Infected Blood Compensation Scheme

Pete Wishart Excerpts

Tuesday 21st May 2024 Commons Chamber

[John Glen]

The hon. Lady is right to pay tribute to Lynne Kelly, whom I met in Cardiff. To clarify, I have been talking about two interim payments. We have put one payment into legislation to provide £100,000 to the estates of the deceased infected, where previously they have not received that payment. We are working through how that will work with the infected blood support schemes. I cannot update the House on that at this moment because we are working with the schemes to determine that.

The second interim payment for the living infected is £210,000, building on the £100,00 at the end of 2022. That will happen within 90 days, starting in the summer, and it will be given through the existing infected blood compensation scheme’s interim payments in order to expedite it as quickly as possible. Then we will update in the autumn with respect to the balance in payments, which, as Members will recognise, is part of a bigger payment that people will be entitled to, and how that works according to the journey of work and engagement with the communities over the next few weeks.

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

For more than 20 years, I have supported constituents caught up in this unprecedented scandal and tragedy. I wish to mention just two of them: Bill Wright, whom the Minister knows, who has led Haemophilia Scotland with such energy and enthusiasm for the past three decades; and Tricia Titheridge, who introduced me to the scandal back in 2001 when I was first elected. Unfortunately, she cannot be with us because she died of AIDS-related conditions in 2013.

I wish to say well done to the Minister, because I think he has delivered. He has answered questions and reassured people genuinely well about some of the outstanding issues. I had suspected that I would be called last in this statement, so I will just say to him that he will know what is now required. I think he has the compensation side of it right, but it is the responsibility and accountability side of the equation that now has to be addressed. He has talked about a debate when we come back after Whitsun. He has hinted that other Departments will be looking at all of this, but we need to know what tangible effort and energy will be put into this to ensure that the people responsible are held to account for the decades of obfuscation, of not taking responsibility and for the lies that came to us as Members of Parliament from Ministers and officials. When will we hear about the solid action that will be taken to address all of this?

[John Glen]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his kind words, particularly his words about Bill Wright, whom I enjoyed meeting, and who has campaigned on this so hard and for so long. Bill and his colleagues engaged with me in a constructive way, asking me reasonable but tough questions, and I hope that I have answered some of those today. The hon. Gentleman draws me from the compensation to other elements, and I am frustrated that I cannot offer him more clarity today, but he puts on record the need for a substantive response on a number of other elements beyond compensation. He can be assured of my continuing commitment to deliver on that journey to full implementation of compensation, as I have set out.

Infected Blood Inquiry Report

Pete Wishart Excerpts

Monday 20th May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

That completes this short statement. There will be a full statement tomorrow, when all the details of compensation will be brought to the House and all Members will be able to get in.

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Have you received any explanation for why we are getting only half an hour of the Prime Minister’s time? I know there will be a statement tomorrow by the Paymaster General, which we are all looking forward to, but what could be more important than being here and taking questions from—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I will answer the question. I have worked very closely with different parties and, most importantly, this is about the families. It is their day, which is why the statement has been done in this way. I am sure the hon. Gentleman would wish to respect that, rather than question it.

Infected Blood Inquiry

Pete Wishart Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd April 2024 Commons Chamber

[John Glen]

I sincerely hope not. What I have said with respect to the interim payment is a response to the dialogue I have had with Members across both Chambers of the House, working with Earl Howe in the other place. I have been pretty clear that in I am doing everything I can to put preparations in place for giving a legal entity the obligation to pay compensation, and to minimise delay in advance of the final determination of the Government’s response, so that that response can be operationalised as soon as the decision is finally made.

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

Every time we have these urgent questions, we get a well-intentioned Minister giving a helpful but frustrating update about what is happening. This Minister is one of the most well intentioned, and today’s statement has been one of the most helpful, but what we want to hear—as the House has said clearly today—is a clear timeline for when applications for compensation can be made and when those payments will be made. He has come really close to telling us that today; can I encourage him to get over the line, tell us when it is going to happen, and satisfy all of us who are standing here on behalf of our constituents?

Oral Answers to Questions

Pete Wishart Excerpts

Wednesday 21st February 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend, who speaks from a point of authority. He knows that we have high standards to ensure that GPs provide services from premises that meet all the required criteria, but I understand it is possible for those services to be provided at alternative locations that meet the contract requirements. I will happily ensure that the Health and Social Care Secretary looks into his suggestions about more flexibility. He will also welcome our recent plans to expand the range of services available at pharmacies, saving many people time and hassle to get treatment for seven common ailments at their local pharmacist, easing the pressure on our GPs and speeding up the care that people deserve.

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

Q5. I was in the House on 18 March 2003 when this House voted to go to war in Iraq on the demands of the then Labour Government. What followed was death, misery, and destruction on an almost unimaginable scale. Voting against the Iraq war is the vote I am most proud of in my time in this House. Today, after 29,000 deaths in Gaza, we face a vote of similar significance. Does the Prime Minister believe that MPs today should look back with that same pride, knowing that they have done everything possible to stop the death, destruction, and misery tonight?

[The Prime Minister]

Nobody wants to see the fighting in Gaza go on for a moment longer than is necessary, and nobody wants to see innocent civilians suffer. That is why we are doing absolutely everything we can to bring about an immediate humanitarian pause, allowing for the safe release of hostages, which the hon. Gentleman failed to mention I believe, and also getting more aid into Gaza to create the conditions for a genuinely sustainable ceasefire. That is the position shared by our allies, that is what our diplomatic efforts are focused on, and that is what our motion tonight will reflect.

Oral Answers to Questions

Pete Wishart Excerpts

Wednesday 24th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Scottish Affairs Committee.

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

Scottish businesses would give their right arm to have the arrangements that Northern Irish business have, with their access to the single market and all the competitive advantages that that brings. The Prime Minister has described Northern Ireland as one of the

“world’s most exciting economic zones”.

Does the Minister agree with that, and what is he doing to ensure that Scotland gets the same arrangements?

[John Lamont]

I thought that the hon. Member was going to stand up and tell me how great the House of Lords is, a bit like his colleague the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford), in a sort of pre-emptive job application.

Scotland is not Northern Ireland and does not share a land border with an EU country. It is disappointing that the SNP is seeking to play party politics with the situation in Northern Ireland, which, as the SNP well knows, has a unique place in the United Kingdom, and we will protect that.

Infected Blood Inquiry: Government Response

Pete Wishart Excerpts

Monday 18th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[John Glen]

I recognise the hon. Gentleman’s disappointment and that of many in the House today. I shall reflect carefully on that, and do everything I can to do better next time. The steps we are taking, deliberately and carefully, to work through what is required to make a substantive response after the publication of that final report in March, are serious. I will be having meetings over Christmas and early in the new year, week by week, to work through what is required to deliver on the Government’s commitment.

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

Speaking about last, I could sort of reference some of the things the Minister has referred to—well, if only I could. I only wish I was able to, and could talk of complex matters. The victims want to hear a clear timeline for when final compensation payments will be made. They want to see the urgency that the Minister talked about. There is a view that the Government are trying to kick this issue into the next Parliament, and that the Treasury is dragging its heels. The Minister has been asked this a couple of times: will he confirm that this issue will be all resolved before this Parliament is dissolved?

[John Glen]

That is my expectation. I am doing everything I can to bring this to a substantial conclusion after the publication of the final report. I am speaking to colleagues in many Departments, and working with officials across Government to get to the end point that I have set out several times this afternoon.

Oral Answers to Questions

Pete Wishart Excerpts

Wednesday 19th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I join my right hon. Friend in paying tribute to our brave serving personnel and veterans, and I thank them for their service, as we touched on earlier. We have repeatedly called out, and will continue to repeatedly call out, the human rights abuses that we see around the world. He mentions rightly the prohibition on women being educated in Afghanistan, which is something that we have spoken about in the past. We will also continue to have dialogue with regimes. That does not mean that we consider those regimes to be legitimate or that we approve of their actions, but that is all part, as he will understand, of establishing normal diplomatic presence in countries where the situation allows. I will very happily look into the specific case that he raises.

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

Q6. It is not just the adoption of the disgusting two-child benefit cap; it is the endorsement of a hard Brexit, the tuition fees, the immigration. Does the Prime Minister not agree that there is now no real difference between the two main UK parties? Is it not time that we perhaps rearranged the furniture in this House, had them all on one big Bench and re-titled them the “This is what you get from the UK party”?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question, and I will leave him and the Labour party to debate the finer points of policy between them. On the substance, because it is important, the track record demonstrates that we are making a difference and reducing child poverty. There are now 400,000 fewer children in poverty than there were in 2010, as a result of the actions of this Government—notably, by moving their parents into work, because that has the single best benefit for those children. That is the right policy and it is one that we will continue to deliver.

Oral Answers to Questions

Pete Wishart Excerpts

Wednesday 12th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

As well as my right hon. Friend having been an excellent Minister, I know how committed he is to the town of Andover. We will shortly announce the new approach to the third round and further details will follow shortly.

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

Q3. There are things we encounter in political life that are certain to horrify, appal and sicken us, but I do not think I have ever seen anything quite so grotesque as the painting over of a children’s Mickey Mouse mural, as the Home Office did at a detention centre in Kent. No Minister has, so far, roused the necessary compassion or concern to speak out about this. Will the Deputy Prime Minister look into the deeper recesses of his soul and simply condemn it?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I will tell the hon. Gentleman what real compassion looks like: stopping the vile people-smuggling trade across the channel that is condemning women and children to death. This Government are taking action to deal with it through our “stop the boats” Bill, which the Scottish National party shamefully voted against 18 times last night.

Infected Blood Inquiry

Pete Wishart Excerpts

Thursday 22nd June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

We usually say on Backbench Business Thursdays, “It is a pleasure to speak in this debate”, but I do not find it a great pleasure to speak in yet another one on contaminated blood. In my 22 years in this House, no issue has so frustrated or consumed the time of my office, in the hours put forward to support and represent constituents and in our efforts to ensure that they get justice. It is a modern-day tragedy and a health scandal without precedent. It needs now to be urgently resolved, and justice must be delivered for the families and victims of the crisis.

We have now had the two interim reports. We get the full report in the autumn, and we all look forward to seeing it, in the hope that it will more or less conclude the process and, certainly, get the payments established. But things could and should be done now. We know that the compensation scheme could be set up without any further delay, and there is no good reason whatever why it cannot begin its work this year.

The interim report fully covers the inquiry’s recommendations on financial redress. The scheme does not need to wait for any more outcomes from the final report. What the process needs is leadership. It does not need any more prevarication; it does not need anybody to tell us that progress has been made. It needs progress and it needs conclusion. The publication of the second interim report served a clear purpose: to prevent, or at least minimise, any potential delays in establishing a compensation scheme that would bring financial justice to the victims who have been denied it for decades.

We have heard that the Government have started to make some of the compensation payments, but those payments cover only a third of the families of those infected with HIV. It is shocking that the scheme is available only to those directly impacted, and their widows and widowers, but not to the families, excluding thousands of victims, including those who have lost parents and children. While the prevarication goes on, people are dying—they are dying weekly. Nine more have died in Scotland since the closing oral submission on behalf of the Scottish infected and affected core participants. That takes the total number of those who have died in Scotland since the inquiry was established to 113.

Given the lack of a clear Government response to the second interim report, Haemophilia Scotland, which is chaired by my constituent Bill Wright and has done outstanding work on this issue over the years, has sent via its solicitors a formal legal request for further rule 9 written statements from Ministers to explain the delay. As the Minister will know, rule 9 of the Inquiry Rules 2006 entitles the inquiry to send a further request for evidence, which will usually direct the recipient to the issues that need further to be covered. It is not a requirement, as he will know, to reveal who has received a rule 9 request, but let me ask him: has he received such a request, will he go to give further evidence, and have any of his colleagues received a rule 9 request to revisit the inquiry? It is all a bit desperate that campaigners have to resort to such legal tactics to get the Government to do something. Just do it! It should not have to be pursued via such means.

At some point, we will also have to establish what went so badly wrong at the early point of the inquiry. I have been in this House since 2001. I remember going to debates, speaking to Ministers and tabling early-day motions only to be told a pile of rubbish about what was happening. I was constantly fobbed off and told all the time by Ministers that no wrongful practices were employed. We now know why, from what Andy Burnham had to say about all this in the inquiry. He now accepts that he was given the wrong information by civil servants. He did not seek to mislead me or others in the House. He was given information, and he relayed it honestly and truthfully, thinking that it was right. We have to find out why that evidence and information were put in the hands of Ministers. I actually feel sorry for Andy, and for Ministers such as the current Chancellor, who also feels that he was given the wrong information to communicate to Members of the House. We deserve a proper explanation as to why Ministers stood at that Dispatch Box for all that time, while people were dying, halting the establishment of an inquiry. If one had been put in place at the proper time, we might have had justice by this point.

What has to end is the lack of transparency and the failure to deal properly and appropriately with the survivors, victims and campaigning organisations. That is still, unfortunately, a feature of how we go forward, and it now has to end. Make the payments, include all the families, end the culture of secrecy, and make sure that the process is as transparent as possible. Please, please, bring justice to the victims.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Dame Diana Johnson]

I thank all hon. Members for their contributions. They described so many individual cases, so many lives and so much suffering. The Minister has set out the Government’s position, but I respectfully say to him that it is not good enough. He said that the issue is complex—and yes, it is—but putting a man on the moon was complex, and we managed that. It seems to me that real political leadership to get this done is lacking.

As I said in my opening remarks, the time is now. We are not going away, and Parliament spoke with one voice today. It is not good enough; action is needed now.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the Infected Blood Inquiry.

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. It is with great sadness that I inform the House of the passing of Winnie Ewing. Winnie served in this House after a spectacular by-election win in 1967. She served Hamilton between 1967 and 1970 and was re-elected in 1975 to serve the constituency of Moray and Nairn until 1979. She went on to serve in the European Parliament, where she became affectionately known as Madame Écosse, before serving in the first term of the Scottish Parliament, where she proudly chaired the opening session. She famously said,

“Stop the world, Scotland wants to get on.”

Since her by-election win in 1967, there has been a permanent Scottish National party presence in this House. To us on the SNP Benches, she was a friend, a mentor and an inspiration. Our condolences go to her children, Fergus, Annabelle and Terry. We will miss her immensely. We will not see her like again.

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

Further to that point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. As one of the people who served here with Winnie Ewing, may I say that the words of the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) will be echoed by many others?

Oral Answers to Questions

Pete Wishart Excerpts

Thursday 11th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

rose—

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

The Secretary of State for Scotland recently—

[Mr Speaker]

Sorry, let us take Clive Efford, who has already started. I will come to you, Mr Wishart.

[Jeremy Quin]

As to the former, I do not believe so; my understanding is that all the rules were followed in that regard and it was done appropriately. In relation to the latter, that is subject to an ongoing investigation by the Privileges Committee, and therefore I would not seek to comment on it.

[Pete Wishart]

Mr Speaker, I’ve started, so I’ll finish.

The Secretary of State for Scotland recently wrote to the head of the civil service to say that no UK civil servant should work for the newly appointed Minister for Independence in the Scottish Parliament, even though we have a pro-independence majority in the Scottish Parliament and up to 50% of the people now support independence. Will the Paymaster General ensure that impartiality is introduced by making sure that no civil servant is engaged in any work defending and promoting the Union in the UK Government?

[Jeremy Quin]

I will not be doing that. I am not familiar with the letter mentioned. We have a Government of the United Kingdom who are proud of the Union we serve. The Government are convinced that we are better together as a country, and I believe that is the view of the overwhelming majority of the people of Scotland, as was the case in the referendum, which I seem to recall was a once-in-a-generation opportunity.

--- Later in debate ---

[Johnny Mercer]

The data tells us that people are less likely to have a mental health condition if they served in the military, but of course we take every case seriously. Mental health provision for both those who are serving and veterans has completely changed in this country. Op Courage is the UK’s first dedicated mental health care pathway for veterans, with £22 million a year and 19,000 referrals in its first year, which shows the huge unmet need that the Government are now meeting. The message is always the same: “Come forward, help is available, people do care and you can get better.”

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

Has the Secretary of State made any assessment or has he any estimates of the number of people who were turned away from the local elections last week? Does he have a number in mind that would suggest that the policy needs to be looked at again or to be abolished and scrapped, because people did not get the opportunity to vote?

[Alex Burghart]

This is a matter for the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. I know that his Department and the Government will be looking at the after-effects of this major change. What I can tell the hon. Gentleman is that in my constituency, and in the constituencies of many hon. Members, there were absolutely no problems at the polling booths, despite all the woeful predictions of people like himself.