Infected Blood Inquiry and Compensation Framework

Margaret Greenwood Excerpts

Thursday 24th November 2022 Westminster Hall

[Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this afternoon, Dame Angela. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson) and the hon. Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley) on securing the debate and thank them for all their work on this important issue. I pay tribute to everyone campaigning on this too.

As we know, during the 1970s and 1980s, thousands of UK patients contracted HIV, the hepatitis virus, or both from contaminated blood or blood products. I want to raise the case of one of my constituents, who was one of those patients. She has now been recognised officially as a victim of the contaminated blood scandal, but getting there has been, in her words, “a long, upsetting and depressing process”, both in an administrative sense and in terms of her health. For many years, she was denied any recognition or support due to lost medical records. She said there were times when she decided it was best for her to just admit she was beaten and move on. Thankfully, she persisted and is now rightly recognised as a victim. Despite being cured of hepatitis C several years ago, she has been left with a number of other extremely serious health issues. She still suffers today, not only medically but emotionally, due in part to the stigma attached to hepatitis C and blood-borne viruses. There can be no place for stigma in relation to health in a supportive and understanding society.

Over the years, the strain on my constituent and her family, including her children, has been enormous and their lives have been profoundly affected. She told me she often wonders how different her life would have been if she had not required a blood transfusion at birth. I am sure that she, like everyone else affected by this, just wants conclusion and closure. The Government’s written response of 5 September notes Sir Robert Francis KC’s independent study, with options for a workable and fair framework of compensation for those infected and affected by the tragedy. It also notes the recommendations by Sir Robert and Sir Brian Langstaff, chair of the infected blood inquiry, of making interim payments of no less than £100,000 to all those infected and all bereaved partners currently registered on UK infected blood support schemes, as well as those who register between now and the inception of any future scheme.

The Government have confirmed that infected individuals and bereaved partners who are registered with any of the four UK infected blood support schemes received their payments by 28 October. However, as the Hepatitis C Trust has pointed out, those are only interim payments, and this is just the start of the process of setting up the full compensation scheme.

[Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)]

Does the hon. Lady also support the notion of the interim scheme being extended to families and carers, such as my constituent Justine Gordon-Smith, who cared for her father, Randolph? She has experienced considerable personal trauma, and the same must be true for hundreds and hundreds of families throughout the UK. Does she agree that they deserve to have their problems and the issues they have experienced acknowledged by the Government too?

[Margaret Greenwood]

The hon. Lady makes really important points on behalf of her constituent.

Furthermore, the Government have still not responded in full to Sir Robert Francis’s report on the compensation framework. Will the Minister say today when that response will be published? The infected blood inquiry is ongoing and is due to report in mid-2023. It is vital that the Government act as swiftly as possible when the inquiry’s final report is published. That is the very least that victims such as my constituents deserve.