Contaminated Blood Scandal: Interim Payments for Victims
Debate between Michael Ellis and Steve Brine(2 years, 4 months ago)
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Michael Ellis
I am conscious of the Speaker and Deputy Speaker’s admonitions about speed, so I will be brief. The Government will need to reflect carefully on the very detailed evidence that Sir Robert gave only last week in two days of evidence. That forensic detail included issues such as scope, the types of benefit, the legal issues and the legislative issues. There is a great deal of complexity and interconnectedness in this matter, and we want to get it right. We will act, as we have done, as a responsible Government throughout this process. We will continue to do that.
Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)
I speak as the co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on HIV and AIDS. Due to ignorance about HIV and a lack of understanding about how it is transmitted, many people assumed that people with haemophilia were infected with AIDS, which forced so many to hide their haemophilia for fear of the stigma and discrimination. Frankly, they have suffered enough.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), the then Prime Minister, announced this inquiry when I joined the Department of Health as a Minister five years ago, and we are still here. An urgent question from the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson) in the last week of term has become a staple, but it should not be needed. Is work under way to identify people who will be eligible for the interim compensation payment scheme, or are the Government still considering whether there should be such a scheme? That is an important distinction, and my affected constituents would like to know the answer.
Michael Ellis
The whole matter is still being considered. There are 19 recommendations, and my officials are working hard across Whitehall on the matter. It is unfair and inaccurate to characterise this as having made no progress over the years. Of course it made no progress, or hardly any progress, for many, many years after the infected blood scandal began. Since my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead began the inquiry, considerable progress has been made and is being made.