Contaminated Blood

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Tuesday 12th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

I add my thanks and congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) on what she has said today and on her outstanding leadership on this issue. She will be encouraged by the commonality of view—it goes further than consensus—across the House, and I hope that the Minister will take note. Back-Bench debates are often not party political, but I cannot remember another debate in which Members’ sympathies have been so clearly at one. I am sure that many Members feel, as I do, quite let down by the consultation. I will not personalise the matter by referring to the Minister. It is a Government responsibility, and this Government are now in power.

We need to bear some basic facts in mind. This is an NHS scandal. The Secretary of State, perhaps more than any other Secretary of State, has been keen to identify where things have gone wrong with hospitals, practitioners and events in the NHS, and to point the finger and say that what happened was not right. This is the clearest case of that, and it is the biggest scandal in the NHS. We are talking about innocent victims. Many of us—even if the Government do not admit it—believe that there has been negligence and there is culpability, but I think we all agree that there is a moral responsibility.

I hope that we all still believe in the welfare state that was set up after the second world war, and that we all think that the state should act as a safety net. The matter goes further than that, however; it is about state error. It is about the state making mistakes that it is bound to correct. The state has made a variety of mistakes—Equitable Life, flooding and many others—after which it has been able to dig into its pockets and find money because it believes that there is a compelling case for doing so. Perhaps a closer analogy is mesothelioma. Mesothelioma victims have not had the complete compensation that they need, but at least the responsibility to make provision for those people has been recognised, even if one cannot point the finger and say that it is anybody’s fault in particular.

I want to say that this has been a very long struggle. I have been engaged in it only since my constituency boundaries changed in 2010 and I found that I had some sufferers, victims of incidents of contaminated blood, in my constituency. Since then, I have been pretty active as a Member by taking part in meetings, debates, reviews and the all-party group. There have been some important interventions. I credit the Minister for Community and Social Care for the work he has tried to do, and the Prime Minister for the apology he made in relation to that. There have also been concessions, such as that the existing schemes are inadequate and badly run, and that there are too many of them.

We have asked for a full and final settlement, for the overall impact on victims to be assessed and for each victim and their family to be dealt with as individuals, so I do not think that we expected to be in the position we are today. It is a position in which the Haemophilia Society can write quite baldly that

“the majority of people currently receiving financial support will be worse off under the new scheme.”

How did we get into this situation?

If I and other Members feel let down, what do our constituents feel? What do people such as my constituent Andrew March feel? His whole life has been fundamentally altered by this. His health, his life expectancy, his earnings ability and his career, as well as aspirational things such as the ability to own his own home and to live a normal life—I thought the Government believed in them—are all out of his reach now. This is a fundamental change, but it has been going on not for years but for decades.

I would say to the Minister that the issue of reduced income must be looked at in full, whether that reduction is because of discretionary payments or other reasons, as must the overall impact on the individual and their family, and the implications, more widely than simply health, on their whole lifestyle. We should not confuse treatment, including the good and innovative schemes that are now available—anybody should receive such treatment from the NHS, to which we all pay in, as of right—with paying proper compensation and ensuring that people are properly rewarded.

Let me end by making two quick points. First, it has been said that Scotland has set an example. It is not a perfect example, but I strongly believe that we should at least be able to match what happens in Scotland. Secondly, my constituents have told me that they do not feel comfortable filling in responses to the consultation. They do not believe the consultation is presented clearly and honestly, and the questions are phrased so prescriptively that they are unable to communicate what they think. The Government can do what they want—it would have been better if they had withdrawn the consultation, but that has not happened—but they do have the power to respond by saying, “We have made a mistake. We haven’t taken into account everything that should be done. We have to act with compassion and with honesty, and we have to give proper compensation.”

Finally, I must say that I disagree, as I rarely do, with the hon. and gallant Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart). This is about justice, and justice can be delivered by recognising the needs of the community who have been infected in this way. I think that the Government have a duty to act.