Contaminated Blood (Support for Infected and Bereaved Persons) Bill [HL]

Lord Addington Excerpts

Friday 22nd October 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington]

My Lords, for those who speak this far down the list, not much remains to be said and most of it will be repetitious. However, we should congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Morris, on consistently coming back to this issue. He has worked on disability issues for a long time. If there is a bulldog spirit in this House—a tenacious person—he embodies it totally. It is probably worth putting on the record again the fact that he has not thought twice about hitting his own party’s Ministers hard and often. He has shown no fear about that. Party loyalty has not got in the way of his raising the issue.

I hope that the Government do not defend their position with a series of Treasury Bench-type responses, such as, “We don’t have to pay this out so we won’t”. I am afraid that previous Ministers have given such responses. I hope that we get some answers. If we cannot accept the Bill in its entirety, what can be done? That is a very important question. Moreover, what will be done in a certain phase of time? If we can find out when something will happen—Christmas has been mentioned—and what exactly that is, the degree of certainty and knowledge will help those involved. We can argue about exact details later, but that certainty would be something.

What initially got me involved in this issue, a good few years ago, was the difference in the way that we treated two groups of people—I refer to those affected by hepatitis C and HIV—who had contracted very similar conditions through a very similar process. However, because of a legal defence position, one group did not receive help. Surely we can address that at the first opportunity. If we carry on like this, we will carry on having similar debates and wasting time, leaving the people affected scrabbling in the air, waiting for something to happen and grabbing on to hope and despair. That affects their lives as well and piles not insult on insult but injury on injury. I hope that the noble Earl will be able to give us a positive response as the whole House and the entire political system deserve to be given a clear answer. If this is not the final measure that we seek, at least I hope that it will not leave us demanding a sequel.