Payment Scheme

I beg to move, That the draft Infected Blood Compensation Scheme (Amendment) Regulations 2026, which were laid before this House on 18 June, be approved. Before I begin the debate, I do want to pause and reflect on the reason that we are once again here today. Thousands of people had unimaginable suffering and hardship inflicted upon them through the use of infected blood. There are thousands of individual stories—in recent years, I have had the solemn privilege to listen to many of them—of how lives were upturned, changed and, in some cases, tragically lost. I know many Members across the House will, as they always do in these debates, very movingly share their constituents’ stories, and it is important that we keep those at the forefront of our minds. It is also essential that we base our work on these stories, and that the compensation scheme reflects the lived experience of those to whom it seeks to bring justice. I would like to briefly update the House on the delivery of compensation. Since it opened in 2024, the compensation service—the Infected Blood Compensation Authority—has contacted all infected people registered with the support scheme to start their claim. By December last year, it had opened its service to all cohorts, including to affected people. It has made offers of over £2.7 billion and paid out over £2.1 billion, in addition to the £1.4 billion that has already been paid in interim compensation.

I thank the Paymaster General for his speech and the way he is framing the debate by talking about the victims of this scandal, which is really important. Can he confirm the number of interim payments of £100,000 that have already been paid out?

I will be delighted to write to my hon. Friend with the absolute up-to-date figure, but he is absolutely right to draw attention to the importance of progress. I know that Members across the House will, as they always do, welcome that progress. I also acknowledge, quite rightly, the House holding me, and indeed IBCA, to account on the speed of compensation. We always want to see swifter delivery of compensation.

The Minister is right to point out that although we—I think across the House—welcome his work and diligence, and that of the previous Government, on the scheme and recognise the work that needs to be done, there is absolutely no doubt there are still too few who have received compensation. As of 2 June, my understanding is that just over 3,000 out of a potential 30,000 victims had received compensation. Can he update us on what he is doing to ensure that more people get the money they need as soon as possible?

I thank the hon. Lady; I worked closely with her on this issue when I was first in this role back in 2024 and she was in her previous role. What happens is that IBCA starts small. It uses a test-and-learn approach. With the infected, that worked very well because it reached a point where, if we imagine a graph that is time and numbers of payments, there was an exponential bit where the graph went up very, very rapidly. That is where we now need to get to with the affected cohort. Indeed, IBCA is taking that same approach; it is starting small. That allows the authority to learn what additions to the claims service are needed, and to open the service to more people, as it is built around specific needs. I completely accept that that does mean that the numbers are initially lower, but I certainly expect that with the affected cohort, as with the infected cohort, we will get that moment when the numbers rise exponentially as progress is made. As well as ensuring that the victims of the scandal receive compensation as swiftly as possible, we must deliver compensation packages that reflect their experiences. The infected blood inquiry’s additional report, published in July 2025, made clear the importance of ensuring that the community of infected and affected people were at the centre of every discussion regarding the infected blood scandal. It has always been this Government’s priority to deliver a compensation scheme that truly recognises the hardships faced by those impacted, and to do so while acknowledging the extraordinary resolve of this community in continuing to tell the stories of their experiences and their fight for justice. The regulations before the House today are a direct product of what we heard in the consultation.

There are still concerns among the community about the regulations before us today. The Minister knows that the regulations were laid on the day of the Backbench Business debate on 18 June. That meant there was no opportunity for Ministers to take on board the points that hon. Members were making on behalf of their constituents, who still would like to see the compensation scheme tweaked. Through his ongoing dialogue with the community, does he accept that there must be an opportunity for that tweaking to take place in response to some of those concerns?

On my hon. Friend’s first point, what we have before us is based on extensive consultation with the community. On the laying of the regulations, I hope that right hon. and hon. Members will see that the timing of this debate is designed so that we can speed up payments as quickly as possible going forward. That is why, as I am sure the House will appreciate, I have done all I can to get the debate scheduled before the summer recess.

On that point, will the Minister give way?

I will, and then I will come back to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham and Chislehurst (Clive Efford).

I thank the Minister for giving way again; he is being very generous with his time. It strikes me that the victims of these sorts of scandals—sadly, this is not the first we have discussed; I think of the Horizon Post Office scandal—are put in this position through no fault of their own and do not necessarily have degrees in how to access compensation schemes. What support—for example, through some sort of caseworker—is he giving to people who are looking to claim?

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise that point. I have always been clear about the individualised caseworkers and the personalised approach of IBCA, and about the importance of legal and financial support, so that people can make informed decisions as to what they want to do with regards to the compensation. I return to the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham and Chislehurst. Following on from what Sir Brian Langstaff said, I have sought to introduce a proper mechanism for feedback from the community, so that whatever the issue is within the regulations, it can be elevated to the appropriate place: to me, or whoever is the Minister, to IBCA, to IBCA’s board, to the chair or the chief executive—whoever has the power to deal with the issue. As my hon. Friend and I have discussed before, the mechanism and ability to look at the scheme is important. The other point I would add, which my hon. Friend and I have previously discussed, is that many of the issues raised are to do not with the structure of the regulations, but with their implementation. It is important that, where there are issues of implementation—indeed, hon. and right hon. Members raise them with me—we make adjustments where necessary. I think he would acknowledge that there is a diversity of views in the community on certain issues, but we have sought to ensure that the compensation scheme reflects the views of the majority.

The Minister is being generous in giving way. I have met people in Wokingham who are affected by the scandal. It does not just affect the person infected; it affects their family as well. My constituent is adamant that the effect on their spouse must be recognised. Does the Minister agree that the Government should give clarity on whether the spouses of those infected should receive their own separate compensation?

Yes. That is why the scheme is designed for both infected and affected people—and not just spouses; it includes children and siblings, and I am proud that it also includes carers. We think about the awful injustice for those who were infected, but we also remember the effect on their families and those around them. The hon. Member makes a powerful point.

On that point, I acknowledge the huge amount of effort, attention and concentration that the Minister has put into the scheme. I am therefore slightly surprised that the Haemophilia Society, which is a great champion for the community, says that in its opinion, care provided by family members is not being fairly compensated. It says that the scheme does not currently enable carers to make an adequate claim for the full impact of the care they provided, and that it does not sufficiently reflect the financial and personal sacrifices made by those who have delivered that care over decades, with particular reference to children and their educational sacrifices. I know there are no easy answers to this, but has the Minister had an interaction with the Haemophilia Society, which is well placed to represent the affected community?

As the right hon. Gentleman can imagine, I have interacted with the Haemophilia Society and many other charities over the past two years. It is important to mention that the scheme does include carers; I am perfectly willing to look at what the Haemophilia Society is saying about the precise package for carers, but the fundamental point is that carers should be recognised, and they are within the scheme.

I was interested in the Minister’s answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham and Chislehurst (Clive Efford). He said that, notwithstanding the regulations and all the work to set out the rules and scope of the compensation scheme, there is an opportunity for people who are affected or infected to go all the way to the chief executive or chair of IBCA—to all the bodies involved or even the Minister, if necessary. Could the Minister set out in detail the parameters of that? That could ride roughshod over a carefully developed scheme, even if not everything is perfect. How far could it go? There might be a risk that many people feel that they have not been fairly treated and then take it all the way up to the Minister, which would put this or a future Minister in an invidious position.

My hon. Friend makes a fair point. When it came to this particular recommendation from Sir Brian Langstaff, I was concerned about two things. First, I wanted to ensure that there was a proper structure for the infected blood community to be able to put forward their views. I did not want that to become a glorified post box—I did not want it to just be a grand correspondence scheme, where letters came in and replies were sent back. What I wanted was a proper mechanism for sifting, so that complaints can go to the right place based on the particular nature of each one, so that the appropriate person can look at each complaint and see whether it can be dealt with. To the broader point that my hon. Friend is alluding to, we also had to have stability in the policy in order to be able now to continue to drive forward compensation. My hon. Friend the Member for Eltham and Chislehurst, who does a fantastic job chairing the all-party parliamentary group, is quite rightly raising concerns with me. I want a proper mechanism for dealing with those concerns. That is why I have pushed so hard to make sure that we had this debate before the summer, because we must also ensure that we are doing what we can collectively to push forward the speed of payments as quickly as possible. I should say that I have always been very grateful to the opposition parties, who have always facilitated that when I have brought regulations before the House. This is, I think, the fourth time I have done so.

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

I will give way to my hon. Friend, but then I had better get on to the regulations.

My right hon. Friend is being very generous; I thank him for giving way. It was my sombre privilege to work with him on this matter when I was a Minister in the Department of Health. He is talking about driving forward the scheme; can he outline what work he has done with our devolved Governments in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales to drive forward the final compensation scheme?

It was a privilege to work with my hon. Friend in Government. She was excellent to work with on this matter, and I am very grateful for all her contributions. Of course, I have been dealing with a number of Sir Brian Langstaff’s recommendations in the Cabinet Office, but, as my hon. Friend knows, the Department of Health also had responsibility for a number of them, and I know that she drove those forward very well. My hon. Friend is absolutely right to talk about working with the devolved Administrations. Again, I have been lucky over the past two years to have worked very constructively with the devolved Administrations on this matter. This is a pre-devolution scandal, but we are taking measures to seek justice now, in the post-devolution age. To reflect that, it has been really important to work with Governments across the United Kingdom—all of whom have been constructive in the time that I have been working on this. I will turn now to the regulations. Regulation 3 introduces a new level of award as recommended by the inquiry, so that the people who suffered from the side effects of interferon treatment will receive an additional injury award, as well as further financial loss and care compensation, to reflect the impact on their lives. Following the consultation, the regulations also ensure that people who received more than one round of interferon will be properly compensated for each of those rounds of treatment. Regulation 4 removes the 25% deduction applied to past care compensation for people who choose to receive support scheme payments for life. Following the consultation, the regulations ensure that people will receive past financial loss compensation based on whichever of the two ways of calculating the award is most financially beneficial to them. I chose to do that to recognise that selecting only one way of calculating the award would mean that some people’s expected awards would reduce in size, which was not the intention. By running both calculations and giving each person whichever is the highest amount in their personal circumstances, we will ensure that everyone gets fair compensation through this award. Regulation 5 makes provision for a 50% uplift to the core autonomy award for those infected under the age of 18, calculated based on the highest severity of infection they experienced during childhood. Regulation 6 amends the eligibility criteria for the unethical research award, so that everyone treated for a bleeding disorder before 1986 will receive an unethical research award. The regulations also introduce a new unethical research award for children, which means that people who were treated for a bleeding disorder in childhood will receive an uplifted award. The regulations also increase the amount of compensation that all eligible people receive for this award. It is one of the most shocking aspects of this scandal; I do not think that any amount of money could ever truly make up for that heinous experimentation, particularly where it took place on children. We have listened to the feedback received through the consultation, and, as a result, people who attended Treloar’s will receive £60,000 rather than the £25,000 proposed in the consultation. Other children will receive £45,000. Those treated in adulthood will receive £30,000, tripling the amount that they currently receive. Regulation 7 ensures that everyone who was eligible for the special category mechanism or an equivalent payment through the infected blood support schemes—IBSS, as they are known—receives additional financial loss and care compensation. Following the consultation, the regulations ensure that everyone in this position has the award backdated to 2017, when the SCM award was first introduced, regardless of when they were assessed. Living people who were not assessed as eligible for SCM can also now apply for it through IBCA, including those who were previously unsuccessful in their application to the infected blood support schemes. Regulations 8 and 9 make changes to the exceptional loss award under the supplementary route. These regulations introduce a compensation uplift of £60,000 for people who had entered or had an offer to enter a career that generally would have paid 10% more than the gross national median average earnings, as determined in 2024, at any point prior to retirement age, but were unable to progress in that career due to their infection. That award is on top of their core route financial loss award. We also heard in the consultation that some people are concerned that they will not be able to access the exceptional loss award if they do not have historical payslips. The Government will work with IBCA to ensure that all relevant evidence can be used to help someone to show that they are eligible for the exceptional loss award, so that that is not a barrier. I have said repeatedly from the Dispatch Box that I want the scheme to be as sympathetic and unburdensome to applicants as possible. On the occasions that I have visited IBCA, I have been very impressed by the culture being imbued there of taking a can-do approach when people are ringing and trying to find appropriate historical documents. That is particularly important for two reasons. First, the events often happened long ago. Secondly, we know from Sir Brian Langstaff’s report that there is evidence of deliberate document destruction. For both those reasons, there needs to be a sympathetic approach.

There have been occasions, in various roles I have had in this place, when we have looked at documents. The Government have a document destruction plan. At the Department for Work and Pensions, for example, a year after death one’s records will be destroyed; that has been an issue when there have been problems with pensions. Although the Minister is focused today on the regulations, what he has said is very interesting in the context of document retention and other schemes that require proof in order to pay out. With immigration, for instance, someone might need to prove that they had been in the country, and they might need to access doctors or school records. I wonder whether he, or others in the Cabinet Office, are thinking about how lessons can be learned from IBCA’s approach in this case that could be applied to other areas of Government and other compensation schemes, so that we do not lose the learnings from this for the next time—because, inevitably, sadly, things will go wrong with Government.

My hon. Friend is absolutely right and there are certainly lessons to be learned. That point applies in this case and, sadly, to a number of the other historical scandals that the House has dealt with over recent years.

It is very clear that the Minister agrees that the infected blood scandal is a tragic disaster and a failure of public service. The Government must ensure that it never happens again and must strengthen any accountability measures that they can. Does he agree with me and many of the survivors that there must be a duty of candour on all public officials that is robustly enforced?

Yes, I do. The Hillsborough law is something that I have given a great deal of personal time to over the last couple of years; it has been before this House, and I do not think that it is far away at all from becoming law. I hope that over the next few months we will start to see the rolling-out of the duty of candour. It is a landmark law and putting it on the statute book will make a huge difference. It will be a hugely significant moment. It is also important that we drive forward the cultural change that it requires.

The cultural point is really important because all the NHS scandals have this point of cultural failure, with cover-ups and defensiveness and people being badly let down. The Health Bill is going through Parliament at the moment, and one of our concerns is that the abolition of Healthwatch and the Health Services Safety Investigations Body will not help to progress that cultural change. Will the Minister urge his counterparts in the Department of Health and Social Care to reconsider those abolitions?

The point I am making around duty of candour, which I think overrides all these other points, is really what Sir Brian Langstaff was referring to. He called it institutional defensiveness, saying that the problem when awful things happened was that people put either personal or institutional reputations above the public interest. It is that cultural change that we need to drive forward. I will return to the regulations as I am conscious of the time. Regulation 10 introduces a 50% uplift to the core injury award for some affected people. That includes eligible bereaved partners, and children and siblings who themselves became affected under 18 years of age. Eligible bereaved parents will also be able to receive this award in the tragic circumstances where their child passed away while under the age of 18. I know that some Members have raised concerns about the eligibility for this award in previous debates, and I want to assure colleagues that, as with the rest of these regulations, the decisions we made on this award directly reflect what we heard through the consultation about the specific impacts of the scandal on children. Regulations 11 and 12 are unrelated to the public consultation, and relate to the transfer of responsibility for making support scheme payments from the infected blood support scheme to IBCA. To maintain consistency with the support schemes, the value of someone’s support scheme payments will be uprated every year in April at the rate of the consumer prices index of the previous September. These regulations therefore account for the next CPI uplift taking place in April 2027, after IBCA takes responsibility for making those support scheme payments from the existing infected blood support schemes.

I thank the Minister for his kind words earlier. Could he clarify whether co-infected people will be able to make a compensation claim for each round of interferon that they had, or whether those are being lumped together?

It is per round of interferon treatment. I am pleased to provide that clarification to my hon. Friend, and I repeat my thanks to her for her work.

Just to be absolutely tidy, could I make a plea on behalf of those families where the member is deceased but the estate still has a claim? There is sometimes, possibly wrongly, an impression that these people are put to the back of the queue. Could I have an assurance that that would not be the case?

Certainly every single situation is a priority. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that IBCA is operationally independent. It has come up with a priority set of cohorts, which is publicly available, but the estates of the deceased are absolutely a priority. He can certainly have that assurance. The regulations are a result of listening, as we have been doing through the public consultation, to those impacted by this terrible scandal. We want the scheme to reflect the hardships and suffering faced by those who had their lives upturned through no fault of their own, and we are always keen to balance this with ensuring that the scheme can be delivered as quickly as possible. I am pleased with the progress we have made on the compensation scheme, but this debate is not about the Government’s work today. Rather, as has always been the case in these debates, it is about the House coming together to put the voice of the community first.

I call the shadow Minister.

I would like to start by thanking the Paymaster General for bringing forward these important regulations and also to say thank you to the former Minister for Public Health, the hon. Member for West Lancashire (Ashley Dalton), for her valuable work when she was in office. This debate takes place in the shadow of one of the gravest injustices in modern British history. The infected blood scandal caused unimaginable harm, with lives lost, families devastated, careers destroyed, potential never realised, children robbed of parents and many victims forced to fight for decades just for recognition and to be heard. Compensation is not a gift from the state; it is a duty owed to those who were failed by the state. That duty must be delivered with urgency, compassion and fairness. The regulations make a number of amendments to the Infected Blood Compensation Scheme Regulations 2025. Many of the changes appear to address concerns raised by victims, families and campaigners about the structure and adequacy of the scheme and, obviously, those contained in the additional report. His Majesty’s Opposition welcome the Government bringing forward these amendments to address the lessons learned from the early stages of the compensation scheme, to fill in some of the gaps and to implement the recommendations of Sir Brian Langstaff’s additional report. However, the existence of this instrument also underlines the importance of getting the scheme right. Victims and their families have already waited far too long. They must not be required to navigate repeated technical changes, uncertainty or delays before receiving the compensation and recognition they deserve. The regulations also amend the method for calculating past and future amounts for certain awards, including financial loss awards. I would be grateful if the Minister sets out clearly how the Government will ensure that those changes are properly communicated to victims and to families so that people understand how their entitlement will be calculated and whether they may be better off as a result. The changes are sensible but, by necessity, regulations can appear rather daunting. My degree was in economics and law, and I am reasonably comfortable with legal texts and with algebra, but at first glance we can wonder what language some of it is written in, so it is obviously important that they are communicated in a way that can be properly understood. His Majesty’s Opposition also welcome the changes to the autonomy award for those infected as children. The fact that some people were infected at such a young age, with consequences that shaped their entire childhood and adult life, must be properly reflected in the scheme. This is not simply a question of medical impact; it is about lost childhoods, lost opportunities and the lifelong trauma experienced by those who infected when they were at their most vulnerable. There are also changes in relation to unethical research practices, which we have discussed many times in the Chamber. We greatly welcome the increase in the relevant award amounts and the extension in provision to those who received treatment for bleeding disorders before 1986. Given the seriousness of the issue, will the Minister confirm how the Government will identify those who fall into that category and what evidence he expects they will have to provide so that the process does not become another source of distress for victims and their families? We also note the creation of a new “severe health condition” category for qualifying chronic hepatitis-associated conditions based on support scheme categories. Again, we would welcome clarity from the Minister on how he expects that to work in practice and in particular how the Government will ensure consistency across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The amendments to affected injury awards are also significant. Families were not bystanders to this scandal; partners, parents, children and siblings lived with the consequences every day. Many provided care, endured bereavement, suffered stigma and experienced profound emotional and financial harm. The scheme must continue to recognise that the damage caused by this scandal extended far beyond those directly infected. Therefore, while these technical changes matter greatly, the central question remains delivery. Victims and families need to know when they will receive compensation, including as a result of the new regulations. They need to know how quickly claims will be processed, what support will be available to them to navigate the scheme, and how the Government will ensure that truly no one is left behind. I therefore ask the Minister to address the following points. First, what is his intended timetable for payments under the regulations, and how many people do the Government expect to receive compensation in the coming months? Secondly, how confident is he that that the Infected Blood Compensation Authority has the staffing, expertise and resources it needs to process claims under the regulations quickly and sensitively?

This is a friendly intervention, because the hon. Gentleman’s response has been very supportive, and we all recognise the cross-party consensus on getting this right. As he will be aware, last week the Prime Minister made a formal apology to the women impacted by the forced adoption scandal; some of the evidence that we got on the Education Committee was about the way that they were treated when they tried to get the records. Does he recognise the importance of the front-facing organisations that support victims of these scandals being sympathetic and supportive?

I could not agree more. It is particularly important that infected and affected victims and their families, who for many, many years were not listened to, heard or believed, and who faced officials who denied what all the evidence later proved to be the case, now feel that they are being treated with respect and sensitivity. Thirdly, will the Minister clarify further, as I asked earlier, how the Government will communicate the broader changes to victims and their families in plain English, rather than simply relying on the legal and technical language in the draft regulations? Finally, what appeal or review mechanisms will be available if individuals believe that their reward has been calculated incorrectly or does not reflect their full circumstances? The Opposition strongly support the regulations, which build on work that has proceeded through this House with support from across the Chamber, and continue work that began before the last election. We recognise that they contain changes that many victims and families will welcome. I am sure that the Minister will agree that our responsibility as Parliament, and his as a Minister, does not end with the passing of statutory instruments. It ends only when victims and their families have received the recognition, justice and compensation that they have waited decades to secure. This scandal was defined by delay, denial and institutional failure, and the compensation scheme must not be defined by the same failings. The regulations are a strong and positive step towards ensuring that that is not the case, but the Government must now deliver them with urgency, transparency and humanity. That is the very least that victims and their families deserve after all this time.

I pay tribute to the Paymaster General for getting us to this point. It is time to move on, but there are still concerns, as I have mentioned already. I hope that those will be taken on board as we move forwards because, as he set out, the community out there are concerned about the pace with which payments are being made, particularly now that we are into the claims from those affected. It is time for test and learn to move us on and to ensure that those payments are made as soon as possible. I urge that the ongoing dialogue, to which my right hon. Friend referred when he made his original statement in response to the inquiry report, continues and that those people’s voices are heard. I am grateful for the meeting he had with me following the Backbench Business debate. I raised all the issues that I raised in that debate, and I am also grateful that he will come back to me about those issues. I will not go through all of them again today and will instead give other hon. Members the chance to speak, but it is important that they are taken on board. My right hon. Friend referred to the pace of payments, which is important, and to the evidence. We have to take note of the fact that so many of the people infected and affected have had to campaign for 40 years or more to get to this point and to get justice. It is unlikely that they will have evidence—the payslips and all sorts of evidence—that they were living with their parents at the time when a sibling was infected. It is not possible for people to provide that depth of information so late on. We have to be considerate in the way that we approach that. My right hon. Friend and I have debated and discussed unethical testing, and we differ on this issue. I, along with those people who were the children who were deliberately infected, feel very strongly about this. It is a sobering fact that they were deliberately infected by the state that should have been there to care for them. For them, the compensation is not about the money but about the degree of recognition within this scheme of just exactly how badly treated they were. The level of payments for that should be much higher than they are. I welcome these regulations. It is important that we move on as fast as possible now that we have them in place. Again, I congratulate the Paymaster General on all the work he has done.

I thank the Minister for his continued commitment to improving the compensation scheme and for keeping the House up to date on its progress. I know that he takes this matter seriously, and I hope that we will see him continue to do so after the summer recess. We Liberal Democrats welcome many of the changes being made today, as we welcomed the previous changes made in April. The infected blood scandal is the biggest treatment disaster in NHS history, and such a disaster should never be allowed to happen again. The suffering inflicted on infected and affected people was, and still is, immeasurable. It was compounded by a cover-up that no amount of compensation will ever truly make up for, but it can go some way. After all this time, it must happen quickly, fully and fairly. Unfortunately, the experience of too many of those impacted is that that is not currently happening. Today I would like to draw attention to some significant omissions still missing from the legislation, and I hope that the Minister will take them on board in his efforts to achieve justice for everyone impacted by this scandal. I will share some stories from my constituents by way of example. The first is the lack of a dedicated care award for living affected persons. One of my constituents infected with hepatitis C 30 years ago has repeatedly raised with me her concern about elderly affected carers who are still alive and providing care. Three decades on from her infection, her mother continues to live with her and provides care daily, yet there is no separate pathway for her to claim compensation for this. To possibly pre-empt the Minister’s response that care awards can be applied for through claims made as an infected person, I would argue that this method only works if it is performed at pace. We know that the speed of compensation is not what it should be. My constituent tells me that it is “painful to contemplate” that she “may not receive compensation in time to meaningfully support or repay” her elderly mother “after a lifetime shaped by…infection.” I would be interested to hear from the Minister what consideration the Department has given to calls for a dedicated care award paid directly to eligible living affected persons, and why, while simultaneously promising to speed up compensation, he is continuing to compensate carers only through this complex existing pathway. Also missing from the regulations are measures to remove the impossible evidentiary demands currently in place, such as requiring victims to produce non-existent records, forcing elderly and grieving parents to go through complex online verification processes, or parents of children who died as a result of infected blood products being asked to prove that they lived with their child at the time. By way of example, I have a constituent whose father received blood transfusions following a severe car accident in 1989. He contracted hepatitis C and subsequently died from leukaemia in 2007. The records of his treatment across two hospitals have been destroyed, and his daughter has reached a complete impasse in trying to claim compensation for this incredibly traumatic series of events. I appreciate that some of this was only raised with the Minister very recently, but I do wonder if he might tell the House what steps he has taken to urgently investigate those reports and what steps he is taking to ensure that no victim is retraumatised and prevented from being served justice by having to provide impossible evidence. I have on several occasions raised my constituents’ concerns about disparities in compensation for different diseases. One of my constituents has lived without his mother for 25 years after she died from hepatitis C in 1998, and he questions why claiming in her case involves complex severity bands whereas claiming for a living infected person with HIV is done through one single band. Can the Minister clarify whether he is still considering where there may be broader structural differences within the scheme and how they might be addressed? My final, broader, point is that there are very few accountability mechanisms in place for infected and affected people to genuinely hold both IBCA and the Cabinet Office to account. Both have been responsive when I pass along letters from my constituents, but that does prompt the question of why they were not so responsive when the constituents made contact themselves. Victim and patient voices matter, and they must be listened to at every level. We Liberal Democrats would mandate integrated care boards to include patient voices at board level through organisations such as Healthwatch, and we share the disappointment of many impacted by the infected blood scandal that the Government have consistently, it seems, listened to the advice of the technical expert group over the lived experience of hundreds of victims. We need to end the culture of cover-up exposed by the infected blood inquiry and other scandals by immediately introducing that legislation to impose a statutory duty of candour on all public officials and establishing a patient safety taskforce to improve data sharing, analyse patient risk and co-ordinate safety responsibilities. I therefore ask the Minister for an update on the progress of the Hillsborough law and stress once again the urgency of getting it through this place. In closing, I pay tribute to every victim of this awful scandal and reiterate calls from across the House for IBCA to work faster to ensure that justice is served for all.

On behalf of constituents that I am proud to represent, I want to ask the Paymaster General questions of justice. I want to ask whether the infected blood compensation scheme is delivering the justice that Sir Brian Langstaff’s inquiry promised everyone who has suffered one of the greatest scandals in our nation’s history. First, however, I want to thank the Minister for our discussions about this topic, most recently just a couple of hours ago. I have raised it on the Floor of the House before, and I will keep raising it on behalf of my constituents. Tonight, I want to represent one family in particular, but although I am raising the experience of one family from my constituency, that experience is identical to that of many other families up and down the country. Jane Yvonne Fitzgerald was infected with contaminated blood following the administration of a single unit of blood during a non-emergency procedure. She did not consent to the risks to which she was exposed, and according to the inquiry, many patients like her should never have had such transfusions in the first place. She endured decades of illness, repeated hospital admissions, invasive procedures, severe psychological trauma and profound threats to her sense of dignity. Her experiences of care fell short of expectations. On one occasion, she suffered litres of fluid being drained from her abdomen in what was effectively a hospital broom cupboard. On another occasion, she was sent home despite being in excruciating pain because no bed was made available. On that same day, her abdomen ruptured. When she sought support, she was told there was nothing physically wrong with her. The only psychological support she was offered was alongside alcohol and drug dependency groups, when she had no addiction. The state failed to protect her and failed to care for her mental and physical health. Since she died 10 years ago, Yvonne’s family feel that justice has evaded them. Under the current compensation scheme, because she died before surviving long enough to make a claim under today’s framework, her compensation is deemed by her family to be around £300,000 less than for someone in otherwise similar circumstances who remains alive today. In her family’s view, the scheme creates a perverse outcome whereby dying from infected blood can result in less compensation than surviving with it. The younger someone was when they died, and the earlier they died, the greater the financial penalty imposed upon their family. In some cases, I am told that the disparity between deceased victims and survivors can approach £1 million. Will the Minister explain to my constituents why that is? The technical expert group recognised that severe psychological harm and exceptional suffering could be evidenced through historical records and expert opinion, yet many deceased victims cannot access enhanced awards because they died before modern assessment mechanisms existed. The inquiry recognised that affected family members suffered direct and profound harms and recommended a supplementary compensation route, yet that recommendation has still not been implemented. On behalf of my constituents, I ask the Paymaster General why the recommendation of the Infected Blood Psychological Service that affected individuals should receive individual assessments not yet been adopted. The current approach also produces unfair outcomes. My constituent Ruairí Fitzgerald moved back into his parents’ home to help save it when his father was considered too old to obtain a mortgage. He gave up his own first-time buyer status and put his own future on hold to care for Yvonne, his mother. He cooked, cleaned and accompanied her to countless appointments, witnessing at first hand the effects of her poor health. His mother died before she could see him marry, she never met his two children—her two grandsons—and he is living life in that knowledge. Under the current scheme, he is entitled to substantially less compensation than estranged relatives who played little or no role in her life or care. He wonders why the scheme compensates people according to broad family categories rather than recognising the harm individuals have experienced. There are further concerns. Widows’ support payments made under the previous schemes are now deducted from compensation awards for many claimants, while those who settled earlier are unaffected. Compensation is not routinely uprated for inflation, meaning delay steadily erodes its real value. The issue raised in my constituency is how compensation delayed should not become compensation diminished. As we have heard from all hon. Members who have contributed, this debate is about trying to remedy what went wrong and trying to ensure that there is justice. Justice cannot depend upon whether someone survived long enough to satisfy an administrative process. Justice cannot depend upon the year someone died.