Infected Blood Inquiry

Hannah Bardell Excerpts

Thursday 22nd June 2023 Commons Chamber

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

It is difficult to follow the speech of the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson) and I will not try to match it. As the Minister may say, it is helpful to think of what we can do in future, the situation we are in now and what has happened.

I commend to those who have not read it Richard Titmuss’s book, “The Gift Relationship: From Human Blood to Social Policy”, which was published in 1970. He made it clear that it was better for people to give rather than sell their blood. The collection of blood in other countries was the biggest problem.

When people were given factor VIII made from contaminated or infected blood, it was done with the best intentions of trying to provide a prophylactic to avoid the dramatic treatments that were needed by people with haemophilia when they started bleeding.

However, that is not the point of the inquiry or of this debate. The point of the debate is to give the Minister an opportunity to update the House in the same way as he kindly met the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North and me recently and followed up with a helpful letter. We ask him whether, before the summer session ends, it is possible to give further information, by a written or oral statement so that we can follow that up. Between now and the autumn, a payment scheme should be possible. We want to ensure that the Government are given the most effective, co-operative encouragement and that pressure is put on them.

I speak as someone whose mother had major blood transfusions during the peak period and so, it is on record, did my wife. My mother was the first person in our family to have an HIV test. She was clear. I take an HIV test four times a year, when I give blood. The contamination issue has now been addressed, so the question facing Sir Brian for the remainder of the report is how we got to where we are. This debate is mainly about compensation and the system being brought forward.

The Minister will be able to explain how co-ordination with the other Governments of the United Kingdom and the permanent secretary of the Department of Health in Northern Ireland is coming together. It is accepted that a national scheme will be needed, but are we sure that the names of those affected and infected are being gathered now? It should not start in the autumn, when the scheme is agreed.

Some believe that the scheme’s details are not clear, so it would be helpful if the Minister could make plain how the Government intend to fulfil the recommendations of Sir Brian Langstaff’s second interim report, based on Sir Robert Francis’s specially commissioned study.

One of our closest friends was HIV-positive, having received infected blood, at a time when people thought they should not associate with those with AIDS or HIV. We did not believe that, and we spent our time socialising as best we could. We also understood the devastating impact on families. I have constituents who are survivors, and I had constituents who did not survive, and I know from all of them what it is like not to be able to get insurance, what it is like not to be able to save into a pension, what it is like not to be able to continue with their job, what it is like not to know whether they have infected their partner, and what it is like to go for treatment and have to explain that, no, they are not an alcoholic—that they do not have that illness—to every person in every hospital or clinic.

[Hannah Bardell]

That chimes with me profoundly. When I sat down with my constituent Vera Gaskin, she talked about exactly those things. She talked about not being able to get insurance to go on holiday, and so not being able to leave our beautiful country of Scotland, and about being asked repeatedly whether she is an alcoholic, even though she does not take a drop of alcohol. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that these people have lived with these things for a lifetime, or since they had those transfusions? Will he also pay tribute to the many people watching today from the Public Gallery?

[Sir Peter Bottomley]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady. The difficulty with where I am standing is that I cannot see the Public Gallery, but I do, of course, pay tribute to them. Those of us who have spent a lot of time with the real campaigners can be their mouthpiece. We have the microphone, but they are the ones Sir Brian rightly listened to at the beginning of his inquiry. Successive Ministers have also listened to them, for which I give them credit.

I think the health service could have done better by giving people a tag, so that they are not asked these difficult questions three or four times a year. I will not take up more time, but I associate myself with what the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North said about Glen, Nick and Michele. It is for them that we rely on the Minister, his advisers and the small ministerial group to make an impact in putting right the things that can be put right and in acknowledging the mistakes that cannot be put right.