Contaminated Blood and Blood Products

Debate between Mark Durkan and Geoffrey Robinson

Thursday 14th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Robinson]

No motion of the House is ever wholly correct. I have never voted for a motion with which I totally agree—[Interruption.] I hate to say it, but we are reverting to party politics on an issue that has nothing to do with it. No motion is ever perfect. As the hon. Gentleman knows, we are debating a principle. We should recognise that there should be much more compensation—[Interruption.] If Conservative Members think that this is a laughing matter, I will leave it to them and their consciences.

[Mark Durkan]

Did my hon. Friend note that the Minister said that as well as placing in the Library an explanation of how the figures were arrived at, she would place a copy of an article from The Irish Times, quoting Brian Cowen, who was then Minister of Health in the Republic? Brian Cowen became Minister of Health in 1997, but the compensation scheme in the south began in 1996 and issued significant payments then. There are misleading versions of what subsequent tribunals said and what was admitted by the Irish Government, but the Irish compensation scheme was not based on that admission of liability or that knowledge.

[Mr Robinson]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. Perhaps the Minister would like to say whether that is correct. Perhaps she does not know. The debate is degenerating into the to and fro of Opposition against Government interchanges. Let me assure the Health Secretary and the Minister that no one who has taken part in the debate really wants that.

The simple fact of why we are proposing this motion and resisting the Government amendment is that we are pressing for a recognition that a gross injustice has taken place and that it must be put right. That will involve high levels of compensation. We beg the Government not to believe the figures that are automatically produced to exaggerate the situation.