Contaminated Blood

Bob Stewart Excerpts

Tuesday 12th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the Father of the House, the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman), and to be able to follow on from all the work done to bring this debate to the Floor of the House. I congratulate the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) on securing it; it was a pleasure for me, as a member of the Backbench Business Committee, to support the proposal that this debate be held today.

Contaminated blood and the impact on victims was one of the first issues to come into my inbox after I was elected. Someone came to my surgery who had had a condition but had been otherwise healthy, only to find that they were to have decades of pain and disability because of the treatment they had for that condition—that is almost heartbreaking. Virtually all their life prospects have disappeared because of a treatment they received that they thought would make them better.

It is worth examining the scale of this disaster in our NHS system. We are talking about 4,700 people with bleeding disorders and 28,000 other people becoming infected with hepatitis C; and 1,200 with bleeding disorders and 100 other individuals getting HIV. Of course these people were getting that condition at a time when the medical understanding of it was very limited and the life expectancy was incredibly short. Thankfully, many people have benefited from the advances in medical science since 1985, which have allowed them to keep living, but they still face all the issues that come with that illness and—let us be candid—the stigma that still comes with it from those ignorant about what can cause it.

The issue is about looking at the time that has elapsed. I am sure that, like me, my predecessor, Adrian Sanders, who pursued a number of cases diligently during his time as the MP for Torbay, would not have expected that after 18 years his successor would still be talking about this issue and still be having to speak up for the constituents affected by this scandal, at least one of whom is in the Gallery today. We know that a patchwork of five schemes is in place, and reference has been made to that. To be fair, £390 million has already been paid out, but the impact on these people has been so devastating that it is right that we are looking again at what the appropriate level of compensation is.

It was appropriate that last year the Prime Minister issued an apology. That is something so simple, but it took until 2015 for it to happen. I agree that we are not in a court of law today, but it is right that we seek to provide some form of justice to those who for so long have found themselves on the receiving end of life-changing conditions.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

We have used the word “justice” all the way through this debate. I have listened to it all and I was not intending to intervene, but I must say that in fact there is no justice we can give people who have contaminated blood—that has been taken away from them. All we can do is give them the best possible help, financially and in care terms. They will never get justice, and it is improper to suggest they can—we cannot do it, it is too late, they have had that taken away and money will not compensate.

[Kevin Foster]

I thank my hon. and gallant Friend for such a thoughtful intervention. We cannot give them justice; we cannot restore them back to where they were before the impact of this scandal, but we can compensate them. We can try to mitigate the impact and give them a life that is appropriate, as best we can. Today’s debate is right to focus on that.