Infected Blood Inquiry: Government Response

Debate between Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton and Baroness Neville-Rolfe

Tuesday 19th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton (Con)]

My Lords, as a former Member of Parliament, and like many other former MPs in this House, I had constituents affected by this awful condition. I will ask my noble friend a point of clarification. In the original Statement, the Government welcomed

“the publication of the infected blood inquiry’s second interim report, which set out a detailed framework for compensation for both those infected and those affected by infected blood”.

However, on certain occasions in the Minister’s responses in the other place, he referred only to those who were infected by this blood. For absolute clarity, is it the Government’s intention to compensate those both affected and infected?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

I thank my noble friend Lord Lancaster for his comments. Of course, many people who had constituencies had similar experiences to him, including Mr Glen himself. The interim compensation scheme that we set in train last October paid out £400 million in interim compensation to a combination of infected people and their bereaved partners if they were registered on the scheme. That gives some understanding of the way we look at this—or at least how we did then —but, obviously, the report is much more wide ranging. We were able to deliver payments quickly then because of the clear parameters of eligibility. As my noble friend suggests, the final report will no doubt be much broader, which is one of the reasons why we have to do so much more work on the complexities involved.