Contaminated Blood

Debate between Lord Austin of Dudley and Diana Johnson

Tuesday 11th July 2017 Commons Chamber

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

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the need for an independent public inquiry into the contaminated blood scandal.

May I first thank you, Mr Speaker, for allowing this emergency debate? This is the first such debate on the contaminated blood scandal, and it arises, as you know, after further evidence of criminal actions was produced by the right hon. Andy Burnham and after a joint letter calling for a Hillsborough-style inquiry from all six non-Government Westminster party leaders. After the announcement this lunchtime from Downing Street of a full inquiry into the scandal, emergency debates may become an even more popular route to get the Government to listen and act.

In the light of the announcement, I want to acknowledge all the people who have been involved in getting us to this point. I will start by thanking my constituent Glenn Wilkinson for his persistence and dogged determination when he came to see me in 2010 to tell me his story. I have kept him at the centre of whatever I have attempted to do on this issue. I also thank the many individuals and campaign groups who have fought for years to get to this point: the Manor House group, the Contaminated Blood Campaign, and Tainted Blood. I thank the Haemophilia Society, in particular Liz Carroll, its chief executive, and Jefferson Courtney, the policy and public affairs manager. Over 2,400 individuals have tragically lost their lives. They are not here to see this announcement, but their voices live on through their family members, who have never given up fighting for them. The campaign, which has run for many years, has at times had the great benefit of brilliant investigative journalists, including Caroline Wheeler of The Sunday Times, who was formerly a correspondent on the Hull Daily Mail, and the many researchers and journalists who worked on the BBC “Panorama” documentary on the disaster from just a few months ago. I know that the Daily Mail is not a favourite of yours, Mr Speaker, but it also ran a good story on its front page last week.

I thank the 111 parliamentarians who are members of the all-party parliamentary group on haemophilia and contaminated blood, particularly my co-chair the hon. Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley), the previous chair Jason McCartney, who is no longer a Member, Margaret Ritchie and Mark Durkan, who are also no longer Members but were vocal in the campaign, and of course the right hon. Andy Burnham, who set out clearly in his valedictory speech why this was unfinished business and why we needed a public inquiry. Finally, I thank the late right hon. Paul Goggins, who was a huge inspiration in this cause.

[Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is completely right to thank all those people, but there is one person missing from that list: herself. The whole House should thank her for her tireless work over the past seven years on this absolutely brilliant campaign. This shows how Parliament should work: a constituent raised the issue with her; she campaigned on it non-stop; she was not fobbed off; she pursued it doggedly; and she has played a huge role in bringing us to this point. Last night, I had a load of emails from constituents who have been affected by this scandal, and I want to say how grateful they are to my hon. Friend for the work that she has done.

[Diana Johnson]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for those comments, but this is down to the combined effort of so many people over so many years.

Contaminated Blood and Blood Products

Debate between Lord Austin of Dudley and Diana Johnson

Thursday 24th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Diana Johnson]

Absolutely. That is a very important point. I will come on to the primary beneficiaries in a while, but I will now make some progress.

My first concern was about the different schemes that are available. The second issue, which is also important, is that we know the five existing trusts will be amalgamated into a single body to administer the scheme at some point in 2017. I am deeply troubled by the fact that the administration of the new body looks likely to be done by a profit-making private company. I know that Atos and Capita have attended meetings with Department of Health officials about the new contract. Formal tender submissions will be due soon, with a decision on the contractor set to be made in 2017. No Health Minister has had the courtesy to tell the all-party group of these plans, nor were the beneficiaries asked for their views about this in the survey done in January. Even the Department’s response to the survey, which was published in July, made absolutely no mention of such a prospect. Alongside hon. Members on both sides of the House, I cannot support proposals to contract out provision to Atos or Capita.

Let me remind the House how many in this community were infected in the first place. Many contracted HIV and hepatitis C from American blood products supplied by profit-making private companies. The United States, unlike the UK, has always allowed the commercial purchase of blood products, and those products were often donated by people who desperately needed money and were willing to be less than honest about their chances of infection. This is the reason why so many in the affected community harbour such distrust of private companies.

[Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)]

I want to place on the record that I have been contacted by constituents in Dudley who have told me how grateful they are to my hon. Friend for the lead she has given and for the campaigning she has done on this issue. One constituent has written to me about allegations of impropriety in relation to doctors being encouraged by pharmaceutical companies to use plasma concentrates instead of cryoprecipitate in blood transfusions. Does she agree with my constituents that that should be investigated?

[Diana Johnson]

I am very happy to agree with my hon. Friend. That should certainly be investigated.

I return to people’s concerns about the use of private companies. We know that, over the past six years, there has been a huge sense of mistrust of the disability assessment regime operated by Atos before it walked away from its contract with the Department for Work and Pensions. If there is one thing that could fatally undermine progress towards a better support scheme, it is the plan that the new scheme be administered by a private company. I strongly urge the Government to look again at that plan and show empathy for the people affected.

Child Prisoners and Detainees: Occupied Palestinian Territories

Debate between Lord Austin of Dudley and Diana Johnson

Wednesday 6th January 2016 Westminster Hall

[Diana Johnson]

I think that every Member of this House would agree that the involvement of children in conflict is absolutely wrong. Before I go on to deal with some of the specific issues around the Israeli response to Palestinian child prisoners, I want to refer to the 2005 assertion from Amnesty International:

“Palestinian armed groups have repeatedly shown total disregard for the most fundamental human rights, notably the right to life, by deliberately targeting Israeli civilians and by using Palestinian children in armed attacks. Children are susceptible to recruitment by manipulation or may be driven to join armed groups for a variety of reasons, including a desire to avenge relatives or friends killed by the Israeli army.”

Moving on to the issue before us today—the treatment of child prisoners—in 2012 the Government convened a group of eminent lawyers with expertise in human rights and child welfare to investigate what was going on. I commend the Government for doing that and I commend all the lawyers involved, including my right hon. and learned Friend the Baroness Scotland. The report concluded that Israel’s treatment of Palestinian child prisoners amounted to a series of breaches of the rights of the child, including article 2 on discrimination and article 3 on the child’s best interests. More concerning still, the lawyers encountered significant evidence that Israel may be in breach of the general prohibition on cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.

The following year, in March 2013, UNICEF released a report, “Children in Israeli Military Detention”, which prompted the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child to express,

“its deepest concern about the reported practice of torture and ill-treatment of Palestinian children arrested, prosecuted and detained by the military and the police, and about the State party’s failure to end these practices in spite of repeated concerns expressed by treaty bodies, special procedures mandate holders and United Nations agencies”.

UNICEF made 38 recommendations to improve the treatment of child detainees. Many of these overlapped with the 40 recommendations from the UK legal delegation, which covered the five clear areas of arrest, interrogation, bail hearings, sentencing and the investigation of complaints. Those were all important recommendations. In response, there have been a few welcome military orders issued by the IDF, including military order 1711, which reduces the time a Palestinian child can be detained prior to appearing before a military court judge, and military order 1745, which requires interrogations to be conducted in a language the child can understand, and to be recorded. However, this order does not apply if a child is suspected of committing a security offence such as throwing stones, and that is of concern.

A 2014 UNICEF working group on grave violations against children gathered 208 statements from detained children and found that, among other things, 171 reported being subject to physical violence and 144 reported being subject to verbal abuse. Of the 38 recommendations made by UNICEF in March 2013, only five were deemed to have been addressed by March 2015, although 15 were partially addressed and 14 were under discussion. It is important to note that Israel has rejected only one recommendation outright. The British Government need to do much more to hold the Israeli Government to account in terms of what they are doing to meet the recommendations that have been made.

In a recent answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter), it looked as though there was little tangible progress in implementing the recommendations that have been set out. Nor can I say there is much evidence that the Government are prioritising the issue. Although I welcome the efforts of our ambassador in Tel Aviv to raise the issue, I think Ministers can do far more. In conclusion—

[Ian Austin]

Before she concludes, will the hon. Lady give way?

[Diana Johnson]

No; I need to complete my speech.

In conclusion, I hope the Minister will make it unambiguously clear today that the UK Government stand behind all 40 of the UK recommendations and will explain to the House how he intends to encourage Israel to do far more to implement the recommendations as soon as possible.