Contaminated Blood

Geoffrey Robinson Excerpts

Thursday 15th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Geoffrey Robinson (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

Like other Members, it is appropriate that I should pay tribute to the right hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt) and the hon. Member for Colne Valley (Jason McCartney), who secured today’s debate, and, most of all, to my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson), who has been responsible for getting the all-party group report out earlier this month. While we support and congratulate each other, we have to remember that the real victims in all this are those who have been infected and suffered this terrible disaster and tragedy, which has now been with us for more than 30 years. It is unique in one way, in that it is, alone in the health field, the fault of successive Governments. In no sense is this a party political debate, and the tone of today’s debate is a great credit to the Members who have taken part. It shows the growing awareness throughout the House and, I hope the civil service, too, of the seriousness of what took place all those years ago and the extent of our maladministration—let me put no finer point on it—in the handling of it since then.

The wide geographical spread of constituencies represented today is a testimony to the impact that this issue has had throughout the country. It has been pleasing to see two new Labour Members, my hon. Friends the Members for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane) and for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes), who have clearly taken on the role of successor MPs in the campaigning sense to their predecessors. My hon. Friend the Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East has already spoken to great effect, and he follows in the footsteps of Lord Morris and Paul Goggins, both of whom campaigned with us very effectively. Sadly, however, we have not really been successful yet. One point I wish to make to the new Members in the House is that they should not think we are starting all over again, because we are really at the end of this campaign now and they will, I hope, see the—I was going to say fruits, but there are none to reap here—thing brought to some sort of satisfactory conclusion, after all this time.

[Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for his kind comments and I wish to pay tribute to the tireless work of the late Jim Dobbin on this campaign. Let me add that I have been contacted by two constituents who praised the work that Jim had done and asked me specifically to attend this debate. They do not want their names to be made public, but they wanted me to be here and to take in what was said, and I will be meeting my constituents afterwards.

[Mr Robinson]

I am grateful for that intervention. I was about to discuss Jim Dobbin, so my hon. Friend fortunately anticipates me. Jim was a good friend of mine for many years, and we had his memorial service yesterday, as she will know. He, alongside Peter Archer, Alf Morris and Paul Goggins, as well as others from the Government side of the House, was one of a series of outstanding campaigners that we have had on this issue. The fact that it is an all-party campaign enables us to get together to seek some resolution. This has been going on for an awfully long time and it has been very unsatisfactory, under all Governments. I must emphasise that all Governments are equally to blame, Labour and Tory Governments going back even to before Margaret Thatcher—I mention a name that will immediately resonate on both sides of the House.

As has been said, some of those who have been terribly affected have not wanted their names to be mentioned. Among those affected has been one of my constituents, Mr Joseph Peaty, whom I visited in his home only a few weeks ago. I believe he is here watching today’s debate and I would like to read to the House two brief extracts from his most recent letter to me. I am pleased to say that he is now the chairman of the Tainted Blood group, one of the campaigning groups that have been very effective on this matter. He wrote to me just reviewing the 30 years he has been infected. The House will be interested to know that he is now 49 years old and was first infected when he was 16. He has lived all his life in my Coventry constituency. He wrote to me recently—I got the letter only yesterday—to say the following:

“I miss being able to contribute to a productive career...Perhaps because of my age when I was first affected, my hopes and expectations, that were much like anyone else’s (education, home, partner, children, career, travel, ‘make a difference to the world’) were taken from me. I am now just a shadow of the potential I once held, struggling to exist let alone live a purposeful, fulfilling life, worrying what the next viral complication will be.”

In his case there is a shadow overhanging him, after all these tragedies, and after the terrible suffering, pain and treatments that have had to be gone through; he faces the prospect, having been infected by both Hepatitis C and HIV and undergone all the treatments, that he could now have to deal with some transmutation into CJD—mad cow disease. We just do not know. It is as bad as that.

The tone of Joseph Peaty’s letter is much better than these extracts perhaps reveal. There is nothing self-pitying about Joseph Peaty. He is in every sense a man of immense dignity and tremendous forbearance in the face of suffering that was inflicted on him by the very organisation that was meant to be treating his ill health. He writes:

“By supporting the haemophilia community in the pursuit of justice and financial recompense, I have learnt far more about the background to the introduction of pooled blood products than we were ever told prior to their administration. As a result I find the evidence overwhelming that the governments of the day knew of the infection risks, did not take adequate steps to mitigate onward transmission, failed to prevent non-consensual testing on patients, failed to inform patients of the risk, and put costs ahead of patient safety. The government were responsible for ensuring the safety of their citizens and failed disastrously in this primary duty.”

That is a terrible indictment, but it is true; it is factual, undeniable and incontestable in every respect. Joseph is referring to the entirety of his adult career since he was 16 years old. He lived in Coventry and that is the sum total of what he can point to in his life.

I do not wish to strike a discordant note when I mildly disagree with the right hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire—I congratulate him on securing the debate and on the way in which he introduced it—about the need for more reports. We do not need the Penrose report as we have already had the Archer report. All sorts of investigations have proved beyond doubt that this is the Government’s responsibility, that the extent of the tragedy is tremendous and that the provision we have made so far has been inadequate. That is the end of the story. What we now need is a resolution.

We are pleased that the Secretary of State attended the debate. Obviously, he is no longer in his place as he has other matters to which he needs to attend. I am also delighted to see my right hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State in his place. We are all aware that the Prime Minister, in a moment of generosity, said that he would try to resolve this matter by the end of the year. I fear that he will not be able to do so—we know the pressures that Governments work under—and that is a great pity. The one useful thing that the coalition Government could do is to settle issues such as this. Indeed, when I raised the matter with the Deputy Prime Minister when he was deputising for the Prime Minister at Question Time, he said that he would take on the matter personally. I thought that we would at last have a more productive encounter between the two in the name of the sufferers in this tragedy. I hope that such a meeting can take place. If it cannot, the next Administration, whatever form they take—who knows what that will be—should take on the matter and settle it early. There will never be a good time. The only time is the earlier the better.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

Mr Deputy Speaker, having come late to the debate because of a clash with a meeting of a parliamentary Committee on which I serve, I am grateful for the indulgence of the Chair in allowing me to make a brief contribution.

I wish to focus on three points. The first is that people are still, even now, long after the event, being discovered to have been infected with contaminated blood; the second is that momentum for a settlement is in danger of being lost; and the third is that the best treatment is not always available for those who have been infected.

I was struck by what the right hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Mr Clarke) and others said about the debate being a chance to give a voice to individual constituents. I was also struck by the question asked on 10 December of the Deputy Prime Minister, who was standing in for the Prime Minister, by the hon. Member for Coventry North West (Mr Robinson), because he said in that question what he repeated today—that the scandal had reflected badly on successive Governments, possibly going back as far as that of Harold Wilson, if not further. In the context of momentum being lost, he said that the Prime Minister had undertaken in June to look at and rectify the situation. In fact, according to my constituent, Mrs Lesley Hughes, who only a week before he asked his question had got in touch with me about this very issue, the Prime Minister had apparently told one of his own constituents who was affected by this that he hoped to have a resolution within six months. This would have meant the end of the last calendar year.

I said that my first point was that people are still being discovered who were infected long ago, and that is Lesley Hughes’s situation. In 1970, she and her future husband were involved in a very serious road traffic accident in London, and she had to receive no fewer than 44 pints of blood. For many years she knew nothing about the fact that she had been infected, although over those years she had many visits to GPs and hospitals with numerous symptoms of illness, and considerable pain and suffering. Only last year was it finally discovered that she had been infected with hepatitis C by NHS contaminated blood. Her main concern in writing to me initially was that, given that the Prime Minister had said that he hoped to wrap the issue up himself, she was really anxious that we should not get to the general election—which is, after all, scheduled to be about five months after the deadline that the Prime Minister had set himself—without reaching a resolution.

[Mr Robinson]

I am not sure that the exact undertaking that the Prime Minister gave is recorded anywhere, but it is recorded in exactly those terms by my constituent, Joseph Peaty, as well. Does the hon. Gentleman agree, though, that the impression was left that the Prime Minister would do his very best to get a settlement by the end of the year? We are past that deadline now. Does he agree that, irrespective of the reports being compiled, we do now have the means necessary to settle the issue, and that is what the Prime Minister should try to do?

[Dr Lewis]

That is exactly my view, and for that reason I wrote to the Secretary of State for Health, drawing attention to the matter. I received a reply dated 12 January from the Minister who will reply to this debate. Of course she was sympathetic in the terms that she used, but the important part of her letter was the conclusion, which was that

“this issue is being looked at very seriously, and…an announcement will be made to affected individuals and MPs once work has been concluded.”

My simple question to the Minister is, when will that work be concluded, and will she and the Prime Minister undertake to get this work concluded, on behalf of my constituent and many others, before this Parliament comes to an end? Otherwise, we are back to square one—a cycle which I am sure has been repeated over and over again.

Finally, I said that I would mention the other point about how the best treatment is not always available. I understand from Lesley, whom I have not met yet but whom I believe to be present with her husband today, and whom I hope to meet after the debate, that there are problems with the fact that many people suffering from infection are offered the older interferon and ribavirin-based treatment, and that not everybody can tolerate that, particularly as it takes a long time to clear the system, and particularly if they are people who are at a later stage of their life.

If the Minister cannot answer today, will she perhaps write to me later about the situation of patients in that position? Kinder and more effective treatments are available, but are not always sanctioned for reasons of cost either by NICE or by individual health trusts. I wish to give others the opportunity to speak, but once again I thank my constituent for her bravery in allowing me to tell her story and attribute it to her, and I thank the House for its indulgence in allowing me to contribute to the debate at such a late stage.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andy Burnham (Leigh) (Lab)]

We have heard a series of fine speeches today—as has been said, Parliament truly at its best—but none more powerful and affecting than that of the right hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt) in leading the debate. Many of the things he said will have affected people greatly, but the words that remain with me now are those that he quoted from a letter he had received: “Every day is like a day on death row for a crime I did not commit.” If that does not convey the sense of injustice we are dealing with, nothing else will, because it really is that appalling.

When historians come to look back at the 2010-15 Parliament, it will be seen to be characterised by a welcome drive to correct historical injustice. First, we saw the apology in relation to the events of Bloody Sunday. We have seen a range of ongoing inquiries related to historical child abuse. There was the action on the injustice that I know too well from my own personal background—the death of 96 innocent people at Hillsborough. The right hon. Gentleman was absolutely right to pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram), who put those names on the record. But we cannot put on record the names of the people in this case who have suffered such devastation—not just the people who have died but those whose lives have been ruined as a result of this scandal, and it is a scandal.

What opened up those other injustices has not been the Government voluntarily moving to correct those wrongs, but Parliament. The resolution to those other injustices began here. It is beholden on each and every one of us here today to remember that and to use the power that we have from the office that we hold to work together across the Floor of this House to find a resolution for the thousands of people whose lives have been ruined by this scandal. If we hold to the cross-party spirit that delivered the beginnings of justice in those other campaigns, then we will do so in this case too. The right hon. Gentleman described it as the 15th worst peacetime disaster—like Hillsborough, entirely man-made. To add to that, Lord Winston has described it as

“the worst treatment disaster in the history of the NHS.”

We must resolve today, even if we cannot do it in the time that remains in this Parliament, to make sure that this injustice and this scandal is resolved early in the next Parliament, and that the people who have suffered finally have truth and justice.

I want to explain why I am standing at this Dispatch Box today. Like many others who have spoken, I have constituents who have been victims, including somebody who does not want to be named who speaks of having lived for more than 30 years seeking justice and support, and who contracted HIV and hepatitis C through contaminated blood in the 1970s and ’80s; and my constituent Simon Carter, whose father died and left the family facing a whole range of financial problems—people whose lives have been for ever altered and devastated by the scandal.

There is another reason I am here today. It goes back to a time towards the end of the previous Parliament, when somebody who has been mentioned by Members in all parts of the House, my good, late friend Paul Goggins, asked me to meet him and his constituents Fred and Eleanor Bates and Peter Mossman—now the constituents of my hon. Friend the Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane) whom he mentioned so movingly—in my constituency office in Leigh, and I did. I had no real understanding of what they had been through, and were going through, until I sat down with them, at Paul’s request, and listened to what they said. That campaign mattered hugely to Paul, whom I miss every day. I will continue to work in his memory to get justice not just for his former constituents but for everybody who has been mentioned in the debate. I want to signal the seriousness with which I will address this issue by speaking in this debate today.

As people have said, it is not that nothing has been done. Plenty has been done. There have been well-meaning attempts in all parts of the House down the years to put in place mechanisms to try to lessen the hardship and address the problems that people face in their daily lives. However, as many hon. Members have said, that has left a patchwork of support that is complex and bureaucratic—that, in the end, is about handing out bits and pieces, with people having to go cap in hand, not even given the dignity they should now have in having the problems that they were given rectified in a proper manner.

As a result of that meeting with Paul and his then constituents in my office in 2010, I reopened the issue at the end of the previous Parliament. Many Members have mentioned the Archer report. A resolution was put in place after that report, but it was not good enough, and that was recognised in all parts of the House. Paul asked me to look again at the issue, and I did.

I want to bring a new perspective to this debate—that of a former Minister who tried to do something; indeed, a former Secretary of State, because that is what I was at the time. I do not say this to blame any individual in the Department of Health, but more in terms of speaking as I found as I tried to lift the shutters that had been pulled down on an issue that the Department wanted to go away. The hon. Member for South Norfolk (Mr Bacon), who is no longer in his place, said that Governments of both parties have failed, and that is absolutely right— they have; there is no debate about that. But I do not detect the failure being caused by Members of Parliament or, indeed, Ministers; I have met many who want to resolve this in the right way. I have to say that in my experience the resistance is found in the civil service within Government. That is often the case in examples such as this; I found the same with Hillsborough too. It is very hard to move that machine to face up to historical injustice.

[Mr Robinson]

My right hon. Friend is making a very important point. Nobody wants to point the finger of blame, but he has gone to the heart of a problem in Government. He speaks with great authority as a previous Secretary of State. He says that it is hard to get officials to do what a Minister wants, and that is certainly true, but is it not also the case, and therefore a failure of successive Governments, in the plural, and Ministers, in the plural, that officials advise and Ministers decide? That is part of the failure so far.

[Andy Burnham]

I believe that it is. The hon. Member for Bedford (Richard Fuller) made this point. Perhaps there is a resistance that comes from not wanting to point the finger or to show the culpability of people who perhaps did not do their jobs as well as they might, but that is unacceptable. That is not something that anybody elected to serve in this place should accept. On a personal level, I know how hard it is when faced with such resistance. The way to help a Minister in that position is by giving them the sort of support that has been expressed throughout this Chamber today. That is what gives a Minister the power to have the courage to make a change.

The result of my efforts led to a review of the Skipton Fund, and I give credit to the current Government for continuing that work. It led to a small improvement, which has been mentioned, but, by God, it was hard enough to get that, so I do not underestimate how difficult it will be to move things forward.

Part of the problem is that the people dealing with the issue inside Government are insulated from the people we sit alongside in our constituencies and whose stories we listen to. Could there be a more heart-breaking story than that told by my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies) about the damage that this scandal has caused down the years? People need to hear and listen to what is being said, to understand why it is immoral to allow the situation to persist and go uncorrected.

I will not go through all the problems raised by colleagues about the inadequacy of the current process of applying for support, but I will pay tribute to the all-party group on haemophilia and contaminated blood, which, under the leadership of my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson), produced an outstanding report yesterday. I believe it will further reinforce the case for truth and justice.

I wish to draw the House’s attention to another development, which has not been mentioned today, namely the filing of a legal case by three unnamed victims. They have written to the Health Secretary, asking him to come forward with a settlement before full legal proceedings take place. Of course, it should not have to come to that, but, as colleagues have said, people are still waiting and they have waited long enough. We hope the Health Secretary will listen to that request and take action as soon as he can.

If the Minister, working with the Secretary of State, is able to find a solution, she will have the support of Labour Front Benchers and, I am sure, Members throughout the House. We will offer our good offices to ensure that a settlement can be reached. There needs to be a proper and fair resolution. None of us can predict what the make-up of the House or, indeed, the Government will be after the coming election, but I personally commit to working towards that full and final settlement for which people have waited long enough. I hope that Members on both sides of the House will make a similar commitment. As Paul Goggins said in the Westminster Hall debate mentioned by the right hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire,

“no debate about the issue should omit the need for a proper acknowledgement of what took place and why, and a profound and sincere apology for the suffering created by the disaster.”—[Official Report, 29 October 2013; Vol. 569, c. 201WH.]

The full and final settlement should have four components. First, there must be a national apology for the suffering down the years. Secondly, to echo what my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter) has said, there must be an inquiry. Whether it should be a public inquiry or not is a matter to be debated, but, having been involved in the campaign for justice for the 96 victims of the Hillsborough disaster, I know that other forms of inquiry can reach the truth and unlock a campaign for justice. There may be other ways to do it, but people need disclosure: they need to understand how this was allowed to happen. In my view, all papers held by the Department of Health should be released so that people can begin to see the full truth of what went wrong. I do not believe there is any reason at all to prevent that from happening.

The third element is, of course, a proper settlement for all those who have suffered—not just those who are still suffering, but families who suffered greatly as a result of the disruption caused to their lives. Fourthly, as my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North has said, we must give the best treatment possible to those who are still suffering.

The all-party group’s report quoted somebody infected with hepatitis C:

“You can’t give us back our health. But you can give us back our dignity. This tortured road has been too long for many of us. But for the rest of us, please let this be the final road to closure.”

Everybody present needs to listen to those words and act on them. Sadly, many of those affected have died and are not able to listen to our proceedings, but they, those who remain and the families they have left behind deserve the dignity of a full and lasting settlement.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Jane Ellison)]

I welcome the tone with which the shadow Secretary of State responded to the debate on behalf of the Opposition. I also congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt) on securing this debate and on his hard work and commitment—as a Minister, I am well aware of it—over the past year. The same is true of so many colleagues who have worked on behalf of those infected with NHS-supplied blood or blood products before 1991.

I thank all hon. Members who have contributed to the debate, which has been conducted in a constructive and thoughtful way, and, of course, distinguished former colleagues who championed their constituents so ably in the past. As we have heard, many of those constituents have been profoundly affected by this issue. I attended the last debate on it when I was a Back Bencher, and today I have heard once again about the impact these infections have had on the lives of individuals and families.

I will focus mainly on the current situation rather than the past, not because the past does not matter, but because it has been ably covered and because I want to add to the knowledge of the situation as it is now and give an indication of the way forward. I hope Members will understand that. If there are any issues that I do not address, I will, of course, write to Members, and if their concerns involve other Departments, I will seek to get a response from them.

There have been calls for a further inquiry and review. That subject has come up before, with calls to look at the historic circumstances of these events. There are various ways in which that could be done and I acknowledge the suggestion made by the shadow Secretary of State. I stress that the Government wish to be as transparent as possible about these events, but I remind the House that they have already been repeatedly examined in a number of different ways, including in court on a number of occasions, and the Department of Health has already published on its website all the relevant documents held for the period up to 1986. I acknowledge that there might be more to do, some of which relates to Lord Penrose’s work.

The Penrose inquiry has loomed over this debate. Let me give the House a sense of my frustration. When I came into office, I was advised that the original date of publication would be June 2014. Let me also give the House a sense of the seriousness with which I took the preparation for that report. I met Scottish Health Ministers last spring to discuss it and other issues. Obviously, work is taking place in Scotland and the publication of the final report has been delayed. The inquiry now expects to announce a publication date this month. There has been no formal confirmation, although a date has been offered during the course of the debate. I understand that Lord Penrose will examine any particular adverse consequences for infected patients and their families, and identify lessons and implications for the future. That is why we feel we need to wait to see the report.

As the events under discussion took place before devolution, the final report of the inquiry will clearly be of interest to the Government and we await its recommendations. I am extremely frustrated by the continued delay and accept that it will have an impact on the scope of our response in this Parliament.

As has been touched on, the Government, like their predecessors, provide ex-gratia financial and other support through the system of payment schemes that is in place.

[Mr Robinson]

The Minister has touched on the nub of the issue, namely the Penrose report and the delayed decision. Does she agree that we do not really need that? The broad aspect of the financial settlement that ought to be made is well known to the Government. It is a matter of getting a decision now.

[Jane Ellison]

I will come on to why I do not entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman, but my concern is essentially that after families have endured so much, I would hate to tell them the way forward only for that to be unpicked and revisited in the light of any recommendations by Penrose. I am afraid that I do not agree with him, because it is important to consider the report.