- Motion to Approve
- 7:31 pm
- That the Regulations laid before the House on 23 August be approved.Relevant document: 2nd Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee (special attention drawn to the instrument)
- My Lords, I start by reminding the House why we are here. The infected blood scandal is a mark of shame on the British state. The infected blood inquiry’s final report, published on 20 May, shed light on the trauma inflicted on thousands of people across the country, through no fault of their own. People were given contaminated blood or blood products, contracted HIV, hepatitis C and hepatitis B, and then for years had their voices ignored. People who loved, knew and cared for someone who was infected—those who were affected—similarly had their voices ignored. This did nothing but compound the trauma of all involved.The infected blood inquiry’s second interim report set out 18 recommendations on compensation, informed by Sir Robert Francis’s 2022 compensation scheme study. The inquiry was unequivocal that a compensation scheme must be set up immediately. The regulations we are debating are essential for delivering that compensation scheme and getting money to people as quickly as we can.The scheme is based on the recommendations and principles put forward by the inquiry. In line with these, and supported by the advice from the inquiry response expert group and the engagement exercise that Sir Robert Francis undertook in June, the Government have sought to design a fair and comprehensive compensation scheme that will be quick and simple for eligible applicants to access. We support the shared determination across the House to deliver compensation as swiftly as possible and with the minimum possible delay. These regulations are a significant step towards that.I turn first to eligibility. The scheme and the regulations define people who are eligible as infected people, in line with recommendation 2 of the inquiry’s second interim report. This covers people infected with HIV, hepatitis C and hepatitis B, including people directly infected by treatment with blood, as well as people indirectly infected via transmission from a directly infected person.Secondly, the regulations establish a core route for claiming compensation as an infected person. The core route provides compensation under five awards, or categories of loss, as set out in recommendation 6 of the inquiry’s report. These awards include an injury impact award, a social impact award, a care award, a financial loss award and an autonomy award, which together will comprise the total compensation award to be given to infected individuals, or to the estates of any deceased individuals, to recognise the wide-ranging harm resulting from their infection.Earlier this year, the Victims and Prisoners Act established the Infected Blood Compensation Authority in law to deliver the scheme, and with these regulations we are providing the authority with the legal powers needed to begin making payments. The regulations also provide further detail on how the Infected Blood Compensation Authority will accept applications and pay awards.
- Moved by
- At end insert “but that this House, while welcoming the progress made to compensate eligible infected persons, regrets that close family members and carers affected by the infected blood scandal are not included in the Regulations, as recommended by the Inquiry”.
- My Lords, I start by saying that I shall not call a vote on my regret amendment. It is important to avoid any delay to the infected blood victims receiving either interims or full compensation settlements—it would be wrong. However, I have a number of questions relating to this instrument and to the one that the Government say that they will lay next year. It is good to see the Minister in his place, as well as the noble Earl, Lord Howe, on the other Benches, because it was we three who debated this in detail during the passage of the Victims and Prisoners Bill.I understand that these are complex matters, but at the root of them is the vital and delicate issue of trust with the victims of this scandal. Would the Minister meet me, as well as writing to me with some of the detailed answers to my questions that I have today, which I appreciate that I have not been able to give him advance sight of? I also thank the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, and the Minister for responding to its concerns. In its second report of this Session, it points out that the Explanatory Memorandum is“overly complex and technical, while lacking basic information”.At paragraph 44, it points out that there is “no clarity” about how many infected persons will have been paid by the end of this year.The September Statement from the Paymaster-General talked about a “user group” testing out the new scheme. Can the Minister confirm that this user group, or the group that he described a couple of minutes ago—the “test and learn” group—comprises only 20 people? Will those 20 people be paid by the end of this year and how many others of the eligible infected persons will receive their settlements by the end of this year? Is there now a likely time when those infected persons already in the system will have received payment?The main reason I move this regret amendment is that the regulation in front of us today does not deal with the group of victims called the “affected”. As the Minister said, these are the wives, partners, parents, children and siblings of infected victims. The Victims and Prisoners Act, passed on the last day of Parliament before the general election, sets out in Section 49 the definition of the two groups of people entitled to compensation under the scheme. The outgoing Government were absolutely clear that they wanted the regulations for the compensation scheme within three months of passing the Bill, which is why this regulation, 872, was laid on 24 August, in the depths of recess, and brought into effect immediately under the emergency processes. I am very grateful to the Paymaster-General for telephoning me on 22 August to explain that the Government were keeping to the arrangements made by the previous Government.
- 7:45 pm
- I think everyone understands that urgency. Infected blood victims and affected victims are dying, on average, one every four days. This matter is of extreme urgency. However, Part 3 of this instrument defines “eligible infected blood persons” but not the affected persons. It does not even define them; it is completely silent on them.
- Sir Brian Langstaff’s final report recommendations made it absolutely clear that both infected and affected were to be given interim payments as quickly as possible. Before that, his second interim report in 2023 expected them to be given by December 2023. Can the Minister explain why this Government decided that they would breach this really vital core element of the compensation and redress scheme? Any references in these regulations to the family members surviving an eligible infected blood person refer to them as the “representatives” of that person. In the case of a widow, where the husband was intestate, or a long-term partner, not wife, of an infected person, it is quite possible that the representative of the infected person may not be the same as the affected person identified in Sir Brian’s and Sir Robert’s reports.
- Why is this so important? Sir Robert Francis’s report makes recommendations for delivery of the infected blood compensation scheme and is clear about the suffering of the affected, saying:
- “More specifically the report’s consideration of the evidence of the impact of stigma makes it clear that many affected persons experienced events which were equally distressing to the infected persons involved. For example … The husband and wife who were both physically attacked … A daughter physically bullied, had stones thrown at her, and her dress torn off at school because her father was infected … Families who moved homes and employment to avoid victimisation … Lives ‘ripped apart’ and ‘wrecked’ for infected individuals and their families”.
- In his Statement to the Commons on 2 September, the Paymaster-General said:
- “The infected blood scandal is a shameful mark on the British state, and those who have been impacted have waited far too long to receive financial redress and true recognition of their suffering ... The voices of people who are infected and have been affected have gone unheard for far too long, which has compounded the trauma”.
- He was right. But at the end of the Statement he said that
- “the work is not finished”.
- Indeed, I think that the Minister here used very similar words. He went on to say:
- “A second set of regulations will provide for other elements of the compensation scheme, including compensation payments to affected individuals and for claims under the supplementary route”.—[Official Report, Commons, 2/9/24; cols. 74-76.]
- This contrasts with the start of his Statement, that they have waited far too long. Unfortunately, this is making the affected a new, second-class group of victims; they will now have to wait at least until March to see the detail of that regulation, and then probably up to the end of 2025 before realistic payments start to come through. Why this long delay? Why have the Government not engaged with the affected since this happened to explain why there are delays, and will the Minister give them cast-iron assurances that they will not be further delayed than the statement that he has just made about them being paid fairly early next year?
- Urgent dialogue is vital, because these delays are causing real hardship for dying affected persons who have no chance of interim payments because of the delay. One is the mother of a child sandwiched between her infected father and child. She has had to give up her whole life to care, having already lost her father and mother young. This mother and her husband are very ill; they need the interim payment for care to relieve their suffering. Then there is Helen, an affected person who is already in the system and who is clearly entitled to payments. She is terminally ill with stage 4 ovarian cancer. She has been told that she is unlikely to survive the publication of the second regulations, let alone their anticipated rollout in 2025. For her, an urgent interim payment would provide funds for her to be able to pay more for care and support than she can afford now. Later will not do.