Infected Blood Compensation Scheme

Jonathan Brash Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd October 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office (Nick Thomas-Symonds)]

I beg to move,

That the Infected Blood Compensation Scheme Regulations 2024 (SI, 2024, No. 872), dated 22 August 2024, a copy of which was laid before this House on 23 August, be approved.

Let us start by reminding ourselves why we are here today. The infected blood scandal is a mark of shame on the British state. The infected blood inquiry’s final report, which was published on 20 May, shed light on the trauma inflicted on thousands of people across the country through no fault of their own. People were given contaminated blood or blood products and contracted HIV, hepatitis C and hepatitis B, and then for years they had their voices ignored. Those who were affected—the people who loved, knew and cared for someone who was infected—similarly had their voices ignored. That did nothing but compound the trauma for all involved.

The infected blood inquiry’s second interim report, published in 2023, set out 18 recommendations on compensation, informed by Sir Robert Francis KC’s 2022 compensation scheme study. The inquiry was unequivocal that a compensation scheme must be set up immediately.

The regulations before the House are essential for delivering that compensation scheme and getting money to people as quickly as we can. In May, when the now Prime Minister and I responded to Sir Brian Langstaff’s inquiry, we were absolutely clear. I said:

“One of the most powerful conclusions in this report is that an apology is meaningful only if it is accompanied by action”.—[Official Report, 21 May 2024; Vol. 750, c. 748.]

Today, with the regulations and the compensation scheme, we are delivering that action and taking another step on the road to the justice that has been so cruelly delayed.

[Mr Jonathan Brash (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

My constituent Alex Robinson lost her father to this scandal in 2006, having been his carer since the age of 13. In her words:

“He never got to walk me down the aisle or hold his grandchildren.”

She is incredibly concerned about getting justice. Can the Minister confirm that my constituent, along with all the families, will receive legal support to ensure that they can make their application to the compensation scheme successfully?

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

I am sure the whole House will join me in expressing our sympathies with the situation that my hon. Friend’s constituent and her family have been through. The Infected Blood Compensation Authority will aim to ensure that appropriate advice and support is available to assist people in managing their compensation awards, in accessing financial services and, where relevant, in accessing benefits advice. Sir Robert Francis KC recommended in his report that legal support be available to people who want to claim compensation; the Government and I have accepted that recommendation. We will work with the Infected Blood Compensation Authority to develop the package of support services.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Jonathan Brash Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 15th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Holden]

I think that the hon. Member is missing my point. We have to see this as part of a package. Lord Irvine spoke about it in 1999. The hereditary peers were being kept there as the stone in the shoe, and should not be removed until the wider reform was settled. The Government have a very large majority in this House. They can certainly get stuff through if they wish, and I urge Ministers to consider that comprehensive reform. I understand what the hon. Member is saying—why not do it slice by slice?—but I think that the entire point of the hereditaries being there shines a light on the greater issues we are facing in the House of Lords, as was mentioned earlier by, for instance, my right hon. Friend the Member for Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge (Sir Gavin Williamson) when he was talking about the religious Members of the Lords. If we are going to do a package, let us do a proper package.

It also concerns me that, having proposed a retirement age in their manifesto, the Government are apparently not seeking to legislate on that now. Why not? The scope of the Bill in relation to membership of the House of Lords is clearly wide enough for the purpose. In the Canadian upper House, for instance, the retirement age is 75, and in this country there is a mandatory retirement age of 75 for judges. I should be interested to hear from Ministers how they can justify a mandatory retirement age of 75 for those who interpret the law, but cannot justify it for those who make the law—not democratically elected, as Members well over that age have been in this House, but appointed. That is where the similarity with judicial appointments comes in. If the Bill is passed, Members of the House of Lords will be purely appointed. Obviously, there is already a retirement age for Lords Spiritual.

[Mr Jonathan Brash (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

The right hon. Member has made repeated references to the grand package of House of Lords reform that he would like to see. My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell) has already highlighted the problem, but we have seen it historically. In the coalition Government, the Liberal Democrats put forward their historic package of reform, and it was the Conservatives who put the bullet in it, because they did not agree with everything in it. Surely it is much better to get done what we all agree on than to present a package of reform that ends up dying at the hands of those who disagree with it.

[Mr Holden]

The hon. Member makes an interesting point. I know there have been fractures in Downing Street recently, but I do not think that anybody would suggest that the Labour party, with a majority of over 170, is a coalition in the same way that the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition was between 2010 and 2015. The Government have the time and space to introduce change. The key point is that it has to be part of a package, which is what Lord Irvine said in 1999.