Contaminated Blood and Blood Products

Catherine West Excerpts

Thursday 24th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[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.

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on her dogged and tireless work on this issue. Does she agree that there is a big issue of trust here, in relation not just to the potential new providers but to what happened previously? Some survivors and families who survive victims who have passed away believe that senior health professionals knew about the contamination but decided to continue with their interventions for cost reasons.

[Diana Johnson]

Yes. One point I will come to later is the need for some form of inquiry.

To continue my point about why who runs the scheme is so important, a big criticism of the new scheme is the continuation of discretionary payments. Department of Health officials are still not listening to the concerns raised about that. The APPG inquiry uncovered huge issues with the highly conditional and poorly managed discretionary support scheme. One respondent told us:

“The whole system seems designed to make you feel like a beggar”.

I also believe that the trust’s current administrators have not fought hard enough for their beneficiaries, which legally they could have done. Instead, they saw their role as dispassionate managers and conduits to the Department of Health. They left the affected community alone to fight for themselves. If the new support scheme ends up being managed by Atos or Capita it will do nothing to address those fundamental issues, and could even make the situation much worse, adding insult to injury. I call on the Minister to do the right thing and announce that she will scrap plans for a private profit-making scheme administrator, and will replace the current scheme with a more beneficiary run and focused organisation that has no profit motive.

Will the Minister set out exactly what kind of discretionary support the new scheme will provide? It remains unclear whether any or all of the current support will continue. That contrasts starkly with the Scottish scheme, where the financial review group agreed that no one should receive less financial support under the new scheme. Will the Government urgently provide the same guarantee and publish full details of any obligations that the new scheme administrators will be subject to?

There are also issues with the current welfare benefits reassessment regime that many people are having to go through—for example, moving from disability living allowance on to the personal independence payment. Those issues need to be addressed urgently, so that individuals can be passported straightaway on to new benefits. I hope the Minister will agree that that is a sensible way forward for the people affected.

My third concern relates to the families of those affected, who need better support under the scheme. Under the new English proposals, widows and widowers will continue to be eligible for discretionary support—whatever that means; I have raised my concerns about that already—on top of a new £10,000 lump sum, provided their loved ones died at least partially as a result of contracting HIV or hepatitis C. However, many clinicians have already told me that that could mean many people are excluded from assistance simply because their partner’s death certificate does not include mention of HIV or hepatitis C, sometimes at the family’s request. The new proposals could also still be considerably less generous than the support that some widows already receive, because there is a huge question mark hanging over what discretionary help they will get under the reformed scheme.

--- Later in debate ---

[Diana Johnson]

I agree with my right hon. Friend, who makes his point very well. We need to make sure that any new support scheme moves quickly. We need to get on with this. The previous Prime Minister, when he apologised on behalf of the nation 18 months ago, also allocated £25 million, but none of that has been spent yet, as I understand it. We need to make sure that a scheme is introduced as quickly as possible, although obviously with our concerns having being addressed. But absolutely the two things can run in parallel, and a Hillsborough-style panel inquiry would give people the opportunity of a truth and reconciliation inquiry. I still think it a key requirement if there is to be any real sense of justice and closure.

[Catherine West]

Families who have suffered a loss following this terrible scandal have expressed a desire to get hold of certain documents and to find out what happened and who knew what. They really just want a sense of justice.

[Diana Johnson]

I will now conclude. I know that in later speeches hon. Members will want to raise the deeply moving stories of their constituents. It is those stories that have led me to campaign on this issue over many years, and I am always mindful of the struggles faced by my constituent Glen Wilkinson. Glen was diagnosed with hepatitis C after a routine tooth operation in the 1980s, when he was just 19. He has had to live with the virus all his life and is still waiting for proper recognition of how it has affected him. I hope that the Minister and the Government will now work to ensure that Glen and others can live the rest of their lives in dignity.

--- Later in debate ---

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

I am pleased to speak in this debate on behalf of children who lost their father, a mother who lost her son, and a spouse who lost her husband, as well as the many people who still suffer an injustice.

I want to focus on transparency in the public sphere. As the right hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt) said, it has become obvious that there is evidence that there was knowledge long before there was action, as we saw, for example, from Lord Owen’s testimony to the Archer inquiry. It was stated that when he went to the Department of Health as a Minister and saw boxes of notes on the subject, that raised questions in his mind. He decided he needed a team to deal with the matter, but when he returned a week later, all the paperwork had been shredded. I therefore wonder whether, through this debate—perhaps the Minister will reply to us in writing—we could give permission to others who might know more to come forward. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that it might not be right to hold a full-scale, lengthy inquiry, but there must be some way of holding to account the individuals who knew more.

That covers the justice point; the other linked point is the question of trust in health providers. Madam Deputy Speaker, as I am sure that you are aware from listening to this debate, there was wide knowledge at the time, even among health professionals. I therefore wonder whether health professionals who were working in the national health service at the time might be able to shed some light on how it could be that individuals knew about the contamination, yet decided to continue with the use of contaminated products, both for reasons of cost and because it was said that there was no alternative. Years later, we are in a position of trying to find the truth. Now is the time to look at these two questions of trust and justice.

I add my voice to those who have said that bringing in Atos and other private providers could redouble the sense of a lack of trust about resolving this matter. Could we not look at this as just an NHS-led process, which would underline honesty and a sense of communicating well with those who have suffered so many years of trauma due to this terrible situation?

I put on record my recognition of the excellent work of the all-party group and of members of the haemophilia community, who have helped MPs to research this matter so diligently and have called for a proper investigation for so many years. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) for bringing forward the debate.