Infected Blood Inquiry and Compensation Framework

Stuart C McDonald Excerpts

Thursday 24th November 2022 Westminster Hall

[Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)]

It is indeed the personal stories that bring home the full horror of this scandal. I pay tribute to my constituent John Prior, a severe haemophiliac who was infected with hepatitis C through contaminated blood products at Yorkhill Children’s Hospital. His own mother injected him with the products until he was able to do so himself at the age of 11. Of the 35 children treated with contaminated products at the hospital alongside my constituent, 19 were also infected with HIV. It was only aged 20 that he discovered the truth of what had happened via his employer, who had known a full year before he did.

The consequences for John have included advanced liver fibrosis and significant mental health issues. At one point, he received letters four times in 10 years to say that he may have had variant Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease. He suffered from the severe side effects of treatments that were helping only a small number of patients. He has described how he and his fellow victims feel that they have been used as guinea pigs, and have been living on death row since they were infected. My constituent is a similar age to me, but has already lived significantly longer than many of his peers who did not survive the impact of the scandal.

John’s asks, and mine, are exactly as set out so ably by the all-party group chairs, the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson) and the hon. Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley), whose fantastic work I pay tribute to and thank them for. As the right hon. Member said, the asks can be neatly encapsulated in the three Ps: pledge, prepare and pay. This is about fixing the interim compensation scheme, which is welcome but which must be extended to the groups who are excluded unfairly. It is about publishing the full response to Sir Robert Francis’s report and committing to its full implementation, and accepting responsibility for what happened. It is about ensuring that the compensation is administered by an independent body, and that the work to administer it gets under way now so that it can be up and running as soon as possible. It is about making good on the commitments on non-taxation, and heeding Sir Robert’s remarks on increasing support payments as soon as possible.

There are so many things that the Government can and should be doing, as others have set out. I simply ask the Government to be as nimble and generous as possible as they proceed, and to ensure that they do not inflict any needless bureaucracy on people who have already experienced the worst type of state negligence and recklessness over several decades. John’s story is a personal tragedy for him and his family. The collective story of these amazingly brave and dignified campaigners is a national disgrace. We cannot undo the appalling harm that was done, but by building on the excellent work of Robert Francis and Brian Langstaff we can deliver some sort of justice, and we must.