The debate on the Victims and Prisoners bill resumed yesterday evening and provided some further insight into the progress being made to establish the compensation scheme for infected and affected individuals.
Earl Howe, responding on behalf of the government, opened proceedings by responding to some of the main concerns raised since the UK Government published their amendments last week.
In his opening statement, Earl Howe confirmed the government’s intentions as follows:
- Establish the new Infected Blood Compensation Authority (IBCA) within three months from Royal Assent. This timescale was initially left out of the government’s amendment and was reintroduced in opposition. The government has agreed to support its inclusion once more; however, did state that the period should not include when Parliament is not sitting.
- The government will establish a shadow body of the compensation scheme by the 20th of May and appoint an interim chief executive to begin work on staffing and setting up IT systems as quickly as possible. Sir Brian Langstaff had recommended this be in place by the end of 2023 in his Inquiry Second Interim Report in April last year.
- Begin the process of appointing the Chair of the IBCA immediately and involve the infected blood community in the appointment process.
- Clarification that the government is open to the idea of the Chair of the IBCA being a Judge of the High Court or Court of Session, as per Sir Brian Langstaff’s recommendations, but wants to ensure that the most suitable candidates can apply, and the right candidate is selected.
- There will be opportunities for representation of the infected blood community within committees and sub-committees for the IBCA.
- Recognition that the proposed mechanism to make interim payments of £100,000 to the estates of deceased infected people who had previously been registered to existing or former support scheme differs from the Inquiry recommendations. The government believes that the proposed system would be the most practical way to ensure payments are made as quickly as possible to those eligible. No specific timescales were given on when these interim payments would be made.
- Priority once the compensation scheme is established will be given to people already registered to one of the existing infected blood support schemes and living with a chronic infection.
- There will be no duplication of registration processes for those on an existing support scheme and people not already registered would be able to do so with details expected on how in the government’s response to the final report on the 20th of May.
The debate then continued with Peers on the significant issues and concerns around the transparency and lack of trust within the community. The full Hansard report of the debate can be found here, starting at 6:19pm onwards to close.
In response to some of the amendments proposed, Earl Howe gave the further commitments:
- The names of the Expert Advisory Group to the government will be disclosed once their initial work has been completed. The reasons why this had not yet happened were mentioned.
- The government will publish the compensation tariffs before any secondary legislation is needed to approve them. Although the IBCA will be responsible for delivering the compensation scheme, the government’s position is that the rates and tariffs must be set by themselves due to their responsibility for managing taxpayers’ money.
- Earl Howe confirmed that any support or ex-gratia payments received from existing or historical support schemes, excluding interim compensation payments made, will not be deducted from any compensation received.
The House of Lords is due to conclude the Report Stage of the Victims and Prisoners Bill on the 13th of May. Further amendments may be introduced or discussed before the Bill passes back to the House of Commons and then, once approved by both Houses, to Royal Assent.
Haemophilia Scotland is scheduled to meet with the UK Paymaster General, John Glen, on May 10th to express the views and concerns of our community. We will urge him to provide further information, and realistic timescales, on the announcements made last night.