Points of Order

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Thursday 25th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab) [V]]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I thank Mr Speaker for granting me the opportunity to raise this point of order regarding the NHS contaminated blood scandal, the biggest treatment disaster in NHS history. The vast majority of Members of Parliament will have at least one constituent infected—or have had one constituent, because those infected die at an average of one every 96 hours.

Madam Deputy Speaker, you will know that it took many years of cross-party campaigning before the NHS infected blood inquiry was announced in 2017. Alongside the public inquiry, the Government agreed to undertake a review of financial support available to those infected and affected, and to work on a compensation framework if later required by the inquiry’s findings.

Last week, Caroline Wheeler of The Sunday Times reported that Ministers planned to make a statement this week on financial support for infected blood victims. A written ministerial statement appeared this morning, on the last day before the Easter recess and, crucially, after the deadline to secure an urgent question today. This leaves no opportunity for Members’ questioning of a Minister in the House for at least two weeks.

The failure to make an oral ministerial statement in the House today, allowing Members to ask questions, may not be disorderly, but it is grossly insensitive to people who have suffered so much for so long at the hands of the state. I seek your advice on how we can get this issue discussed in the House at the very earliest opportunity.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I thank the right hon. Lady for notice of her point of order. As she well knows, and as Mr Speaker has said many times, it is a matter for the Government whether they make a written or oral ministerial statement; the occupant of the Chair has no say in that matter.

The right hon. Lady asks the question always asked during points of order, but I appreciate that it is a way for her to bring to the attention of the House and those on the Treasury Bench her concerns about how this matter can be brought before the House. There are, of course, many ways in which the right hon. Lady can do that: she can seek an Adjournment debate; ask for an urgent question; go to the Backbench Business Committee; urge a Select Committee to have an inquiry; and write to Ministers. I think she knows about all those. I am quite sure that, given her experience and determination—for which she is renowned in this particular matter—she will find one of those ways of bringing this matter to the Floor of the House.