Infected Blood Compensation Scheme

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Thursday 30th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[The Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office (Nick Thomas-Symonds)]

With permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will update the House on the Government’s progress in establishing an infected blood compensation scheme.

In July the infected blood inquiry published its additional report, which made a number of recommendations on ways that the compensation scheme could be amended to achieve a scheme that works better for all infected and affected people. I updated the House then to confirm that the Government were responding positively and that we would bring forward legislation as soon as we could to address the recommendations that we could implement immediately.

The regulations that I am laying before the House today will achieve a number of those changes and demonstrate this Government’s commitment to responding swiftly and constructively to the inquiry’s recommendations. Specifically, the regulations respond to five of the inquiry’s recommendations by removing the HIV eligibility start date; removing the minimum earnings threshold for a person to claim the exceptional financial loss award; removing the requirement for evidence of the date of diagnosis of hepatitis B or C; making changes to the deeming provisions for the severity of hepatitis C; and expanding eligibility to include estates of all affected people who have died between 21 May 2024 and 31 March 2031, which actually goes further than the inquiry’s recommended date range.

The regulations also put back the transfer of responsibility to make support scheme payments from the infected blood support schemes to the Infected Blood Compensation Authority—IBCA—by one calendar year. That means that IBCA will begin making phased support scheme payments from January to March 2027. IBCA requested that change to allow it to concentrate on accelerating the delivery of compensation and expanding the service to all eligible groups this year, while ensuring—this is essential—that there is no disruption to those receiving support scheme payments. There will of course be a separate opportunity for the House to debate these regulations in fuller detail before they are approved, and I look forward to that debate.

I would also like to inform the House that we have implemented the inquiry’s recommendation to reinstate support scheme payments to partners bereaved after 31 March this year until they have received compensation. Applications for those individuals reopened on 22 October, and I am grateful to colleagues across the devolved Administrations and the support schemes for the collaborative approach to making that happen.

Today I am launching a public consultation on proposed changes to the infected blood compensation scheme, as recommended by the inquiry. I encourage responses from the infected blood community and from all those with an interest in the infected blood inquiry. I assure hon. Members that every response will be considered carefully.

The consultation sets out questions across seven specific issues: harm caused by interferon treatment; the special category mechanism and its equivalents; severe psychological harm; past financial loss and past care; evidence requirements for exceptional loss; supplementary awards for affected people; and unethical research. The Government have sought initial advice from an infected blood compensation scheme technical expert group to develop proposals on those topics in response to the inquiry’s additional report for this public consultation. The feedback we receive through that consultation will inform the decisions that the Government take. The technical expert group will also take part in targeted engagement with the community.

I previously gave the House an undertaking that transparency would be at the heart of any expert group going forward. That is why the five additional members who have been appointed to the technical expert group were appointed following valuable feedback from infected blood community stakeholders, and it is why I am today publishing the minutes of the group’s meetings that have taken place so far. I look forward to hearing the views of the community within the consultation process and beyond as we work together to ensure that the Government’s response meets expectations. We will publish a response to the consultation on gov.uk within 12 weeks of it closing. As I set out in July, we will also need to bring forward further regulations next year to implement changes following the outcome of the consultation. Listening to and working with the infected blood community is essential to ensure a compensation scheme that works for everyone, and I am hopeful that this consultation will allow us to do just that.

I now turn to the delivery of the compensation scheme as it currently stands. IBCA has made significant progress in the delivery of compensation. As of 21 October, 2,476 people have received an offer of compensation, and over £1.35 billion has been paid. IBCA reached the significant milestone of having paid out over £1 billion in compensation last month, which I am sure the House will agree is welcome and notable progress in the delivery of compensation. I can also tell the House that offers totalling over £1.8 billion have now been made.

As of the end of September, all infected people registered with a support scheme have been contacted to begin their claim, and IBCA has set out its intention to open to unregistered infected people in November. In order to open, IBCA must build a service that allows it to confirm an infection before a claim begins, check the identity of each person claiming, and ensure that all the necessary legal and financial support is in place for anyone who wishes to use it. This approach, which IBCA also took with the first group of people making a claim, means that the numbers will initially be lower. However, I expect that—as with the first group—those numbers will rise exponentially as progress is made.

Earlier this month, IBCA also launched a registration service for people who intend to make a claim to register their details. As of 21 October, it has received 10,573 registrations of intent to make a compensation claim. To be clear, that figure represents all registrations, not unique people or claims. Those registrations will be particularly helpful in identifying the unregistered infected people for the next group, and indeed more as the service grows.

As Members of the House are aware from my previous statements on this matter, IBCA is an independent arm’s length body, and it is vital that we respect that independence while also ensuring that I do what I can to drive progress forward. That is why in July I asked for an independent review of IBCA’s delivery of the scheme. That review, led by Sir Tyrone Urch, began in August and concluded earlier this month. I am today publishing that review and have deposited a copy in the Libraries of both Houses. The report notes that IBCA has made “substantial early progress” towards delivering compensation to victims of infected blood, but it also makes recommendations to aid the scaling-up of operations and the delivery of compensation to complex cohorts. I will, of course, consider all of those recommendations carefully.

Alongside IBCA’s delivery of the compensation scheme, the Government have continued to make progress on interim payments. In July I informed the House that we would make a further interim payment of £210,000 to the estates of infected persons who were registered with an infected blood support scheme or predecessor scheme and have sadly passed away, in addition to the interim payments of £100,000 that opened for applications in October 2024. I am pleased that applications for those payments opened last week, meaning that some estates could now be eligible for up to £310,000 in interim payments.

Since applications for the initial interim payments opened last year, over 600 estates have received payments, totalling over £60 million. That is in addition to the £1.2 billion that the Government have paid in interim compensation more widely. I hope that this additional interim payment brings some temporary relief to the families impacted, and I also hope that IBCA’s intention to begin the first claims on behalf of estates of deceased infected people by the end of this year provides some reassurance.

I am resolute that we get this right, and I hope the progress I have set out today shows that we are taking positive action and, crucially, listening to and making progress alongside the community. After all, those who have been so impacted by this horrendous scandal must be at the core of every decision we make, in Government and across this House—they deserve no less. I commend this statement to the House.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the shadow Minister.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend’s work with the all-party parliamentary group. On the first question, the compensation that has been received clearly is exempt from tax. I understand exactly the point he is making about someone, such as a widow, who inherits or has the compensation on behalf of a deceased partner. That money will be received tax-free, but I appreciate his point about the speed that is needed, because of the age of so many of the victims of this scandal. That is through no fault of their own, but is the fault of the state. The tax exemption is in line with the policy that is pursued consistently across Government. On his second point about the campaigning groups, I am conscious that we are approaching the end of another tax year. I pay tribute to the work that the charities do, and I undertake to him that I will take up that matter with the Department of Health and Social Care.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Tessa Munt (Wells and Mendip Hills) (LD)]

The Minister will see my pile of papers, which I hope are criticisms that I never have to raise again. I welcome his statement and the work being done, particularly by Sir Brian Langstaff and others. I also welcome his intention to listen to and work with the infected blood community. This scandal remains the worst treatment disaster in the history of our national health service, and it is a source of shame for successive Governments and for the health service. We have heard from our constituents, who have been let down by medical professionals and the NHS. In many cases, they were victims of deliberate malpractice and cover-up. All those warnings about unsafe blood were ignored and officials failed to inform patients. In many cases, those patients paid, or are still paying, with their lives.

An estimated 30,000 victims suffered, and that suffering was compounded by the further injustice of having to wait decades for compensation. As of my latest data, I understand that six times as many people have died waiting for justice as have benefited from this scheme. I hope the Minister can update me with a slightly more accurate figure. Payments to date have been made at an infuriatingly glacial pace.

I would like to ask the Minister about the timelines for delivering compensation. Can he reaffirm that all eligible victims—all 30,000—will receive compensation by 2029? Will he confirm that the consultation he will undertake will not delay in any way or affect the speed at which the payments are being made? More specifically, I have challenged him before about the 916 victims of the special category mechanism. Are they in a different state from the advice given in August last year? Have things changed completely from the situation in February this year, when the rules changed?

I just want to check something that I am not entirely clear about. With the Infected Blood Compensation Authority, the current approach was that people could not apply for compensation, and you are now saying that they can and that they will not have to wait—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. Ms Munt, you say, “you are saying”, but I am not. I hope you are coming to a conclusion.

[Tessa Munt]

I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker. Can the Minister confirm that people will not have to wait and that those 10,573 registrations are only part of it, when we recognise that there are 30,000 victims?