Draft Infected Blood Compensation Scheme Regulations 2025

John Glen Excerpts

Monday 24th March 2025 General Committees

[John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate. I want to make a few points and to provide some context around how we got to this point, and also to ask the Paymaster General a few questions about the regulations.

As far as I can see, the regulations are identical to what I would have done had I continued in the role of Paymaster General and taken them forward. Notwithstanding the careful and forensic observations of my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswinford and South Staffordshire, which I am sure the Minister will wish to respond to, it is important to put on the record that the regulations were not just cooked up by myself or the Minister, with officials, without regard to the report and expectations of Sir Robert Francis. Indeed, I commissioned an independent expert—and they were an independent expert—using the best advice available, and the regulations were designed to capture all the difficult trade-offs in calibrating a scheme with five heads of loss and for a large number of conditions, while seeking, at every opportunity, to make good on the expectations of those who have suffered so much.

For clarity, I would like the Minister to acknowledge that that work was not just left and then translated into the regulations. There was a careful period of reflection with representatives of many of the infected and affected communities last summer before the Minister accepted the vast majority of the recommendations from that consultation. Will he therefore confirm that he stands by the outcome of that consultation?

I visited IBCA in Newcastle, and I recognise the ongoing concern around the speed of delivery—the Minister will no doubt feel exactly the same as Opposition Members do. Will he say a little about how he will ensure that the activation of the affected route and the supplementary route by these regulations will not impede but accelerate the expectations around securing payments?

A number of points were made in the “Infected Blood Compensation—Getting it Right” document and in the documents from the Haemophilia Society and the Hepatitis C Trust about the calibrations, and my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswinford and South Staffordshire mentioned them in his questions. It would be helpful if the Minister could answer those concerns, because I echo them and they need to be dealt with.

Will the Minister also put on record that the myths out there about a large number of officials from the Cabinet Office or the Treasury—God forbid—being sent up to Newcastle to deliver this scheme in a constrained way are absolutely false? Will he acknowledge that it is the will of both sides of the House to deliver it as quickly as possible within the agreed framework, at arm’s length from Ministers and officials from whichever Department? Indeed, he is now in the invidious position of setting out the regulations for an arm’s length body to deliver something that he is not running day to day. He therefore has my enormous sympathies, and I hope we will have the integrity to continue this cross-party process, because it is important that IBCA, under David Foley’s experienced and able leadership, accelerates the delivery of these payments to the affected community and makes the supplementary route clear as quickly as possible.

I will finish by saying that 40 payments and £44 million do not sound like large numbers, and we do need to see that hockey stick. I am not dismissive of the concerns around speed of delivery, but the recommendation was that this would go to an arm’s length body, and it is fair for us all to acknowledge that the Minister cannot be held responsible for operational matters. However, he can be responsible for the regulations that he has set out so well this afternoon.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Glen]

I can say this now: it is quite frustrating when, as a Minister, you are given those dates and you know that the significant likelihood and probability is that it will be faster than that, but you are not permitted to say so, because you cannot give false hope. I know the Paymaster General is seeking to move those to the left at every opportunity, but his wonderful officials will be constraining him and giving him some concerns around doing so.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

The right hon. Gentleman has particular insight into the workings of the Cabinet Office. Like everyone in the room, he and I are restless for progress. We want these payments out of the door as soon as possible.

The shadow Minister raised the issue of HIV, on the one hand, and hepatitis B and C, on the other. In terms of our tariff rates for hepatitis C, the impact of a hepatitis infection can obviously range from very mild to very severe, through to liver failure and death, as a direct result of the infection. The expert group—appointed by the right hon. Member for Salisbury—provided the Government with clinical advice on the distinctions between those impacts. That meant that we could set severity bands for hepatitis based on clear clinical markers. Therefore, where someone’s experience of hepatitis—whether historical or now—has been more severe, they will get more compensation.

The expert group also recommended a single severity band for those infected with HIV. Sadly, most people infected with HIV due to infected blood have already died, and in most cases the death was as a result of that HIV infection. Those who survived will continue to be severely impacted by their infection. The view of the expert group, which the Government accepted, is that it is disproportionately complex to break down the HIV category into different severity bands. That is why there is a distinction in the bands.

The shadow Minister rightly asked about affected estates. As he indicated, the Government are following Sir Brian Langstaff’s recommendation about how widely we draw the circle. Where an affected estate will have a claim is where there is a claim on a debt. What that means is that an offer was accepted while the affected person was alive. If there has been the offer and the acceptance, then the affected estate has a claim on the debt. We think that that is a reasonable place to draw the line, and it is in line with Sir Brian Langstaff’s recommendation.

I am grateful for both contributions to the debate. There is huge importance to getting this right. It is about achieving fair and comprehensive compensation that is simple enough to deliver quickly without diminishing the individual harm that people have faced. That is the purpose of a tariff-based scheme: it is to get that balance right between swiftness of delivery and not diminishing individual harm. As the shadow Minister will know, if we look at an infected person, there is the injury award, the social impact award, the autonomy award, the financial loss award and the care award, and indeed the core route and the supplementary route. It is a scheme that is trying to strike that balance.

No one is suggesting that this is a straightforward task, but if we look at the recommendations of the infected blood inquiry, at the work of Sir Robert Francis, the advice of the infected blood inquiry response expert group that was led so well by Sir Jonathan Montgomery— appointed by the right hon. Member for Salisbury—they have all made a significant contribution to where we are today. No amount of compensation will make up for the pain and suffering that the victims have faced, and the Government recognise that. Now, however, we need to focus on supporting the Infected Blood Compensation Authority, so I hope we get support for the draft regulations in a few moments; they will enable IBCA to provide that compensation swiftly and compassionately.

I welcome and thank all Members who are interested in this topic. I appreciate the cross-party work on seeking justice, but I also say to all Members present—just as the right hon. Member for Salisbury did—that the door is open for them to raise individual cases and issues with me. Members should please raise them with the Cabinet Office, and I will do my best to ensure that they get a swift response. I hope all colleagues will join me in supporting the draft regulations, and I commend them to the Committee.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That the Committee has considered the draft Infected Blood Compensation Scheme Regulations 2025.