Contaminated Blood

Rebecca Pow Excerpts

Tuesday 12th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Diana Johnson]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. We are now a few days away from the end of the consultation period. I understand that the Minister was advised—wrongly, I think—by her officials that she could not meet the all-party group during the consultation period. I know that that was not the case in Scotland: the Minister there met MSPs and individuals. We called for this debate so that the Minister could listen to the comments of her fellow parliamentarians about the Government’s proposals and then feed them into the consultation.

[Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)]

I have many constituents in Taunton Deane whose lives are blighted by this issue of contaminated blood. Although I applaud the Government for bringing forward this consultation, there are many who believe that it is only adding fuel to the fire. In fact, it could be making the situation worse and causing more pain, not least because, in Scotland, people may get a better deal than those in England. I urge the Minister to look very carefully at the consultation so as not to penalise people who are already badly suffering.

[Diana Johnson]

I wish to move on now to highlight a few of the problems with the consultation. First, as has already been said, many of the existing recipients will receive lower payments under the new scheme. The Government’s proposals would end all discretionary support, such as winter fuel allowance, child supplements and low income top-ups, which means that many people will lose out, potentially by thousands of pounds a year.

Secondly, most of the current beneficiaries have hepatitis C stage 1 and currently get no ongoing support. They are left begging for individual payments from the Caxton Fund. The Government proposals will provide annual payments for people in stage 1, which is welcome, but those people will be subject to regular individual assessments. That could result in fluctuating payments and reduced financial certainty for individuals. Assessments will also take only clinical factors into account. They will not look at the loss of education or employment, and decades of loss of amenity, ill health and loss of earnings. According to the information from the Government, those assessments will cost £500,000 a year to carry out. Would that money not be better spent on providing financial support to those people?

--- Later in debate ---

[Rebecca Pow]

The hon. Gentleman is making a very serious and sympathetic case. As well as people’s suffering, is there not also the issue of their unrealised potential—the hopes dashed, the dreams never lived, the potential never reached? It is on that account that we really owe it to these people to speak up—I do so on behalf an unidentified constituent who does not want me to give his name—and urge the Minister to address the issue.

[Jim McMahon]

The hon. Lady makes an absolutely excellent point. When Alex came to my office in Oldham, he told me that with his compensation payment he had bought a van to go and work self-employed, but his illness stopped him and eventually he had to sell the van, which had ended up sitting on his driveway. The hon. Lady is absolutely right that people have been denied opportunities that many in this House would take for granted. It is far more than simply an aching pain, or not knowing whether tomorrow will be better than today; opportunities have been stolen from people. Given that it is the state’s responsibility to put this matter right, we owe it as a nation to do so once and for all.

The payments we are talking about will seem quite small to many people here. In some ways, that is what makes this so unfair and so cruel. In one of the richest nations in the world, we are talking about penny-pinching from the poorest people in society, who did not choose to be in this situation and who need a way forward. A £2,000 payment taken away, or a winter fuel allowance, or prescription payments—support is being taken away. It is important to say that the £2,000 payments do not go to everyone, but are for people whose income is 70% below the average in that area. I do not want to make party political points, but it is a bit difficult not to do so when the Government of the day could put the matter right but are choosing instead to drag it out and prolong the agony and pain.

When Members vote in the Lobby of this House, we will be voting after having received a pay rise this year. Well done, all of us—aren’t we fantastic? Well, the people out there are not asking for a pay rise. They are asking just to get by—to have the money to pay the bills—and for justice. The Minister has the opportunity to put the matter right once and for all. She should take it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Heaton-Jones]

None of us, of course, would want that. We must wait to hear what the Minister says at the end of the debate, but I am sure that we are all aiming for the same result. The least that the people who have fought so hard for truth and justice deserve is a fair hearing, but for many, time is running out. They find themselves in the heartbreaking position of facing the inevitable health consequences of what was, after all, an historical failure of the national health service.

[Rebecca Pow]

I, too, massively applaud the work of the all-party parliamentary group, which has been working for so long. My hon. Friend has mentioned time. I have just received a text from one of my constituents, who does not want to be named, but who points out that the stark reality is that those infected are dying at the rate of one a month. For these people, time really is of the essence.

[Peter Heaton-Jones]

rose—