The Rt Hon Nick Thomas-Symonds MP, Paymaster General and the Minister in the new Government with oversight of the Infected Blood Inquiry and Compensation Scheme made a statement to the House of Commons on Friday, 26th July 2024.
The statement and questions which followed lasted about an hour and can be viewed on Parliament TV. Details will also be published in Hansard.
The key points raised were:
There will be opportunity for full debate in the House on the recommendations of the Infected Blood Inquiry.
The Government are proceeding to make Regulations to establish details of Infected Blood Compensation Scheme (IBCS) by 24th August.
The Minister gave an undertaking to publish Sir Robert Francis’ report to him on the engagement events which Sir Robert had held with campaign groups and representative bodies during June. This would be before the Regulations are laid and would include the Government’s response to Sir Roberts’ recommendations.
That application process for the £100,000 payments to estates of deceased infected persons recommended by the Inquiry would open in October. Further details would follow.
On support schemes the Minister repeated what the previous Government had said. Support schemes will continue up to 31st March 2025, or until compensation paid. Once compensation is paid, applicants could choose to take lump sum compensation or regular future payments. It is not clear if this is simply a reiteration of what the previous Government proposed, or a conscious decision by the new Government to take the same view that support schemes will not continue after compensation has been paid.
We will issue further updates when more information becomes available.
It was interesting to note the PMG advised the House that support schemes would continue until the victims case was assessed but left out the part whereby the support payments from 01/04/25 would be deducted from the final compensation awarded….very vague and open, once again to interpretation.
Absolutely, an area where we still do not have clarity. Haemophilia Scotland advocated strongly for the support schemes to continue in our written response to Sir Robert Francis’ limited engagement with campaign groups held in June.
We must lobby for support schemes to continue and remind government that the Inquiry stated that in assessing compensation no account should be taken of any past support payments. Also that the annual payments should be guaranteed for life, by legislation or secure government undertaking. We urge our members to continue to lobby their MPs on this and other areas of concern identified in the current proposals. See Haemophilia Scotland submission to Sir Robert Francis 28th June 2024.
Support payments were for life. They shouldn’t be able to just stop them. Most people don’t get a weekly wage. The monthly payments are there wage. Plus the inquiry said nobody should be worse off after compensation. This will make us worse off in the long term future.