Meeting of the Parliament 30 April 2024
The infected blood scandal is an appalling injustice, as we have heard this afternoon. Labour wants to help to ensure that justice and compensation for victims and their families are delivered urgently. Therefore, we will support the legislative consent motion.
However, the matter has required the UK Government to be dragged repeatedly to deliver justice. The LCM, tardy as it is, is another example of the UK Government failing to adhere to the will of the UK Parliament and, indeed, to that of this Parliament. A response to late amendments that were tabled by my UK parliamentary colleague, Diana Johnson, and attempts to water them down, resulted in a late timetable being tabled in the House of Lords on 17 April.
It is bewildering that the matter has continued to drag on for as long as it has, given that the UK Government has already confirmed that it fully accepts that there is a moral case for compensation, while the Chancellor of the Exchequer has said that the matter has been going on far too long and that
“Justice delayed is justice denied”.
That is why we have a responsibility to work as fast as we can to resolve the matter.
Former Prime Minister Theresa May announced a public inquiry, chaired by Sir Brian Langstaff, back in July 2017 and the inquiry has been running since 2018. The final report is due to be published next month and an interim payment of £100,000 for victims and affected partners was announced in August 2022, based on Sir Brian Langstaff’s recommendations.
I first raised the case of my constituent in March 2018, while I was a member of the United Kingdom House of Commons. I am sure that all parliamentarians have heard harrowing testimony about their constituents’ experiences. Hundreds of people have been affected across Scotland and many parents carry some of the most horrific experiences with them to this day.
I represented the area in Glasgow where Ruchill hospital was. It was the main hospital in Scotland that dealt with cases of HIV and AIDS during the 1980s epidemic. Many young children died of horrific diseases in that hospital, and their parents had to watch helplessly as their children died, often from haemophilia, while the medicines and treatments that they thought would help to sustain them actually killed them in the most horrific way. We cannot underestimate the damage that that has caused, and continues to cause, across this country.
At the third reading of the Victims and Prisoners Bill on 4 December, the Government lost a vote on proposed new clause 27 in an amendment in the name of Dame Diana Johnson, which was an historic rebellion against the Government. The vote was remarkable; it was a remarkable victory for the victims in the infected blood scandal. The UK Government is now obliged to do the right thing and to take the necessary steps to urgently set up a final compensation body.
However, it is clear that the recommendations that have been outlined have not been adhered to fully. We have concerns about that. We have heard from a number of stakeholder groups that have worked hard to raise their concerns over the years. The Hepatitis C Trust, for example, has said that the announcement has
“blindsided campaigners and the infected blood community”.
It continued:
“We are concerned about the remit of this new expert panel and its purpose, and whether it may constitute yet another barrier to delivering justice … They must urgently clarify what the group has been set up to do, who is part of it, and how their advice will be made public.”
The Haemophilia Society said:
“This announcement, which was made without any consultation with the infected blood community, raises more questions than it answers.
We do not know which experts are on Professor Montgomery’s team nor has their appointment process been publicised. We do not know the panel’s remit or whether their advice will ever find its way into the public domain.”
The amendments might be necessary in order for the Government to take action on establishing a compensation body for victims of the injustice, but the Government amendments do not include a commitment to delivering concrete action when the set three-month time limit is met. That is why it is essential that, although we will approve the LCM today, the Scottish Government raises with the UK Government, at the earliest opportunity, those concerns on behalf of stakeholder groups, which the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee will also do.
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