Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government what is their response to recommendation 18 of the Infected Blood Inquiry's second interim report, published on 5 April, that a compensation scheme should be set up now and it should begin work this year.

The Government continues to make progress with the work necessary to enable a response to the full report when it is published in March next year. It is only reasonable that the Inquiry, whose work is in train, concludes and provides their final recommendations before the Government takes action. The Government recognises that there is interest in pre-registration for compensation ahead of its response to the Inquiry’s final report. However, as the Minister for the Cabinet Office set out to the Inquiry in July, opening registration for compensation before the Government has finalised its response would be a difficult step to take.