment

Debate between Jeremy Quin and Diana Johnson

Wednesday 26th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Quin]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his characteristically fresh approach. Members will remember that many people appointed by their respective parties have made mistakes, have accepted those mistakes and then made a fresh start. I thank him for his openness in saying that and for reminding us that this is the case across the House. I agree that the real challenges are those facing this country in the years ahead, and the Home Secretary is hard at work getting on with it.

[Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

The Minister has talked a lot about accountability today, and the Home Affairs Committee has an important role in scrutinising and questioning the Home Secretary on her policies. We have not been able to do that since 2 February. When it comes to accountability and making this place work properly, we need Home Secretaries and Ministers to come before the Home Affairs Committee. Can the Minister confirm that the Home Secretary, as she now is again, will appear before the Home Affairs Committee, as will all her Ministers? This morning we heard some very disturbing evidence about the current chaos within this country’s immigration system.

[Jeremy Quin]

Clearly, I cannot make commitments on behalf of my fellow Ministers, but it is a long-established practice of this House that Ministers make themselves available. I have no doubt that my ministerial colleagues are very aware of that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Quin and Diana Johnson

Monday 20th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Quin]

I was so flattered to be awarded the creative writing award by the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) that I was perhaps too kind. There is an awful lot that is great going on in British shipbuilding at the moment. He has been calling for the design contracts to be awarded, and they have been awarded; we are getting on with the fleet solid support ships. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Philip Dunne) says, there is also great news on Type 31. There is a lot of good news in the sector.

[Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

11. What steps he is taking to help improve provision of mental health services for members of the armed forces.

Loss of Secret Documents

Debate between Jeremy Quin and Diana Johnson

Monday 28th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Quin]

Absolutely; that is an ongoing task. There is intense planning behind all defence engagements and activities. That continues to be the case, and we always ensure that it is the defence, the safety and the security of our defence personnel that is uppermost in our minds.

[Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab) [V]]

After this weekend, with sensitive military documents left at a bus stop and questions over the surveillance of a Secretary of State in his ministerial office, and as we are well aware that adversaries of our country, be they hostile states or terrorists, forever probe our national security for weaknesses, can the Minister tell the House which organisations are involved in the investigation into how documents were compromised in this way?

[Jeremy Quin]

I have already confirmed that the MOD police are involved in this process, but I can assure the right hon. Lady that all those whose involvement in the investigation is relevant and appropriate will be involved. She is absolutely right to refer to the ongoing threat to our national security in cyber terms as well as in the context of physical documents, and we as a Government ensure that we have the right advice from the right professionals in the right way.

Defence and Security Industrial Strategy

Debate between Jeremy Quin and Diana Johnson

Tuesday 23rd March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Quin]

We are grateful for the work of Cammell Laird on the Royal Fleet Auxiliary, and the company continues to perform on our power improvement project for the Type 45s. It does a good job by us.

Decisions on steel are made by our primes, but the hon. Lady is right. The vast majority of the steel used in the Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers was British, and more than half, by value, of the steel used in our Type 26s comes from the UK. Given the extra shipbuilding signalled via yesterday’s Command Paper, I am confident that there will be further opportunities for British steel in the years ahead.

[Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab) [V]]

As we have heard, defence procurement must be about supporting our own strategically important defence manufacturing industry and protecting skilled jobs, as many countries do around the world. There can be no greater ambassadors for global Britain than our Red Arrows. Ministers have previously said that the current Red Arrows fleet of Hawk trainers, built at Brough just outside Hull in the 1970s, have an out-of-service date of 2030. Will we get a decision on the renewal of that fleet over the next few years?

[Jeremy Quin]

The right hon. Lady will be pleased to hear that the Red Arrows are safe, and the current out-of-service date remains 2030. I have no plans that I can currently share with her on what we will do in respect of an upgrade. That means not that one is not going to happen, but just that at the moment I do not have any plans and 2030 is a little distant. It is, though, something to which I will turn my mind.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Quin and Diana Johnson

Monday 16th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Quin]

This £330 million sonar and mast contract is indeed good news. It will secure or create highly skilled jobs in Thales in Scotland, Greater Manchester and Somerset—and 30, I am delighted to say, in the constituency of my hon. Friend and neighbour in Crawley.

[Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

T6. What assessment has the Secretary of State made of the impact of Covid-19 on plans to commemorate Victory over Japan Day in August with surviving veterans, and in association with the Royal British Legion and the Commonwealth War Graves Commission?