Contaminated Blood and Blood Products

Debate between Christian Matheson and Norman Lamb

Thursday 24th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

I commence in the same vein as others by paying tribute to the leadership and work of my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) on this issue. I see other Members across the Chamber today who have also played a part, including the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi), who has been in meetings with the hon. Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley). This is not a party political issue. The core of it is simply about doing the right thing, and it shows all-party groups and Parliament at their best. Members have come together on the basis of the difficult personal stories of our constituents, such as the one we have just heard from the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake).

I have two constituents who have provided me with an inspirational lead in tackling the problem. My constituent Debra has HIV. She received it from a partner who had received contaminated blood products. In fact, he did not tell her at the time, and it took her several years to work out that all her health problems derived from that infection. He obviously became her ex-partner, and that person later died of his illness. Debra has never been able to hold down a job because of the continuing, persistent nature of the illness. In common with the constituent described by the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton, Debra was asked to leave her job, and her career has been badly threatened.

My constituent Neil has hepatitis C, which he contracted as a haemophilia patient as a child. Again, he is unable to hold down a job, which means he cannot hold on to decent housing. Another aspect of the problem is that Neil’s body retains water, and he has to go regularly to hospital to have his body drained of excess fluid. He can work, but he suffers from fatigue and his whole life has been dominated by these problems.

The only mistake these constituents of mine and of other Members have committed is to be unlucky. That is the only thing they have done. They were unlucky when they received these contaminated blood products or, in the case of Debra, were infected by a partner, without being told the circumstances. They are the victims of what could be considered, as we have said, a crime. We cannot get away from the fact that we still need to do more for people whose basic problem is that they were unlucky at a difficult time in their lives.

The current system is chaotic. We are simplifying it, although I fear that when we simplify systems of this kind, they may also become less valuable. As other Members have said, when it has been simplified and the various schemes have been brought together, no recipient should be any worse off. I approve of such an amalgamation, but I cannot help feeling that so far there has been almost a policy of divide and rule—perhaps unwitting, perhaps deliberate—with different types of scheme for different types of sufferer. There are also different schemes, and different levels of schemes, in the different countries of the United Kingdom. The situation is absurd: someone living in England might qualify for a Scottish scheme because it relates to the country that the recipient was in when he or she was infected.

We need some consistency and fairness. People who, rightly, feel angry and let down are being forced to compare their circumstances with those of other victims rather than looking to the real culprits: the private companies, described so eloquently by my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North, which put profit before patients’ safety all those years ago and have never been brought to account. For that reason, I support the calls for a proper inquiry. I tabled some questions to the Department of Health recently, and it transpires that those corporations have never paid any compensation and no compensation has ever been sought from them. Someone said earlier that it might be difficult to pin down exactly who was responsible and when, but there should at least be an effort to track down those who are responsible and force them to pay for their misdemeanours.

I asked Debra and Neil for their comments. There is no doubt that Debra will lose money under the current proposals. The former Prime Minister, David Cameron, said in the House:

“Today I am proud to provide them with the support that they deserve.”—[Official Report, 13 July 2016; Vol. 613, c. 291.]

Debra found those words rather distasteful. Her response was angry, and she had every right to be angry. She gleaned from what the Prime Minister had said that she, as an HIV-infected partner, deserved to be worse off. She knows that her support will be reduced, but she wants to know what will happen to the money that Macfarlane Trust beneficiaries are losing. Will the amounts be the same? Victims of this scandal who are losing money are being asked to turn in on themselves rather than directing their fire at the real culprits. The Minister can deal with that by ensuring that no one loses out.

Debra believes that the schemes will take financial support from HIV and co-infected victims: those whose condition has no cure, who are forced to take toxic medication that helps to keep them alive, who struggle with mental illnesses as a result of living with stigma and discrimination, and who every day face the reality that, despite medication, people are still dying from HIV and AIDS. Debra has the impression that moving the schemes around is robbing Peter to pay Paul.

Neil supports the idea of a Hillsborough-style inquiry, but says it is important to ensure that the level of support payments is maintained. He says:

“£15,500 is far too low and does not take into account how much expense being ill and travelling to and from hospitals across the country is!”

He also says that the payments should be linked to inflation, because otherwise they will grow ever smaller.

[Norman Lamb (North Norfolk) (LD)]

The hon. Gentleman mentioned a Hillsborough-style inquiry. Like the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson), I should like the Government to consider that. I took up the case of Ms Sullivan-Weeks’s stepfather, who received unheated Scottish blood products in England after they had been withdrawn in Scotland because there was a time lag in England. We do not know how many people were affected in that way, but he ended up dying. That prompts a particular sense of injustice. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that that is another reason why a Hillsborough-style inquiry is necessary?

[Christian Matheson]

Absolutely. We need to get to the truth. The victims and the surviving members of their families deserve the truth, and the culprits must be held to account as well. As has already been pointed out, it seems that there was knowledge of what was going on at the time.

The right hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt) rightly said that this matter is not going to go away. The longer it goes on, and the greater the sense of injustice felt by the victims and their families, the stronger will be the calls for a final resolution. I am glad that the Minister is present, because the Government have an opportunity to do the right thing: to lift the black cloud of uncertainty, and to end what was eloquently described by the right hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire as a “drip, drip” approach. We need a final answer to this question, which will provide the certainty that has been missing for so long.