Victims and Prisoners Bill

Lord Owen Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 26th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bichard (CB)]

My Lords, I too speak in support of Amendment 134. I have to apologise, for I am afraid I was unable to attend Second Reading. I speak on this amendment as someone who has spent a good deal of time in the last couple of years chairing one of the expert advisory groups for the infected blood inquiry, looking at public health and administration. As a result, like some other Members of this House, I spent a day at the inquiry giving evidence. That day made a huge impression on me, as I know it will have done on others. It made a huge impression not least because there was an audience of dozens of victims, who had suffered grievously for years and decades. They have shown immense courage, determination and resilience in the face of what the chair, Sir Brian Langstaff, has rightly said were serious failings over decades that

“led to catastrophic loss of life and compounded suffering”.

As chairman of an expert advisory group, it was not for me to draw those wide conclusions but I was able to see from the evidence—and draw my own conclusions—that during that period there had been multiple breaches of the Nolan principles and the conventions that preceded them, and multiple breaches, I am sad to say, of the Civil Service Code. In other words, the state let these people down time and again, and the state should now provide restitution without any further delay.

There is one other reason why I am supporting this amendment: because I feel that not to do so would make me complicit in what now seems to be the way in which the state, in all its forms, responds to failings such as this. We delay accepting responsibility for as long as we can. We defend the indefensible. We place the reputation and interests of institutions and the system above the interests of the people who have been harmed. We set up inquiries, which inevitably delay action. I am not in any way criticising the way in which Sir Brian has led the infected blood inquiry; it has been exemplary, and he has done a fantastic job. We then design unnecessarily complex systems for claiming compensation. We do not do this once; we do all that time and again. It happened with Windrush, Grenfell, the Post Office and, probably most heinously of all, the infected blood inquiry.

We have reached a stage where these responses themselves are a breach of the Nolan principles of public life. Let me remind the Committee that these principles include integrity, accountability, openness and leadership. This amendment seeks to change the responses and rebuild the public’s trust in the way in which we govern. It needs to be done quickly, because the inquiry report will come out in May, and it will receive phenomenal attention. It will either further undermine the public’s faith in government or, if we take this action now, perhaps people will believe that we are changing things through action and not through words.

[Lord Owen (Ind SD)]

My Lords, 1975 was a long time ago. I am getting on in age now, and I wondered if I would ever see the day when the decision I announced to the House of Commons with money attached—that we would go for self-sufficiency in blood products—would be honoured, at least in a way so that some of the relatives of the many people whose lives have been lost would feel some sense of satisfaction. I could make a very long speech on all those who have fought this fight with honour, dignity and integrity. They belong to all political parties; it very soon became a cross-party campaign.

I also want to make a few things clear. We knew about this earlier than 1975. A very remarkable book, The Gift Relationship by Professor Titmuss, identified the problem of the blood coming into our country from places in which there were absolutely no safeguards and very few questions you could ask about somebody’s past health. At that time, we had no way of finding out whether blood was infected with hepatitis, for example. We had to ask a simple question as a method of trying to find out whether a blood donor was suitable: we would ask if they had ever been yellow—ie, had their liver ever been affected so that they were jaundiced and, as likely as not, had been infected with hepatitis. It was as crude as that.

I want to make it clear that, through the years in which blood products which doctors knew might be infected were being used, they had an agonising choice. They had to explain the risks to the patients. Sometimes there were children who were not able to understand it, so the issue was put to the parents, who had to juggle these very difficult and complex medical facts. The paediatricians and haematologists had to do their best to explain the risks to them, without really knowing.

When I first began to look at this question, I wondered whether we could get away with having a complete ban on blood products. It soon became clear that, if we did that, we would not be able to give blood products that might well not be contaminated to a very substantial number of patients. Let us remember what the situation is. Eventually, we got a product that parents could inject at home. That meant that, if a child had fallen and was bound to bleed into their knee, arm or elsewhere, they could give the injection straightaway and the child would likely not suffer any serious damage—but that was actually one of the worst products to give. These choices were being made against this background of a lack of knowledge—but nothing explains the refusal of successive Governments to pay compensation to those affected. Nothing explains the delay, which meant that, when AIDS came, we still had no blood of our own—we were not self-sufficient with blood very likely not to be contaminated, although even then we could not be absolutely sure that it would not be contaminated.

What I would have said would have been much stronger, more vehement and angrier if not for the circulation of a letter from the noble Earl, Lord Howe, to us about this debate. I have known him in many different guises, and I know him to be a man of honour. Frankly, when I read this letter, I do not need any more assurances that there will not be any unnecessary delays. I believe his words are carefully chosen, and I think he understands, like many people from his own party and people who have been responsible for healthcare, that there can be no more ducking and weaving, and no more appeals from the Chancellor to delay it for another year or anything like that. This time, we have to honour it—and we have to do it this year.

The report will be available on 20 May, and everybody will be able to read it. Judging by the day’s evidence I gave, I think that it will be a searching and honourable report. Given the device in the House of Commons of attaching it to the Bill—of course this was a device—and now given the Government responding to this device by trying not to dismiss it but to make it more precise and effective, that battle seems to be over. We can be sure that this year—in a matter of months—payments will be made. I hope that can be made clear from the Front Bench. Nobody comes out of this with a lot of distinction, but I only say: let us read the report. I suspect a lot of people will feel very ashamed.

[Lord Horam (Con)]

My Lords, the Committee listened with great interest to the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Owen, and the honourable part he played in this tragic situation. I was a Minister of Health much later, between 1995 and 1997, and I had to struggle with problems with the Treasury and getting reasonable compensation for the victims—the infected and the affected—as he said. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, for raising this issue today so that we could have a debate of this kind. It is necessary, and we should keep pressing.

I was appalled by the Statement by John Glen before Christmas in the other place. It was one of the emptiest Statements I have heard from a Minister in that situation. It was as though the Government were just going through the motions of giving a Statement because they had committed themselves to doing so, without having anything at all to say, which is extremely disappointing. I was grateful to my noble friend Lord Howe for having much more sensible and positive things to say in his letters so far. We hope he can follow those up.