Infected blood scandal – Worcester MP supports compensation scheme
Worcester MP Robin Walker last night voted in favour of measures which will speed up compensation for victims of the NHS infected blood scandal. Following an amendment to the Victims and Prisoners bill tabled by Labour MP Diana Johnson DBE and signed by a number of cross-partycolleagues, the government will now have to set up a body to run the compensation scheme within three months of a new bill becoming law.
The infected blood scandal in the UK refers to a series of events in the 1970s and 1980s where thousands of people, primarily people suffering with haemophilia, were infected with HIV and hepatitis C through contaminated blood products. The contaminated blood products were often sourced from donors, including prisoners and paid donors in the United States, who had a higher risk of carrying bloodborne infections. People with haemophilia require clotting factor products to help their blood clot properly. Unfortunately, many of these clotting factor products were produced using plasma collected from donors with high-risk behaviours for HIV and hepatitis C. The contamination of these blood products led to the widespread infection of haemophiliacs who relied on them. Up to 30,000 people were given infected blood products and the scandal resulted in the deaths of at least 3000 people in the United Kingdom, while many others suffered severe and lifelong health consequences. Theresa May as Prime Minister and Jeremy Hunt as Health Secretary set up an independent inquiry to look into this scandal.
While government ministers have previously said there is a moral case for compensating victims of the scandal and has agreed to make the first interim payments of £100,000 each to 4,000 surviving victims and bereaved partners, campaigners including Robin felt that action on delivering the payments wasn’t coming quickly enough. In early 2023 the chair of an inquiry into the scandal, Sir Brian Langstaff, called for a full compensation scheme to be set up immediately. He also said it should be widened to include orphaned children and parents who lost children.
Despite ministers recognising the need for compensation, they initially argued that action to make compensation payments should be delayed until the publication of the final inquiry into the scandal which is not due until March 2024. Robin spoke about the need for action on compensation during the debate on the King’s speech and informed ministers of his intention to support the amendment yesterday as he felt that he and colleagues weren’t provided with sufficient reason not to speed up the payment of compensation. The vote was passed by 246 votes to 242 after 22 Conservatives voted in support of the amendment.
Robin said:
“While I would have preferred the government to take action on this matter directly I felt it was necessary to support the cross party amendment in the name of the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee to end the delay in providing compensation to people affected by the infected blood scandal.
“Introducing her amendment to the bill, Diana Johnson rightly made the point that victims of the Post Office Horizon scandal were compensated before the final inquiry concluded. In a House of Commons debate in June this year I used the example of Northern Ireland, where legislation to compensate victims of historical institutional abuse, passed through the House of Commons chamber in one day, demonstrating that arguments about the complexity of the issues or procedural reasons for delay did not hold water.
“I have been working to secure compensation for a number of constituents but I am grateful to my friend and former councillor Dr David Tibbutt for allowing me to share the stories of family who have suffered terrible losses as a result of this scandal. It is important to share the numbers of the innocent people whose lives were lost or seriously impacted, but the personal testimonies of those affected demonstrate why further delay to compensation is just not acceptable. I now hope that not only the husbands, wives and partners of those who lost their lives will have the support and help they need but also the children who lost parents and parents who lost a child.
”I never go against the whip lightly but in this case I did feel it was necessary and I am glad that the legislation is now in place to address this longstanding injustice. I am proud that my party put in place the inquiry and has provided the first payments to victims but I also felt it was right to work cross party in order to move this forward as swiftly as possible.”
