Infected Blood Inquiry: Government Response

Statement

The following Statement was made in the House of Commons on Wednesday 14 May.

“With permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will make a Statement on the Government’s work to respond to the recommendations made in the Infected Blood Inquiry’s 20 May 2024 report. I am grateful for the opportunity to update the House on this work.

On 20 May 2024, the then Prime Minister issued an apology on behalf of the state for the devastating impact that the use of infected blood and infected blood products has had on countless lives. That was echoed by the current Prime Minister, who was then on the Opposition Front Bench. I once again reiterate that apology wholeheartedly. No Member of this House will be in any doubt of the harm resulting from the infected blood scandal. This Government are firm that we must listen to the infected blood community and the inquiry and make tangible changes to the way that our institutions conduct themselves. As the inquiry’s report made clear, however, an apology is meaningful only if it is accompanied by action, and I am here today to set out the actions we are taking to respond to the inquiry’s recommendations.

Last week, the inquiry held further hearings on the timeliness and adequacy of the Government’s response on compensation. I attended to give evidence, along with members of the community who have been impacted by this scandal; I encourage all Members to listen to the incredibly moving testimonies of those impacted. The inquiry has set out its intention to publish a further report, and the Government remain committed to co-operating with the inquiry and acting on its recommendations.

On 17 December 2024, the Government published our initial response to the inquiry’s recommendations. I laid before the House an accompanying Written Statement, in which I committed to come before the House with a comprehensive update on our response to each of the inquiry’s recommendations within a year of the inquiry’s report. This Statement fulfils that commitment. I am grateful for the engagement of all Members across the House, and am pleased to have the opportunity to discuss the Government’s progress today. Once again, I thank Sir Brian Langstaff and his team for their work. The recommendations he made are wide-ranging, well considered and necessarily detailed.

The Government have worked closely with the devolved Governments to make progress on the implementation of the recommendations, which we hope will lead to meaningful change. I am grateful to my ministerial colleagues for their co-operation, and in particular the Under-Secretary of State for Public Health and Prevention, my honourable friend the Member for West Lancashire, Ashley Dalton, for her leadership on the recommendations for which her department is responsible. I also thank Health Ministers in the devolved Governments: the Minister for Public Health and Women’s Health in Scotland, Jenni Minto; the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care in Wales, Jeremy Miles; and the Minister of Health in Northern Ireland, Mike Nesbitt. Their engagement has been invaluable in ensuring that our approach is as unified as possible across the whole United Kingdom. The Government will continue to engage closely with the devolved Governments on issues such as support for advocacy charities and implementation by the National Health Service.

I recognise that for many in the community, the Government’s actions come after decades have passed. There is nothing that can put right the damage done by inaction on the part of multiple previous Governments, and it is not my intention for this Statement to diminish that. My priority now is focusing on delivering meaningful change to ensure that the scandal of infected blood, among many other scandals, is never allowed to happen again.

I turn now to the recommendations. Alongside this Statement, I have published an accompanying paper on GOV.UK setting out in detail the Government’s response to each of the recommendations, and I will place a copy in the Libraries of the Houses. Equally, I am firm on the importance of these recommendations to the infected blood community, and I am writing today to community representatives to inform them of the publication of the Government’s response.

The UK and devolved Governments have accepted the inquiry’s recommendations either in full or in principle, and implementation is under way across government, arm’s-length bodies and healthcare settings. Where recommendations are accepted in principle, we have sought to explain the rationale for doing so, balancing agreement with the spirit of the recommendations and their implementation. Some are subject to future spending decisions by the Department of Health and Social Care.

I have noted the recommendations that have, quite rightly, drawn attention from across this House in previous debates, so I will take a moment to touch on those today. I turn first to the recommendation on compensation. I am grateful to those who have attended previous debates on this matter in the House; indeed, many are present today. The Infected Blood Compensation Authority delivered on the Government’s commitment to provide the first full compensation payments by the end of last year. IBCA publishes its data on compensation on a monthly basis; as of 6 May, payments totalling more than £96 million have been made. IBCA continues to scale up its operations to deliver compensation as quickly as possible and has confirmed plans to contact an average of 100 people every week to begin their claims. I am pleased to announce today that the interim chair, Sir Robert Francis KC, who developed vital work to inform the design of the compensation scheme and has overseen its delivery to this point, will continue in his role for a further 18 months.

Another recommendation of particular interest to right honourable and honourable Members is recommendation 10, relating to funding for charities providing patient advocacy services. I am pleased that last week, the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, my honourable friend the Member for West Lancashire, Ashley Dalton, wrote to the charities confirming that £500,000 of funding has been made available for this financial year to ensure that the vital patient advocacy work they do for the infected blood community is sustained. Officials are now meeting the charities to begin the grant process to finalise the awards.

The Government recognise the importance of recommendation 5 on ending the defensive culture in the Civil Service. It is imperative we get this right so that the public can put their trust in institutions that have let down not just the infected blood community, but victims of other scandals that have taken place over decades. The Prime Minister has committed to legislation on a duty of candour, which he has confirmed will apply to public authorities and public servants, and include criminal sanctions. We are consulting on the issue and working to draft the best, most effective version of a Hillsborough law as part of our wider efforts to create a politics of public service.

The inquiry’s final recommendation relates to giving effect to the recommendations it has made. I am only too aware of the strength of feeling here and the need to ensure that the infected blood scandal does not fade from the public consciousness. A lot more needs to be done, and, as I made clear to the inquiry in my evidence last week, I am open to considering how we can improve the Government’s actions to ensure that we deliver justice for the victims of this devastating scandal. As progress continues to be made, my colleagues and I will report on the recommendations for which we are responsible. We are committed to transparency and accountability, and will be publishing the Government’s progress via a publicly accessible dashboard in due course, which will be regularly updated as progress is made.

The victims of this scandal have suffered immeasurably. I pay tribute once again to the infected blood community for their courage, perseverance and determination to demand justice for the wrongs that have been done to them. I hope that this update provides them with some reassurance that we are learning from and acting on the mistakes of the past, and that where there is more to do, this Government will do it. I commend this Statement to the House”.

15:52:00

My Lords, I thank the Minister for responding to the Statement made in the other place almost to the day of the anniversary of the Statement and apology made on behalf of the Government by my right honourable friend the former Prime Minister. The infected blood scandal is one of the most serious failures of the British state in recent years, and it has caused immense harm for tens of thousands of people and their families. The heartbreaking film shown on ITV last night depicted the terrible deeds at Treloar college in Hampshire in the 1970s and 1980s, reminding us that the story is not yet over for so many living in the aftermath of such enormous negligence. As I mentioned when we debated the infected blood regulations earlier this year, in his 2022 report Sir Robert Francis said: “Sadly, many of the infected community fear that they have not got long to live”. That is why urgent action is needed, and we are united across your Lordships’ House in our conviction that the victims of this appalling scandal deserve justice. As noble Lords across the House are aware, when we were in government we made significant progress towards justice for victims of the infected blood scandal—and I pay tribute to my noble friend Lady May of Maidenhead for her role in establishing the statutory inquiry. I put on record once again our thanks to Sir Brian Langstaff and Sir Robert Francis for all their work, as well as to all the tireless campaigners, including the noble Baronesses, Lady Campbell of Surbiton, Lady Brinton, Lady Featherstone and Lady Finlay of Llandaff. We welcome the fact that the Government have picked up where the Conservative Government left off and are continuing work to deliver justice for the victims. I particularly welcome the announcement that Sir Robert Francis, who has done so much to design and deliver the compensation scheme, will continue in his role as interim chair of the IBCA for a further 18 months. We know there is nothing we can do that will truly heal the wounds felt by all those affected, but it is vital that we do all we can to address the pain and anger felt by those in the infected and affected communities. I also welcome the announcement of funding for charities to provide much-needed patient advocacy services. As time passes, we know that, sadly, fewer and fewer of the victims will be with us. For them, justice delayed really is justice denied, and that is why we support the Government’s work to speed up the pace of compensation. The Minister will not be surprised to know that I have a few questions on the Statement. In the other place, Ministers said they expect to see a significant increase in the pace of payments. Can the Minister please explain the Government’s actual expectations of this increase in the pace of payments, and what does it mean in practical terms for victims? Ministers have also said that a new surveillance registry will be set up to monitor liver damage in those infected with hepatitis C. I very much welcome this but, again, for victims, time is of the essence. Can the Minister please confirm when this service will be established? Finally, I welcome the fact that the Government have accepted the inquiry’s recommendations, either in full or in principle. However, I note the mention made in the Statement that the implementation of some recommendations will depend on future spending decisions by the Department of Health and Social Care. It is obviously important that the expectations of those applying for compensation from the scheme are managed clearly and transparently at the outset. Can the Minister say which areas of the recommendations may be affected by the departmental spending decisions that were referred to, and will she undertake to report to the House by an appropriate means when the relevant spending decisions have been made?

My Lords, I also thank the Minister for responding to the Statement in your Lordships’ House. I will start by thinking about all those infected and affected who, a year ago yesterday, heard Sir Brian Langstaff speak at the launch of the inquiry report. For those of us who were there, it was a joyful day when people really thought that things were going to change and happen at pace. The last Government promised rapid action, and the new Labour Government promised, and continue to promise in this Statement, moving “at pace”—indeed, the Statement uses this exact phrase. However, any conversation with any of the infected and affected leaves you in absolutely no doubt that, from their perspective, progress is still glacial: 77 claimants have been paid out of a possible 140,000, of whom over 3,000 have already died. Only 475 infected claimants have been invited to claim so far, and no affected claimants have even got that far because that scheme does not open to claimants until later this year. If this is complicated—and we know that it is—why have the Government not invested more resources in the compensation body to process claims and, above all, not repeat work that has been done under previous schemes? As with many of the other current compensation schemes, including the Post Office Horizon scheme and the Windrush scheme, this one is floundering. It is fascinating that, whenever I talk to people from one of these schemes, they always cite how well the others are going, but all of them feel that everything is far too slow. It matters because claimants are dying, probably every week. Some claimants were infected nearly 50 years ago, and Sir Brian’s statement on 13 May, made after taking two extra days of evidence earlier in May, is very clear. Action to speed up is needed now. Instead of a random system, including deferring all affected claimants until after the infected claimants have been sorted, is not acceptable. He proposes a prioritisation scheme, helpfully including worked examples. Will the Government accept that prioritisation is now necessary? I have raised before the issue of an affected claimant who, when we looked at the regulation some months ago in February, was given less than a year to live. Under the current arrangements, there is not a hope that she will have even started the process before she dies. This is unacceptable. Will the Government ensure that all who have a limited time to live—I include within that Sir Brian’s definition of those over 70, and there are other detailed definitions as well—will have their claims started sooner rather than later? There is also a difficulty with some of the routes. Those who were infected with just HIV—but probably hepatitis as well—have a very simple, essentially three-step route, and I am very grateful to the survivor who sent me two A3 pages demonstrating the processes. The HIV one is very clear, but for someone infected with hepatitis alone, it is essentially a horribly multifaceted process that takes up a whole page of A3 full of boxes. Will IBCA prioritise a simplification of this process? That is what is taking the time. I also watched the Treloar documentary last night. I met some of the Treloar students in the mid to late seventies, with drama groups. I worked with those students. Talking to the survivors of Treloar’s, most of the young men I spoke to are dead. That, we need to remember. They and their families have a very difficult life; their families are still waiting. These are the affected people we have been talking about. The Statement talks about listening to the incredibly moving testimony of those impacted, but feeling pain on their behalf is no longer enough—we must see action. Yesterday, a letter was delivered by the various survivor groups to No. 10, in which they said: “As the Infected Blood Inquiry heard when it reconvened hearings on 7 May 2025, the community’s voice was absent when the Infected Blood Compensation Scheme was drawn up. The resulting scheme contains fundamental flaws, which could and would have been foreseen”. Will the Government instruct IBCA to ensure that those are dealt with? I will move on briefly to the government response last week to the Infected Blood Inquiry report, which has only taken a year to be published. First, on page 31, the Government say that it is “complex to implement and enforce” a duty of candour. I am grateful to the Government for making a priority of duty of candour in their manifesto, but there is still no timeline on when the Hillsborough law will appear. Those countries that have either a duty of candour or mandatory reporting for safeguarding find that having a strong law and good training absolutely changes the culture of those organisations. In Australia in particular, it works really well. May I encourage the Government to look at that? Secondly, there are two recommendations on the defensive culture in the NHS and the Civil Service that are accepted only in principle. Repeated Home Office failures on the Post Office Horizon scheme and the Windrush scheme demonstrate that actually, we have to get rid of the defensive culture. It is a shame that, frankly, this has been recognised in principle only, and that the scale for it to happen has no timetable attached to it. The Government say that the recommendations on training and an effective transfusion service are a “complex set of sub recommendations” from Sir Brian, but they say there needs to be “a joined-up approach across … four services”. This, again, is in principle, with no timeline, mainly because no funding has been identified. Have we not learnt from Sir Brian’s inquiry report that we have to do this to stop future mistakes? On the patient voice, I echo the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, about the gratitude for the funding for the IB groups. That is important, but the Government have not accepted in principle the clinical audit. The Welsh and Scottish Governments have, but our Government and the NIA have not. Please can this be done at pace? It is ridiculous to do it on its own. In summary, things need to change, and fast. I recognise that the compensation body is an arms-length body, but please will the Government provide funding to upscale things so that compensation can start in earnest?

My Lords, I am grateful for the contributions of the noble Baronesses, Lady Finn and Lady Brinton. As ever, the tone of this discussion and the questions so far has been one of sensitivity and co-operation; it is your Lordships’ House at its best. I pay tribute to the work of many noble Lords across the House. Parliamentary scrutiny has played an important role in holding the Government to account on the progress they have made in responding to the inquiry, and I know that your Lordships’ House will continue to push forward the implementation of the inquiry’s recommendations. I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Campbell of Surbiton and Lady Featherstone, for their ongoing engagement. I also put on record my personal thanks to the noble Baronesses, Lady Thornton and Lady Finlay, who have been incredibly helpful in my own journey on this area. We are truly lucky to have such tenacious women in your Lordships’ House. The inquiry’s report revealed the scale of devastation caused by the infected blood scandal: lives were shattered and families were torn apart, all attributable to the collective and avoidable failings of the state. I and ministerial colleagues have pledged on a number of occasions that this Government are listening, and we are hearing. We will not seek to repeat the mistakes of the past. I hope that the progress set out in the Government’s response provides some reassurance—although, rightly, with questions—that we are acting on the inquiry’s recommendations. On behalf of the state, I reiterate our deepest apologies to those impacted by this heartbreaking scandal, as my right honourable friends the Prime Minister and the Minister for the Cabinet Office have stated. I turn to some of the specific points and questions that the noble Baronesses have raised. I apologise if I am unable to cover all the points raised, or if I have misunderstood any of them. I will reflect on Hansard and write to all noble Lords who participate today. On the speed of delivery of the compensation, I think we know that this is at the heart of many of the issues highlighted over the last week in the media, separate from the heartbreaking documentary shown last night. I know that the speed of compensation payments is a primary area of concern to both noble Lords across this House and in the infected blood community more widely. Earlier this month, IBCA confirmed plans to ask an average of 100 people a week to start their claims. While the rollout of the scheme is an operational decision for IBCA, as an independent body, the Government are supportive of this ambition and stand ready to assist in speeding up payments. I am assured that it has the resources to expedite its findings. If it does not, I will speak to officials today and find out what else we need to do. As the Minister for the Cabinet Office noted to the inquiry last week, the Government will consider the concerns that the inquiry and the infected blood community are continuing to raise. The Government’s primary focus is ensuring that compensation payments are made as quickly as possible, and we are aware that that leads to some challenges with certain parts of the implementation. On the duty of candour, I recognise the concerns about the delay in introducing the forthcoming Hillsborough law Bill to Parliament. I want to assure your Lordships’ House that the Government remain fully committed to legislating in this area. The Government have been consulting widely with interested parties—we want to get this right—and are working to ensure that the best version is drafted ahead of its introduction. I look forward to debating the content of the Bill with noble Lords. I reiterate the point about the ongoing implementation of the inquiry’s recommendations: we are committed to future transparency and accountability in this area, and we will be publishing the Government’s progress via a publicly accessible dashboard in due course. The dashboard will be updated regularly as progress is made. We started by highlighting the documentary that was shown last night. There are too many heartbreaking stories associated with the infected blood scandal—in fact, every story is heartbreaking. What happened at Treloar’s was utterly abhorrent. I encourage all noble Lords across the House to watch the documentary, and I pay tribute to those in the community who courageously told their stories again to bring this documentary to our screens. The Government are committed to remembering the victims of this scandal through memorials, both specifically at Treloar’s and more widely in the UK. We are working through the process to remember them in a way that is appropriate and fitting. On the extension of Sir Robert Francis’s contract, I am pleased that he will be continuing in his role. He has been involved in the creation of the process, and we have a shared priority to deliver compensation as quickly as possible. With regard to monitoring liver damage, we absolutely recognise the importance of this for those who have been infected, and we will accept the majority of the sub-recommendations in full. Our approach will balance the implementation of the recommendations against the principle that all patients should receive the same treatment, irrespective of how the disease was acquired. With regard to the DHSC and the recommendations, we are awaiting the CSR, so noble Lords will have to bear with me, but we will update the House on the additional recommendations as and when. In respect of compensation and the speed of delivery, I can assure noble Lords that IBCA is committed to opening the full compensation service to all those eligible as soon as possible. On 11 February, IBCA set out its plans to open the compensation scheme in stages to make sure it is effective and secure for all those claiming. This was a decision taken independently of the Government by the IBCA board. IBCA is —importantly—an independent agency, but we do want it to expedite the payments. The Minister for the Cabinet Office is looking at all the recommendations and I will report back to your Lordships’ House in due course, when we have the recommendations of the latest stage of the inquiry. With regard to charitable funding, as has been mentioned, I am pleased that the Department of Health and Social Care has identified a pot of £500,000 for this financial year. This is brand-new money for those charities that have supported victims in the infected blood community for many years, doing so independently. The Government recognise the important work done by those charities that are supporting the infected and affected community and the pressures placed on these organisations following the inquiry’s report and the Government’s setting up of the infected blood compensation scheme. Earlier this week, I met with the Hepatitis C Trust, which has had more than 3,000 phone calls just this year related to infected blood. With regard to further hearings and the report, we remain fully committed to co-operating with the inquiry and to acting on its recommendations, and we are grateful for its compensation work to date. So far, we have set aside £11.8 billion to compensate the victims and made compensation offers of £130 million. I am conscious that noble Lords across the House will be keen to hear the Government’s plans for responding to the inquiry’s forthcoming report on the design of the scheme and the speed of delivery. While I cannot commit to concrete timelines at this stage, my honourable friend the Minister for the Cabinet Office will carefully consider all proposals and recommendations from the inquiry and will respond as soon as possible. I thank noble Lords once again for their contributions. I am determined that we shall continue to work closely together to progress this work and continue in the spirit that has characterised our debates on this issue. The Government are clear that this is not the end of the discussion on infected blood. There is much more for us to do to deliver justice to the infected blood community: people who have suffered so much hardship as a result of this scandal. We must do what we can to provide what justice we can, and they must be at the forefront of our minds and our primary focus as we do so.

16:12:00

My Lords, I begin by declaring an interest as the widow of Graham Ingleson, who died at the age of 33 in 1993. I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement and for meeting me before the Easter Recess. I know that she is genuinely committed to ensuring that the victims get justice, and that is welcome. However, she will not be surprised when I say that the Statement that was made in the House last week is wanting. I do not feel that it reflects the deep frustration and disappointment of the infected blood community at the shocking lack of progress. Therefore, in the light of their concerns, Sir Brian Langstaff took the unprecedented step of reopening the inquiry two weeks ago to hear why the compensation scheme is failing the community so profoundly. Does the Minister agree that the chronic delays in processing claims are lamentable? Only 160 or so of the 30,000 known to be affected received payment in the last year, and people are dying at the rate of one or two a week. Will the Government consider quarterly targets for IBCA to speed up claims settlements? The Statement rightly recognises the devastating impact of this scandal. Does the Minister accept that the bureaucratic nature of the scheme exacerbates the distress of the community as they relive their trauma? It is clear from the recent hearings that genuine engagement with the community is just not happening. Can the Minister reassure the House that the Government will address this with IBCA urgently? A “publicly accessible dashboard in due course” is not good enough. Lastly, the Prime Minister said a year ago, “Politics itself failed you”. Will the Minister acknowledge that the paramount need is to ensure that politics does not repeat itself? In the words of the CEO of the Haemophilia Society: “The inquiry gave us the truth, but we’re still waiting for justice”.

I thank the noble Baroness for coming in today to participate in the debate. As she is a member of the affected community, I know of the strain of leadership that she has had to face as people look to her for answers. She is a tenacious woman and a dedicated campaigner, but that still requires a huge amount of inner strength, and I thank her for what she is doing for the community. With regard to the specific points, obviously several were raised and I will reflect on Hansard. But the noble Baroness is absolutely right: politics failed the infected blood community and we need to make sure that that does not happen again, both for this community and any other community that is facing issues where the state has let them down. I truly believe that politics is a force for good in society; we need to make sure that it is. I hope that the noble Baroness will soon be meeting with the Minister for the Cabinet Office to discuss next steps, and I hope both to be present and to make sure that she makes some of these recommendations forcefully, as I know she will. We will reflect on them as we also reflect on the findings of the second phase of the inquiry.

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, is taking part remotely. I invite him to ask his question.

My Lords, with an infected blood compensation bill of £11 billion-plus and a further annual bill of £3 billion for misdiagnosis and incorrect medication, and then recognising the limitations on Commons inquiries due to Member availability, limited expertise and agenda pressures, does not this whole affair now demand an ad hoc inquiry into compensation arrangements administration in the Lords, drawing on our huge expertise in accountancy, healthcare and wider issues of compensation law? I am sure our people could find ways of speeding up the process and the scheme, saving a lot of public money that is currently unnecessarily feeding some areas of the legal and other professions. I suspect this will all end up in a VFM report before the Public Accounts Committee in years to come.

Noble Lords across your Lordships’ House have extraordinary expertise, and I will more than happily meet with any of them if they have recommendations for how we can more quickly expedite infected blood compensation payments. With regard to the £11.8 billion, though, that money has been ring-fenced in compensation payments for the victims of infected blood. We will do everything we can to make sure they get it. This is taxpayers’ money, so there is a balance here; we need to make sure that the people entitled to it get it, which is more straightforward for the infected; we will discuss in great detail what that means as we progress on to the affected, to make sure that safeguards are in place. But this money is for those people who have been directly affected, and we need to make sure that they are the ones with the money.

My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement. Many noble Lords will have heard me say before that I have to declare an interest, but for those who do not know, it is because one of my sister’s twins died aged 35 of infected blood and hepatitis C, leaving a 10 month-old baby daughter. I met with the campaigners yesterday and these are among their main issues. Those in the infected blood community told me of their deep concern about the delays in the application process, but also of an arrogance of behaviour on the part of members of the IBCA. They said it appeared that the delays were deliberate and that, as has been stated, up to two victims a week are dying and there is a feeling that the Government might be saving money. I do not think that is the case, but the delays allow such theories to develop. I ask the Minister the following questions. Why are responses to applicants’ queries taking so long? Is it that the IBCA needs more capacity, staffing or training? What are the Government doing about the difficulties that victims are having navigating the bureaucratic compensation claim system, which many of them think is vastly overcomplicated? There is, as I mentioned, a constant complaint about the attitude of some within the IBCA, who “come across as gatekeepers rather than efficient, compassionate compensation enablers”. Many wonder whether Treasury civil servants are seconded to the IBCA, as their treatment is so like the treatment they received from members of the Civil Service and the Government during the 40 or 50 years when they were trying to bring this to a head. What is happening on the disparities between those with HIV, as opposed to hepatitis C? At the moment, HIV is scheduled for a vastly larger amount of compensation than hep C, yet those with hep C are dying more than those with HIV. Creating divisions among groups of people who are suffering and dying is not a great idea; I should like the Minister to convey that to the IBCA. Lastly, what is happening about the issues within the compensation scheme, such as 25% less for carers and underpayment errors due to wrong tariff calculations? I hope the Minister can answer some of those questions.

I thank the noble Baroness for her questions. Every time we discuss this, I am very aware of the impact that it has on members of the community who have to relive the pain and hurt of the loved ones they have lost or are still caring for. I want to be very clear and put on record that none of the delays is about saving money. That would be the most heinous of approaches. Although I understand that that is being said by members of the community, it is simply not true. Rather, we adopted the establishment of IBCA with a test-and-learn approach. We thought that the worst thing we could do would be to promise more and not be able to deliver. We are trying to ensure that we can deliver at a level and that the people who are entitled to money are actually getting it, and that we are learning from where we get it wrong and fixing it. On streamlining the process, I tried to use the calculator to figure out what I would or would not be entitled to if I was a member of the community. There is still some way to go in terms of IBCA’s communications, I think it is fair to say. They are getting better but there is still some way to go. I say to all noble Lords, but especially to the noble Baroness, that if there are specific complaints and people are coming to you because they trust you, but there are cases that you would like me to raise directly to find out what is going on, then please pass them to me. I have already done this on behalf of some noble Lords and I have been more than happy to do so. I am very aware of the added burden this is, both in your inboxes and in the emotional toll that it takes. Give them to me and I will raise them. On the tariffs, the impact of hepatitis infections can range from very mild to, as the noble Baroness’s nephew experienced, horrendously severe. The expert group provided clinical advice on the distinctions between these impacts. This meant that we could set severity bands. I am really sorry, because bringing it down to bands is emotionally very difficult when we are talking about people’s horrendous experiences, but if we are to expedite the compensation then that is the practical way in which we have to do so. The bands mean that when someone’s experience of hepatitis is more severe, based on clinical markers, they receive more compensation, and if their hepatitis symptoms get more severe they can then progress and reapply for additional funding. On the lack of an HIV tariff, very, very sadly, most people infected with HIV due to infected blood have already passed away; in most cases their deaths were as a result of their HIV infection. It was the view of the expert group that it would be disproportionately complex to break down the HIV category into different severity bands, given the ultimate severity of death.

My Lords, I declare that I was a member of one of the expert groups that fed into the Infected Blood Inquiry, which looked into one of the darkest periods in the history of healthcare in our country. There was systemic failure and inertia, with blood plasma being brought in from dangerous sources, such as American prisons. Lives were destroyed. So many people are suffering. So many families are feeling pain. So many people are dead, with many deaths yet to come. There is a moral duty on all of us to ensure that Sir Brian’s report on compensation is implemented in full. It is well over a year since it was published. I say to my noble friend the Minister that putting aside so much money is welcome, but surely there is a moral imperative to pay compensation now to those who have suffered or are suffering through no fault of their own. It is great that money has been put aside, but what is causing the delay? What is the hold-up? I am sure that, if that could be dealt with, we could then move forward to spend the money that has been set aside. The delays appear cruel and besmirch all of us, to say the least.

I thank my noble friend for his question and for the work that he did as part of the expert group. The Government will not be satisfied with the speed of payments until every eligible person has received the compensation that they are due as quickly as we can do it. When the previous Government and the then Opposition worked together to ensure that this could be delivered just before the general election—or just as the general election was called—we were clear that we would work together to make sure that this happened. The money is there. We have had to create an independent vehicle to make sure that it is given away judiciously and is accessed by the people who need it—these are public funds—because, given the community that we are talking about, which for every reason in the world simply does not trust the state, having a body that is not the state was viewed as incredibly important. This means that we have had to create something from scratch, which takes longer, and we have had to make sure that the people working there have the tools and experience to give the money out. They are doing a job that most of us, when we enter public service, would celebrate. Those whom I have met cannot believe that their job is to try to fix something that was so horribly broken. The agency literally exists to give compensation to people who have experienced something horrendous. The people who work there are doing themselves out of a job, because IBCA will close as soon as people have received their compensation. There is a long way to go but we want to do this as quickly as possible. I look forward to working with all noble Lords as we progress on this journey.

My Lords, I would be very happy if my noble friend the Minister could outline when the funding for the support organisations will be provided. Many of them have worked strenuously over many years to ensure that the funding and the compensation go to the people who need them most: the victims of infected blood.

I thank my noble friend. The money was allocated only last week, I think; I will correct the record if I am wrong. We are working with the charities now to see which of them will be allocated the funding. That is a matter for the DHSC, but I will update my noble friend when I have more details.

My Lords, in joining with the moving testimony of those on both sides of the House who have done so much, I will just end with one tribute. I gave evidence to Sir Brian Langstaff’s inquiry over a number of days. I have had the misfortune, or fortune, to appear before a number of inquiries in my relatively long parliamentary career. Sir Brian conducted an absolutely exemplary investigation, with all those who worked with him. Among all this horror, it is something to hold on to that we have people in our public life in this country who can do work of that quality.

The noble Lord rightly highlights the work of Sir Brian Langstaff. If we consider the subject matter that he has been exploring and the trust that he has managed to instil within the community, we see that his work is both extraordinary and miraculous. On the day of the report, when, across the road, he came forward to the group in the room to present the final report, there was cheering and a standing ovation from a group of people who have been so badly treated by the state. The fact they had that reaction to him—someone who, based on his CV, could easily be said to be the establishment—shows what an extraordinary thing he has managed to do. We owe him hugely for the work he has done, which is why we will act on every one of his recommendations.