Infected Blood Inquiry

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Thursday 22nd June 2023 Commons Chamber

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

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the Infected Blood Inquiry.

I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting the debate, ensuring that this important issue is considered on the Floor of the House. Over the years, it has been incredibly generous in allocating time to Back Benchers in our attempt to hold Ministers and the Government to account on the infected blood scandal. I also thank the Father of the House, the hon. Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley), for working with me to secure the debate and with whom I am proud to co-chair the all-party parliamentary group on haemophilia and contaminated blood. I thank all right hon. and hon. Members who are here today and who have fought so hard for their constituents who have been infected and affected. I know of many other MPs who are not able to attend the debate today but support our work.

In opening, I want to say a few words about three individuals among the thousands who have been affected by this scandal, to remind the House of the people at the heart of this debate. First of all is my constituent, Glen Wilkinson. In 2010, he came to see me at my last surgery before the general election. He told me how he had been infected by dirty blood given to him by the NHS. Along with thousands of others, he wanted to know how that was allowed to happen and he wanted a public inquiry. I promised to try to help him if I was still an MP after that general election. It was a very close run thing and I ended up with a majority of just 641, so I was fortunate to be returned. I joined the all-party group and have been very proud since then, with Glen, to fight for truth and justice, not just for him but for all those who have been infected and affected. Of course, we did secure the public inquiry in 2017. Glen is still campaigning for justice despite his health problems, but I know that, as the years have dragged on, the need to keep fighting has exerted enormous pressure on him, his wife Alison and his wonderful family. At this point, it is worth remembering all those family members and pay tribute to those who have been caught up in this scandal.

A few nights ago I could not sleep—it is very hot—and I ended up going online. I read the witness statement to the public inquiry by Nick Sainsbury, whom I had met through Glen and who lived in East Yorkshire. Nick attended the Lord Mayor Treloar College as a child and was one of dozens of children at the school infected with HIV and hepatitis through infected blood products. We know that 72 of those pupils later died. After school, Nick worked as a civil servant and then at the Land Registry, which he said was his dream job, until his mid-30s when he became ill from multiple viral infections. He had to give up his job. He said:

“It was just too much. I was going to work bent double on crutches.”

I want to quote what he said about being HIV-positive in his statement to the inquiry:

“The knowledge that I was infected with arguably the most feared infectious disease since the bubonic plague of the middles ages was hard enough to deal with. The constant reminders on TV and in the newspapers made it very grim.”

Nick campaigned for years for justice. He travelled to many meetings here in Parliament, and attended and contributed to the public inquiry. But just two months ago, Nick sadly died, never having seen justice.

I also want to mention Michele, who currently is not represented in Parliament by a Member of Parliament, but wanted me to raise her case. Michele Claire was given a contaminated blood transfusion following childbirth and consequently developed hepatitis C. She now has stage 6 liver disease. After people in her village found out about Michele’s infection, she received letters through her door saying things like, “We don’t want your type round here”. On compensation, Michele told me:

“Money can cure nothing. It will, however, bring about some dignity and ensure peace of mind going forward.”

My message to the Minister is this: it is time. Action to fully compensate those infected and affected by the contaminated blood scandal must start now. The Government have accepted that compensation should be paid and that there is a moral case to do so.

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

I am sure the whole House will agree with me that my right hon. Friend has done a sterling job in campaigning on this issue for a number of years. Will she join me in paying tribute to Della Ryness and her husband Dan, who sadly passed away last month, who fought the good fight on behalf of their son, who died from this very awful thing, and in thinking about the beautiful granddaughter who he left behind?

[Dame Diana Johnson]

I am very grateful. This is about people. It is about mums and dads, sons and daughters, and aunts and uncles. We have to remember that. It is about those individuals and their families.

[Sir George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, first, for securing the debate, and, secondly, for the determined way in which she has pursued the issue over so many years. She is right that it is about people. I have been contacted by a number of constituents. One of them is Robert Cardwell. He says that the people who are experiencing this problem are investing a great deal of hope in the debate today. Does she agree that a lot of progress has been made but, if we are going to redeem the need to honour those who have been victims, we need to go that bit further now so that a proper compensation scheme reaches them all?

[Dame Diana Johnson]

Absolutely. I could not agree more with my right hon. Friend. Progress has been made. The interim payments last year were very welcome—absolutely—but we need to do more. As I was saying, victims and their families have waited far too long. The 30,000 people who contracted hepatitis C after being given dirty blood by the NHS have waited too long. The parents of the 380 children infected with HIV have waited too long. Too many of those infected and affected are no longer with us and they will never see justice. They will never hear the Government say that what happened to them could and should have been prevented. They will never receive a penny in recompense for the jobs lost, the relationships destroyed and the life lost.

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

The right hon. Member is truly to be congratulated on behalf of all those people who have complained for so long, including Judith Thomas and Ruth Jenkins, the wife and sister of Christopher Thomas from Penllŷn, who died of the effects of contaminated blood in 1990. They want us to emphasise that there should be no further delays, given that we know from the interim report what the recommendations are. They particularly want me to emphasise that the infected blood scandal happened before the devolution of health to Wales. Consequently, the financial powers and responsibility to deliver a compensation scheme must remain with the Westminster Government.

[Dame Diana Johnson]

I hope that the Minister will respond to that particular point when he speaks later.

I want to go back to those who have been infected and affected and are still alive. I hope that today they will witness the Government atoning for what went so systematically and catastrophically wrong. There is simply no excuse for dragging out the process of justice any longer.

It is not as if the scandal has just been discovered, with those in power hearing about it only recently. It is now five years since the infected blood inquiry was launched, and three years since the then Paymaster General, the right hon. Member for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt), wrote to the Chancellor saying:

“I believe it to be inevitable that the Government will need to pay substantial compensation… I believe we should begin preparing for this now”.

Since then, we have had three Prime Ministers, four Chancellors and five Paymasters General. Today, I ask the Minister for the result of all their combined efforts to prepare for paying compensation.

[Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for all her work and for securing the debate. I am sure that she understands the frustration of my constituent, who was a young teenager nearly 40 years ago when he was infected and who has HIV. He just wants justice now.

[Dame Diana Johnson]

Absolutely. The House is probably united in that view. We want justice now.

We know that the report of Sir Robert Francis KC, which the former Paymaster General commissioned, on a framework for what compensation would look like was presented to the Government at the start of 2022. The former Paymaster General understood that preparatory work could start, ready for the Government to act quickly, when Sir Brian reported—which he did, on 5 April 2023. I am therefore hopeful that the Minister can set out, in detail, all the work that has been undertaken to date when he speaks later in the debate.

The story of how successive Governments responded to those infected and affected by contaminated blood is a story of how a disaster became a scandal.

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

The right hon. Lady is making a powerful speech, which will mean a huge amount to my constituents, Linda Cannon, who lost her husband to hepatitis C from contaminated blood, and Vera Gaskin, who I met recently and has cirrhosis of the liver. The re-victimisation of our constituents is one of the key issues. They have had to wait so long, and the longer they wait, the deeper the trauma becomes. Does the right hon. Lady agree that swift action is crucial and that we need to ensure that Governments do not behave in the same way with other scandals?

[Dame Diana Johnson]

I could not agree more.

The biggest treatment disaster in the history of the NHS turned into a scandal. Prevarication, obfuscation and delay—that is what victims met for decades. They have had to fight every step of the way. I want to quote from the statement that Sir Brian Langstaff, the chair of the infected blood inquiry, made when he took the unusual step of producing his second interim report on compensation before he had published his final report, which is due in the autumn. His words are powerful:

“I could not in conscience add to the decades-long delays many of you have already experienced due to failures to recognise the depths of your losses. Those delays have themselves been harmful… My conclusion is that wrongs were done at individual, collective and systemic levels… my judgement is that not only do the infections themselves and their consequences merit compensation, but so too do the wrongs done by authority, whose response served to compound people’s suffering.”

So today we say, “No more. It is time.”

Any further delays to the delivery of compensation are unconscionable. I have lost count of how many times I have told the House that a person infected with contaminated blood dies on average every four days. Sir Brian Langstaff said,

“this compensation scheme should be set up now. It should begin work this year.”

He also stated:

“Time without redress is harmful. No time must be wasted in delivering that redress.”

Does the Minister accept Sir Brian’s recommendations on compensation and redress in full? What progress has been made on setting up the compensation scheme? Has the Minister started registering people for it? Can he make a commitment that the scheme will be up and running by the end of this year? Will the compensation scheme be run by an arm’s length body, chaired by a senior judge and accountable to Parliament? Will each affected and infected person be able to make a claim in their own right? Will he pay interim compensation payments to bereaved parents and bereaved children? If so, when? Will a bespoke psychological service be provided in England, as already exists in other parts of the UK? Will he ensure that people who were infected with contaminated blood and blood products are meaningfully consulted and involved in the process of establishing the new mechanisms for redress?

Before Nick Sainsbury died, he told the infected blood inquiry that “justice delayed is justice denied.” Nick was right. Justice was delayed and, as a result, it was denied to him. It must not be denied to another single person. It is time to launch the compensation scheme and finally deliver justice, not in a few months, not after the next report, but now, now, now.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Dame Diana Johnson]

I thank all hon. Members for their contributions. They described so many individual cases, so many lives and so much suffering. The Minister has set out the Government’s position, but I respectfully say to him that it is not good enough. He said that the issue is complex—and yes, it is—but putting a man on the moon was complex, and we managed that. It seems to me that real political leadership to get this done is lacking.

As I said in my opening remarks, the time is now. We are not going away, and Parliament spoke with one voice today. It is not good enough; action is needed now.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the Infected Blood Inquiry.

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. It is with great sadness that I inform the House of the passing of Winnie Ewing. Winnie served in this House after a spectacular by-election win in 1967. She served Hamilton between 1967 and 1970 and was re-elected in 1975 to serve the constituency of Moray and Nairn until 1979. She went on to serve in the European Parliament, where she became affectionately known as Madame Écosse, before serving in the first term of the Scottish Parliament, where she proudly chaired the opening session. She famously said,

“Stop the world, Scotland wants to get on.”

Since her by-election win in 1967, there has been a permanent Scottish National party presence in this House. To us on the SNP Benches, she was a friend, a mentor and an inspiration. Our condolences go to her children, Fergus, Annabelle and Terry. We will miss her immensely. We will not see her like again.