Contaminated Blood and Blood Products

Geoffrey Robinson Excerpts

Thursday 14th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Geoffrey Robinson (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House recalls that the catastrophic problems of infected blood supplied by the NHS date back to the 1970s and 1980s, infecting 4,670 patients and causing what Lord Winston described as the worst treatment disaster in the history of the NHS; notes that successive administrations only very partially responded to this catastrophe by setting up and funding the MacFarlane Trust, the Skipton Fund and the Eileen Trust; regrets the past refusal to accept the principal recommendation of the Independent Public Inquiry into the supply of contaminated NHS blood to haemophilia patients, chaired by Lord Archer and established and financed by private initiative and funds, relating to compensation for the victims and set out in paragraph 6(h) of chapter 12 of the Archer Report; further notes that earlier this year the reasons for rejecting this recommendation were challenged successfully in the High Court, which quashed the decision; believes that this ruling constitutes an appropriate moment for the present Government, which bears no responsibility for the inadequate and misjudged policies of successive previous administrations, to extend an apology to the surviving 2,700 sufferers, their families and the bereaved; and calls on the Government to alleviate their intense hardship and suffering by accepting and implementing the recommendations of the Archer Report despite the intense financial pressure on the public purse at this time.

I would like to say a few things by way of preliminary background to this debate, some of which may reflect on the interchanges we have just had on the amendment. Opposition Back-Bench Members, and many Government Members, are pleased that the whole idea behind the initiative on Back-Bench business and the excellent Committee established to promote it is that Back-Bench Members should have the ability to move substantive motions on the Floor of the House on which they can vote. That is what, in effect, we have secured today. Not only would the amendment, had it been chosen, have wrecked the whole substance and heart of the motion, but it would have wrecked the intention behind the Backbench Business Committee.

I thank the Chairman of the Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel) and the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone), both of whom were good enough, in their wisdom, to select the bid made initially by my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Owen Smith), who, of course, is now a member of the shadow Government, and is therefore unable to move the motion today. He has kindly asked me to pick up the baton, which I am honoured to do, and we therefore have the opportunity today to debate a substantive motion on the Floor of the House.

The Government have missed a huge opportunity. In drafting the motion, I placed great emphasis on making it an all-party motion reflecting the views of every Member of the House in a balanced way, and it has commanded the support of the victims of what was the “worst treatment disaster”—as it was described by Lord Winston, whose mother was, I think, terribly hurt in this way—in the history of the NHS. As the motion makes clear, the coalition Government bear no responsibility for the maladministration, the misjudgment and the inadequate judgments of previous Administrations.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

Does that not make it more significant that the Government, who had no responsibility for this situation, tried to move a wrecking amendment that would have totally sabotaged what my hon. Friend is trying to achieve on behalf of the people concerned?

[Mr Robinson]

My hon. Friend is, of course, absolutely right. I am very pleased to welcome the Secretary of State to the debate, because it gives it prominence and substance. The Backbench Business Committee has a real role to play—we have had a good debate on Afghanistan too. However, I saw the Secretary of State shake his head to say that the amendment is not a wrecking amendment. None the less, those of us who attended a meeting yesterday with the victims of blood contamination were hoping for an amendment that we could support, and he could have done something about that.

The Secretary of State bears no responsibility for what has happened. The NHS supplied contaminated blood. I will not go into individual cases, except for one in my own constituency, which I have been following ever since the victim first approached me many years ago. This goes back to the mid-1970s, to the Callaghan and Wilson Labour Governments and to the Thatcher Government, and, of course, to the subsequent response to those ill-advised, inadequate judgments, made mostly by officials or under their strong advice—clearly that is the case in these cases—from the last Government principally, although it even pre-dates them to some extent. We are not trying to blame the present coalition Government, but there are things that they could have done, the cost of which would have fallen well short of the £3 billion that will allegedly be the cost of implementing the Archer report.

As hon. Members will recall, the Archer report was set up under the Blair Government—in 1997-98, I think—at which time I was at the Treasury. People put it to me, “You were at the Treasury at the time. Why didn’t you do something?” We did not have the report then. We had made papers available. It was a privately funded and excellent report, which I commend to all Members, but we did not know what it was going to recommend. Unfortunately, I left the Treasury before I was confronted with the implications of the report. However, under the last two Labour Administrations, there were ample opportunities for us to respond more fully, generously and comprehensively, in human terms, to the suffering of the victims.

This was an unparalleled disaster in NHS treatment history involving thoroughly blameless individuals. I met one yesterday—a gentleman from Doncaster—who had been knifed, rushed to the accident and emergency department at Rotherham and given two pints of blood, from which he subsequently contracted HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C. He is now totally incapacitated, and has been asked to live, after capital payments of £25,000—of great value, of course, but not enormous—on £107 a week.

The Government could have said, “Well, we know there is a problem with, for example, the Skipton Fund, so we will take some steps to move that up towards the level of what the previous Administration made available—inadequate though it was—in respect of HIV/AIDS.”

[Charlotte Leslie (Bristol North West) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Robinson]

In a moment, yes.

The Government could have done that, but they did not. All we now have is their sad, tragic adoption of what previous Government’s did. That is a great pity, a great sadness, and does not reflect well on them. When they reflect on the matter, they will come to think that they should have handled the matter very differently.

Had the Government proposed what I have suggested, which would have cost a minimum amount—nothing like the sums talked about now—we could have voted for it and then, at 4.30 pm, when this debate ends, gone back to meet the victims in Committee Room 14 and told them that this Government have finally broken with the previous, inadequate and ill-judged consensus and reaction. We have never asked them to take responsibility. However, they could also have extended a gesture of an apology, which the victims are also looking for. Sadly, however, the Government have, in effect, done nothing but take on the same old weary mantle that we have seen for the last 20 years. They are already getting tired: they have lost their verve and the ability to respond energetically and imaginatively to situations. It is very sad.

[Mr Robert Syms (Poole) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Robinson]

I promised to give way first to the hon. Member for Bristol North West (Charlotte Leslie).

[Charlotte Leslie]

I appreciate the tone, spirit and intended outcome of what the hon. Gentleman is trying to do. As a newcomer to the House, however, may I ask what, over the past 13 years, he did to encourage the previous Government to deliver payments I believe should have been made? At that time, the public finances were not in such a diabolical state and compensation would have been much easier to give.

[Mr Robinson]

Unfortunately, the hon. Lady is trying to inject a party position into this debate, which those of us who have been involved in it have tried to exclude from it. We have said that past responses were inadequate and ill-judged—it says that in the motion. I regret that we did not deal with the matter, and I like to think that had I remained at the Treasury, I could have done something. I am open about that too; we all ought to be open here. However, those who say that I, as a former Treasury Minister, should appreciate our legacy are missing the central point: there will never be a good time to do something like this. There will always be bureaucratic arguments, and precedent arguments, and arguments we cannot foresee now but which will one day be made, for why we should do nothing, and the Government have caved into them. That is the reality.

[Lorraine Fullbrook (South Ribble) (Con)]

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman agrees that this is a horrendously tragic occurrence. Many haemophiliacs have been affected by this as well, both mentally and physically, and we need to work together and all recognise the dreadful situation that these people find themselves in.

[Mr Robinson]

I am pleased that the hon. Lady has joined the debate and agrees with us. Of course, haemophiliacs have also been affected. The ironic tragedy there is that the treatments given were meant to deal with the basic underlying condition of the haemophilia. I will mention the name of one victim, given that he is a constituent of mine—I am sure that many other Members will mention constituents of theirs too. Given that 4,670 initial cases were affected, and given that there are 650 constituencies, nearly every constituency must have had at least one tragic occurrence. I will therefore mention Joseph Peaty. He is a haemophiliac who went for treatment to correct his underlying condition, but because of the contaminated blood products, he acquired both HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C. He is watching this debate and looking for us to offer victims something more. There is no way we could accept the amendment.

[Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the real tragedy, especially for haemophiliacs, is that it is not just individuals who are affected, but whole families? The condition runs in the family, so two or three family members could be affected. The fact that people are living with such stress as a result of failure of successive Governments to tackle the issue is something that this House should totally condemn. We must take a decision today, and not allow the issue to slip further down the agenda.

[Mr Robinson]

I agree entirely with my hon. Friend, who makes a most poignant and correct intervention, if I may say so. We had a unique opportunity. The issue had moved right up in the public’s awareness. The sort of thing that we get in these debates is everybody saying how terrible it is, but then heaving a sigh of relief that they have not been affected, and on we go. The months and years drag by, and so the number comes down, from 4,600 to 2,700. Perhaps not many will be affected, but as my hon. Friend said, the nature of the diseases is that they spread, and the suffering will continue long after most of us have left this House.

[Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. At the end of the 1980s, I worked with someone called Colin, who had been injured abroad, had a blood transfusion and got haemophilia. He then returned to the UK for ongoing treatment, but ended up getting contaminated blood and dying from HIV at the beginning of the 1990s. It is for people such as Colin that we are here today. This is not a partisan issue; it is an issue that we should have dealt with in the past 13 years—it should have been dealt with before that—but let us deal with it now.

[Mr Robinson]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s intervention, which I wholly accept and entirely agree with.

[Mr Syms]

rose—

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[Mr Robinson]

The hon. Member for Poole (Mr Syms) has been very persistent, so I will give way to him and then to my right hon. Friend, but if the House will forgive me, thereafter I want to get on, because we have limited time and I have agreed to keep my opening remarks to the minimum

[Mr Syms]

This is an important issue for so many families and people affected. I am not sure whether the motion will be agreed to today—that depends on the vote a little later—but the important thing is to make progress. The Government have said in their statement that they will undertake a review of the Archer report, which is good. However, we ought to be pressing them a little further, so that hon. Members such as the hon. Gentleman and I can be part of that review, lobbying Ministers and having meetings with them. Should he not be suggesting to those on the Treasury Bench that some of us ought to be in the Department of Health discussing the matter further?

[Mr Robinson]

I will give way to my right hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley (Mr Howarth) and respond to both questions immediately afterwards.

[Mr George Howarth]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend and congratulate him on the measured way in which he is conducting this debate. Does he agree that in every generation there are two or three major injustices that have to be addressed? They cannot always be pinned on to a given Government, but this issue is one of those injustices, and we have to put it right now.

[Mr Robinson]

I entirely agree with my right hon. Friend—this is indeed a good moment to do that—but sadly I disagree with the hon. Member for Poole, because we have had reviews.

In passing, let me make a positive reference to a former colleague in the Government at the time. As I understand it, the previous Secretary of State for Health—my right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham)—opened up one aspect of the issue, through the Skipton Fund in particular, although if I am wrong and the Minister wants to correct me, I should be only too happy to take an interjection from her. He did that last year to see whether there was any way of increasing Skipton to the levels of HIV/AIDS compensation—that proposal was put to me forcefully at meetings with the victims yesterday, and I am sure. that it will be again when we meet them at 4.30 pm If we could do that, it would be a step forward and we would feel that we were going in the right direction. If the Minister wants to tell me that that is the case, I would be very pleased to hear that.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Anne Milton)]

I have to ask the hon. Gentleman whether he has read the written ministerial statement, because at the end it points out that we will be reviewing certain aspects.

[Mr Robinson]

That is my whole point: “We will be reviewing.” This has been going on for a year already. Who can put his hand on his heart and honestly say that anything more will come out of the review than we have already had? Nobody with any experience of this House or how Government works can say that. Today is the moment.

[Anne Milton]

I have to ask again whether the hon. Gentleman has read the written ministerial statement. I have said that I will look at certain aspects and I will report by Christmas, because I am acutely aware that campaigners on the issue have been left hanging for far too long.

[Mr Robinson]

Very good, but let me say this to the Minister, who is obviously genuinely concerned about the issue, as all Ministers have been. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley said, there are always two or three big issues, and this is certainly one of them, so we wait to hear. [Interruption.] The Minister should not tell us that we have not read the statement; we spent all yesterday trying to get a copy of the amendment, which seemed to be in the ether somewhere. Indeed, I asked her to e-mail me a copy yesterday at about 6 pm, but we could not see it even then. I have referred to the statement, which I think is useless, but why is it not referred to in the wording that is before the House? She did not want it there because it would carry more weight.

[Mr Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

If the hon. Gentleman has read the ministerial statement, before coming here and pouring scorn on the Front Bench, can he say which of the recommendations in the statement he agrees with?

[Mr Robinson]

I am not terribly interested in a statement in the Commons Library; I am interested in what is said—[Interruption.] I will tell hon. Members why: we have been through that already. It was clear what was said at questions—[Interruption.] I am amazed that hon. Members can behave like that. Do they not realise that it is what is said at the Dispatch Box that counts, and that what counts is what the Government are prepared to do? We have had umpteen statements about reviews, and so have the victims. I invite the hon. Gentleman and the Minister to join me immediately after this debate, at 4.30 pm, in Committee Room 14 to meet the victims and see what reaction they get. Let us just see. Let him wave his hands at them and say, “We’re going to review this.” The victims want closure. They are fed up: they have been sentenced to long, lingering and wretched death sentences by successive Administrations.

This Government had an opportunity to make a new start and bring closure to this great human tragedy, but they have refused to do so. For that reason, we are very pleased indeed—I am particularly pleased, as the mover of the motion—that Mr Speaker has called the motion and that we can vote on it. I urge Government Members to vote with us, in an attempt to shame all those, in all parts of the House, who have had sufferers in their constituencies, yet will not stand with us in this important Division. We will therefore press the motion to a vote in due course, and I hope that all Members present will vote for it.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

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[Mr Stephen Dorrell (Charnwood) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Coventry North West (Mr Robinson) on bringing this important, sensitive and emotive issue before the House. I congratulate him also on the tone—until perhaps the last couple of minutes of his speech—in which he moved the motion. He was absolutely right that this is not a question of the coalition defending its record; it is a question of the hon. Gentleman bringing a substantive proposition before the House for it to decide on.

In those circumstances,I would suggest to the hon. Gentleman and the House that it is more than usually important that Members who vote on the motion understand precisely what its implications are. He had a lot to say—all of which I agree with—about the human tragedy, the system failure and the slow response of successive Governments over 25 years. That is not in dispute. Sadly, however, I shall not be supporting the hon. Gentleman in the Lobby, because of the part of the motion that says that this House

“regrets the past refusal to accept the principal recommendation of the Independent Public Inquiry…relating to compensation for the victims and set out in paragraph 6(h)…of the”

inquiry report.

What the hon. Gentleman describes as the “principal recommendation” of the report is at the heart of the motion. The House must therefore understand precisely what that recommendation says, which is:

“We suggest that payments should be at least the equivalent of those payable under the Scheme which applies at any time in Ireland.”

Let us be clear what has actually happened in the evolution of policy on this subject. The previous Government accepted many of the other recommendations in the Archer report, but they explicitly refused to accept the recommendation that the compensation payments should be aligned with at least the level payable in Ireland. We are advised by the Government that payments at such a level would cost the Treasury about £3 billion. There is no controversy around the history of these matters or the emotion involved, or about how we got to where we are, but the House is being asked to accept that we should commit the Government to spending £3 billion on aligning our compensation payments with those currently payable in Ireland.

[Mr Robinson]

We set out the motion in those terms because that was very much what the victims wanted. However, the Government had the opportunity to respond with a constructive amendment, rather than a wrecking amendment that has no substance and takes not a single step towards our aims, even in relation to the Skipton Fund. We cannot accept that. We wanted a good amendment that we could vote for and unite around, so that the motion could have stood, as amended, in a progressive way that would have allowed us to step forward. Because the Government did not give us such an amendment, however, we are back where we were. We could not, in all honesty, let the victims down, which is why I was forced to move the motion as it stands.

[Mr Dorrell]

I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point. It is not for me to comment on the way in which the negotiations between him and the Government proceeded, but unfortunately, that is not the question on which the House is being asked to decide. I return to the proposition that today is different from normal political days in the House, because the House is being asked to make a decision. It is being asked to decide whether the Government should be committed to align compensation payments with those currently payable in Ireland, and I do not agree with that proposition. I shall vote against it—albeit with a heavy heart, because I accept much of what the hon. Gentleman has said about the context and the history of these matters. The motion is not about the context and the history, however; it is about what happens next. In the week before the comprehensive spending review, it would not be sensible to agree to the commitment of £3 billion to align our arrangements with those in Ireland.

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[Mr Tom Clarke (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (Lab)]

I have a great regard for the right hon. Member for Charnwood (Mr Dorrell), but if there had been an alternative to the motion tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North West (Mr Robinson), that would have been helpful to us in the debate.

[Mr Geoffrey Robinson]

On that point, if the Government intend to do what they have outlined in their written statement, why did they not table an amendment to that effect? Why did they squirrel the information away in a statement in the Library? The right hon. Member for Charnwood (Mr Dorrell) is long enough in the tooth to know that they have not deliberately done it like this, but had they tabled such an amendment, incorporating their statement, we would have been very inclined to vote for it—

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. Interventions must be interventions; the hon. Gentleman must not make another speech.

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[Dr Phillip Lee (Bracknell) (Con)]

I am the only regular practising medical doctor in this House and it is somewhat surprising that no one contacted me to lobby on behalf of any of the issues to do with this debate. I stand here as someone who has no idea whether I have any constituents affected by this dreadful scandal, but I do understand what it is like to have hepatitis C and to have HIV. On a personal level, I was once married to somebody who carried the gene for haemophilia, so I have considered the idea of bringing a haemophiliac into this world and the implications thereof. More importantly, I have spent weekends away with the Haemophilia Society in the past. I have been privy to the annoyance, upset, anger and frustration with this whole affair since it started to rear its ugly head in the late ’70s.

It is important when we are discussing this issue to try to separate emotion from fact. The fact of the matter is that before we could administer cryoprecipitate factor VIII, the life expectancy of haemophiliacs in this country was in the 20s. When we discuss compensation—perhaps this is a way of decoupling us from the compensation scheme in the Republic of Ireland—we need to discuss compensating people for loss of earnings and widows’ pensions, instead of compensating people for loss of life. It is important that we distinguish between the two issues, instead of getting emotional. It is easy to stand up and discuss distressing cases, which is an approach that can be applied to an array of conditions. Let us concentrate on fact, because there may be an appropriate solution.

I could speak all day on this issue, but I am conscious of time. Questions of morality and of cost arise in deciding appropriate compensation. To my mind, the present economic difficulties that our Government are dealing with are not a consideration. A big wrong occurred, and we need to deal with it irrespective of the timing. The former Member for Plymouth, Devonport, David Owen, who was a medically qualified person, was involved at the outset under a Labour Government. The subsequent Conservative Government continued to miss the signs and failed to implement necessary procedures to make sure that the blood was not contaminated.

I want to draw attention to the figures. I have read only the first four chapters of the Archer report, because I realised only at 12.30 pm that the matter was going to be debated. I have noticed mistakes in the first four chapters, so I am not encouraged by the report in general. The report cites a figure of £3 billion, which I think the Department of Health provided to Ministers, but the figure is actually £1 billion. There is a typo—if one divides the two figures, one does not get £850,000; one gets £350,000. Let us talk about facts first, because we may be discussing £1 billion, not £3 billion. If one relates those calculations to the price of life, we can arrive at a compensation scheme that I can support.

[Mr Robinson]

Is the hon. Gentleman saying—I heard about this matter briefly before I came into the House—that the £3 billion figure relates to a typo and that the figure should be £300 million, because that needs to be clarified?

[Dr Lee]

Yes. If one does the division, one realises that one figure must be wrong—off the top of my head, the figure is 853 as opposed to 353. I encourage the hon. Gentleman to look at that point.

If the figure is £1 billion, we spend £1 billion on the NHS every three and a half days. We can find that money. I do not know how one prices a liver, and I do not know how one prices a liver transplant that does not happen. I cannot put a price on that, and I challenge anyone else to do so. We are talking about 4,670 people, so we can behave appropriately at last and provide the appropriate compensation.

On the financial implications, HIV widows are forced through the Benefits Agency to seek work within weeks of their partner’s death, and hepatitis C widows whose partners died before 2004 receive no financial help at all. The implications for the haemophilia community are stark. I cannot say that we should trim this and that because of the comprehensive spending review; I would rather we borrowed the £500 million and did the right thing.

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[Owen Smith (Pontypridd) (Lab)]

First, I join other right hon. and hon. Members in thanking the Backbench Business Committee for recognising the importance of the case that my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North West (Mr Robinson) and I put to it. The volume and the quality of the contributions we have heard today bear eloquent testimony to the fact that the Business Committee was absolutely right to note that this is a critical issue—one that many hon. Members on both sides of the House feel has received too little attention in recent years from successive Governments. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North West for picking up the baton and moving the motion, which he did with great aplomb and verve, as ever.

Most of all, I should like to thank the victims and their families who have been in contact with me since we first learned that we had succeeded in securing this debate. Their kind words and support have been hugely welcome. I am delighted that so many of them managed to come here today—and, indeed, yesterday—to witness the debate. That bears extraordinarily powerful testament to the wrong that has been done to them and their families. I hope that we are doing some justice to their cases today by debating this issue so fully.

I am extremely pleased that the debate has prompted the Government to put before the House today’s statement, which is somewhat misaligned with the wrecking amendment, as my hon. Friend described it.

[Mr Robinson]

I wonder, Madam Deputy Speaker, whether you could put the point to the Minister that we are conducting the debate on the basis of the ministerial statement that has been placed in the Library rather than one made to the House. Perhaps the Minister can tell us what the basis of compensation would be if we were to implement the Archer recommendations. Is the figure £3 billion, £300 million or £1.2 billion? I have heard different figures. Does my hon. Friend agree that we cannot continue the debate without more clarity about what we are considering? The Government have stated that we are inviting them to spend £3 billion, but the figure might in fact be far less.

[Owen Smith]

I, too, would very much like that point to be addressed. I was going to ask the Minister how the £3 billion figure was calculated. The Haemophilia Society has today suggested that the figure has been calculated erroneously on the basis of a typographical error in the Archer report and that the number has been extrapolated from a false figure that Archer published regarding the volumes that were given in Ireland. So, I, too, would welcome the Minister’s clarification on that hugely important point.

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[Nadine Dorries (Mid Bedfordshire) (Con)]

I welcome the Government’s intention to review the Archer report, for this simple reason: its last recommendation, which to many sufferers was the most important, was to review the nursing, caring and other services that are available. This debate has been very much focused on money, but regardless of whether the figures are correct, the problems that many sufferers have had to experience throughout their lives, from the moment of infection, have been compounded by the years in which they have had to deal with these problems alone.

I would like to give the House a couple of examples, because I do not think that any of us, although we speak here on behalf of our constituents, can fully understand some of the problems that these people have had to deal with. I would like to speak on behalf of a constituent of my hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt) and a constituent of my own, and cite some of the things that they have told us. What they said to us is powerful, and we must recognise the bravery that it takes for people to go and sit in front of their MP and talk about the problems that they experience, which is not an easy thing to do. Some of those constituents are here today.

My constituent was infected with HIV from contaminated blood at the age of 12, when he was told: “This is what you now have. You must never tell anybody at all, ever. You must never tell friends in school, because if you do you will be bullied and hounded out of your school, and we will be hounded out of our home and have to move away.” It is enough to have suffered with haemophilia, but then, at the age of 12, they are told not only that they have a socially unacceptable disease, as it was at that time, but, at an age when they fully understand, that they are soon going to die from it.

He got that message more powerfully than by words alone. As a haemophiliac before his diagnosis of HIV, he was never allowed to have a bike of his own, so he was always asking to hitch a ride on somebody else’s. The Christmas after his diagnosis, his Christmas present was a bike of his own. He knew, from the statements by his parents and the look in his father’s eyes, that it did not matter any more—that he may as well have his own bike, because at that point in the ’80s nobody knew whether he had a month, a year or years to live. For a child to have had to live with being a social pariah, and to have had to keep a secret that they know they will die from, brings with it psychological problems that we cannot even begin to imagine. Their childhood is taken away and they have to live with that secret all their life.

I welcome the report, because these people need counselling. They need to be able to know that they can speak about the vitally important conditions that they suffer from, and how to deal with them. To use the words of one of our constituents, he felt that he had been born to bleed but did not realise he would have to pay the death penalty for it, and every day he feels ungrateful to be alive. The figures may be wrong or right, but other issues are just as important as the financial compensation that some of the people who have been infected are looking for.

There was a huge stigma surrounding HIV in the ’80s. We know in this place, and many other people know now, that there are only two ways to catch HIV—via sexual intercourse or contaminated blood. Perhaps it is time for us to start doing our bit to let people know that that stigma should not be there any more and that these people should not be afraid to talk about what they have suffered.

[Mr Robinson]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. We are conducting a Back-Bench debate that is being coloured by a figure in an amendment that the Government have tabled, which has not been selected. It suggests that £3 billion would be the cost of what my motion proposes. If the exact figure is in the order of 1% of that, or £300 million, as I think the hon. Member for Bracknell (Dr Lee), a medical doctor, suggested—[Hon. Members: “No, £1 billion.”] Does it come to £1 billion? I think that ought to be clarified before we go further in the debate.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

In fairness, the Minister is going to speak and there will be an opportunity to intervene on her. I am sure she will want to point out the figure at that stage. What I want to do is get on with the debate until she comes to speak, and then I am sure Members in all parts of the House will be able to intervene.

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[Mr Robinson]

I think the whole House would agree that this has been an outstanding debate and has very much justified the new process for nominating Back-Bench business. I hope that in future we will have many such debates on important issues, debated in the same spirit as Members in all parts of the House have shown today in discussing a non-party political issue.

In essence, the heart of the motion, which I will press, is that an apology is due to the victims. I know that it is very difficult for Governments to give apologies, and the Minister came very close to giving one in saying that she much regretted what had happened. If it had been given in the same spirit as the Prime Minister’s statement on the Saville report on Bloody Sunday, it would have been different, but it needed something a little more.

The second important element at the heart of the motion is the question of compensation. Some Members have said that they cannot vote for the motion because of the reference to Ireland, which is a foreign jurisdiction, and concerns about where we might go from there. However, whatever we had put in the motion, we would have had the same approach from the Government. Members can try to salve their consciences in that way if they want, but the stark fact remains that the victims feel that they need an appropriate minimum level of compensation. They have asked us strongly to stick with the motion and put it to Members. We are going to put a marker down on how we think the Minister’s review should come out.

I do not doubt the Minister’s sincerity, and she has a long and distinguished history in the medical profession, but it is hardly an auspicious beginning for the Government to table an amendment intended to void the Back-Bench motion of its substance, then get their Whips up complaining to Mr Speaker about it, especially when it contains a figure that is out by a factor of three. The costs involved would not be more than £3 billion, as we learned from the distinguished hon. Member for Bracknell (Dr Lee), who is a medical practitioner. He said that they would be more like £1 billion. I cannot imagine how the Government have allowed that figure, which is not just salient but material to the debate, to continue to be discussed without correction.

[Anne Milton]

rose—

[Mr Robinson]

I give way to the Minister so that she can explain that to us.

[Anne Milton]

I have said that I will place in the Library details of how those figures were arrived at. They came about not through a typo in Lord Archer’s report but through careful consideration. The comparison with Ireland is difficult to make because the circumstances of those receiving compensation there are different, but that is not the salient point of the motion—it is whether we should align ourselves with a scheme set up by Ireland.

[Mr Robinson]

That is not the central point of the motion at all; it is utterly irrelevant to the debate. The debate is about justice for the victims of a terrible disaster, and whatever we had put in the motion we would have had the same attitude from the Government, which after all is the one that we have had from all previous Administrations. When I opened the debate I said that that we now had a golden opportunity for the Secretary of State to break with the past. He bears no responsibility for what went on, unlike some of us, including me when I was at the Treasury and the right hon. Member for Charnwood (Mr Dorrell) when he was at the Department of Health. The Secretary of State had a golden opportunity to put the past behind us and say, “A great injustice was done and a terrible misjudgment was made.” Several Members have made it clear that the suffering of the victims and their families goes on, and he should have said that the Government would now take steps to correct it. To say that it would cost £3 billion when it would actually be less than £1 billion is, as I said, hardly an auspicious start.

[Anne Milton]

May I reiterate that recommendation 6(h) of the Archer report states that

“payments should be at least the equivalent of those payable under the Scheme which applies at any time in Ireland”?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Robinson]

I can assure the Minister that we will not withdraw the motion. It is not encouraging for us to put our faith in her when all she does is hide behind a technicality.

[Dr Phillip Lee]

I want to be clear about the point I made earlier. I await some clarification on the figures, but I will not support the hon. Gentleman’s motion because it states that “a principal recommendation of the…Inquiry” is that compensation is based on the Irish compensation scheme. Am I right?

[Mr Robinson]

indicated assent.

[Dr Lee]

I made it clear that I think we can decouple from that and that we should not pay out on the basis of a life expectancy that was in the 20s before a product came on the market. That is why I will not support him in the Lobby.

[Mr Robinson]

No motion of the House is ever wholly correct. I have never voted for a motion with which I totally agree—[Interruption.] I hate to say it, but we are reverting to party politics on an issue that has nothing to do with it. No motion is ever perfect. As the hon. Gentleman knows, we are debating a principle. We should recognise that there should be much more compensation—[Interruption.] If Conservative Members think that this is a laughing matter, I will leave it to them and their consciences.

[Mark Durkan]

Did my hon. Friend note that the Minister said that as well as placing in the Library an explanation of how the figures were arrived at, she would place a copy of an article from The Irish Times, quoting Brian Cowen, who was then Minister of Health in the Republic? Brian Cowen became Minister of Health in 1997, but the compensation scheme in the south began in 1996 and issued significant payments then. There are misleading versions of what subsequent tribunals said and what was admitted by the Irish Government, but the Irish compensation scheme was not based on that admission of liability or that knowledge.

[Mr Robinson]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. Perhaps the Minister would like to say whether that is correct. Perhaps she does not know. The debate is degenerating into the to and fro of Opposition against Government interchanges. Let me assure the Health Secretary and the Minister that no one who has taken part in the debate really wants that.

The simple fact of why we are proposing this motion and resisting the Government amendment is that we are pressing for a recognition that a gross injustice has taken place and that it must be put right. That will involve high levels of compensation. We beg the Government not to believe the figures that are automatically produced to exaggerate the situation.

[Mr Tom Clarke]

Does my hon. Friend recall that when many of us were fighting for compensation for retired miners, we were given exactly the same arguments against—for 18 years? The question today is whether we are prepared to wait that long for a solution to this problem.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Robinson]

Again, my right hon. Friend makes the telling point that we have waited too long, but the problem will go on for longer. Why is the Minister defending further delay? Why is she defending £3 billion, and why is she giving out incorrect information? Let us not have a debate on that basis. We want Back Benchers in this Back-Bench debate to vote for the motion in my name because it does some justice to those who, for many years, have been condemned to a slow, lingering and very unpleasant death.

Question put.