Infected Blood Inquiry

Lord Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 15th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jones (Lab)]

My Lords, it is good to hear the compassionate remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge. I thank the Minister for her committed and comprehensive speech and wish her well in her ministerial life ahead. I declare that I have answered a questionnaire concerning the inquiry.

I recollect a mother. She was dignified, and clearly worried. It was a weekly constituency surgery, just one of 50 a year for those 31 Commons years. We were in the working men’s club in a tired, long-gone Great Western Railway community. It was a great barn of a place. Warm sunlight was lighting up the dancing dust particles above the wooden floor that creaked as my constituent advanced towards my table. “My sons—it’s my sons. Both of them. It’s horrible. My sons need help”. Those were her first, urgent, whispered words. “My boys are in danger. It is a tragedy. It’s both of them; it’s so unfair. They are haemophiliacs—both of them are”.

This woman was bespectacled and had gone to the trouble of wearing her costume best. She was twisting her handkerchief, which was brightly embroidered. I detected a slight waft of her fragrance. Her breathing had become tight and her blue eyes behind the glass were heavily moistened. This was an ordeal for her, and I had to be more than sympathetic. “They need blood. They need good blood. Now they’ve been given poisoned blood. No—it’s contaminated blood”. These dreadful words were jerked out in between troubled breaths. Her interview was an ordeal, a torment. I felt greatly disadvantaged by her whispered passion. One’s duty was to be receptive always, but this was so personal. When the interviewer is engulfed by a fellow citizen’s deep feeling, one wants to give more than polite attention. Was I capable of reassuring this emblematic, supercharged motherhood?

This stressed woman of quality was twisting her handkerchief this way and that as she poured out her worries and her scorn for the failed blood intruded into her sons’ veins. They were not young. They were at risk. They had always had it rough, and now this. It was more than she could bear.

It is axiomatic that the constituent wants, above all, to tell of her feelings. It is not a rendered, rational statement to the Member of Parliament—it is an expression of feeling, the consequences of pent-up frustration. It calls for priestly empathy, listening skills and sincerity. It was called for from a person so often recently travelled from the snake-pit of Westminster, nerves jangling and frequently sleepless.

This mother’s monumental concern deserved better from me, an inadequate practitioner. I did my level best. I surely radiated courtesy, respect, support and understanding, but could it ever be enough? What could I do in the positive sense? Did my constituent leave as a satisfied visitor? Could anyone, anything, avenge her anger, despair and frustration? I doubt it, but I had the grace to escort her to the door, to shake her hand and to promise my efforts.

Some 40 years later there would be an inquiry of the utmost integrity, openly and caringly chaired by Sir Brian Langstaff, and compensation. But how do you compensate for her grief, her anger and her sons’ distress? Sir Robert Francis KC shows skills that Newton and Hooke might have admired, and I hope things go well in terms of compensation.

My constituent’s sons were the victims of a disgraceful dereliction of duty. Highly placed, extravagantly paid elite bureaucrats had failed to remain vigilant and exacting. Risks were taken, corners were cut and fellow human beings—innocents—suffered dreadful damage.

It was instructive for me to hear the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Bichard. Surely we will not advance to abolishing your Lordships’ noble House. There are always contributions to be made. No amount of Westminster do-gooders could make the ideal reversal of a fateful decision. No Commons Questions, no parliamentary debate, no petitions and no remonstrations to those committed Ministers could right this dreadful wrong. The misery continues in those wrecked lives. The guilty were hiding, and why was it so long before this inquiry took place?

This was a salutary interview for a do-gooding Member, and I never saw that marvellous mother again.