Infected Blood Compensation Scheme

Mike Wood Excerpts

Tuesday 14th April 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mike Wood (Kingswinford and South Staffordshire) (Con)]

I thank the Minister for his statement and for providing an advance copy. We naturally welcome the progress reported today. The fact that 3,273 people have received offers totalling more than £2 billion is a significant milestone in a decades-long struggle for justice. I thank the Infected Blood Compensation Authority for its work to speed up the payments.

As Baroness Finn said in the other place,

“what we call the scandal was, in truth, the infliction, collectively, of grievous harm upon thousands of people by the state.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 4 November 2025; Vol. 849, c. 1821.]

Nowhere was that more egregious or more shocking than in those cases where victims were infected as a result of deliberate experimentation in the name of science. We therefore commend the Minister for the specific increases to the unethical research awards, and in particular the uplift to £60,000 for the survivors of Treloar’s school and the expansion of the scheme to include those treated as adults. Those are necessary recognitions of a truly outrageous chapter of the scandal.

However, while the Minister spoke of tangible, systemic change, many victims and their families will be looking at the fine print with a degree of trepidation. I therefore have a number of questions regarding the delivery and scope of these announcements. The Minister noted that further legislation will be required later this year to enact these substantial changes. Given that the infected blood inquiry’s additional report was published back in July last year, will he reassure the House that the legislative timetable will not lead to further agonising delays for those in declining health? Will the first quarterly feedback summaries, which he has promised will come in July, provide a hard deadline for when those new level 2B severity awards and backdated supply chain management payments will actually reach bank accounts? If not, does he have an expectation of when those payments will be made?

I think the Minister mentioned increased core injury awards for bereaved parents whose children died before the age of 18. Can he provide greater clarity on the justification for excluding parents whose children were infected when they were young children but turned 18 before the time of their death? Regarding the 50% increase to the core autonomy award for those infected at age 18 or under, will he confirm that that will also apply to those infected through their mothers in utero?

The Government rightly aim to minimise the administrative burden and the demand for evidence. We welcome the £60,000 lump sum for those with clear potential to earn but who lack evidence of earnings, but how will the Infected Blood Compensation Authority define “clear potential” without falling back into the lengthy, individualised assessments that the Minister says he wants to avoid?

Finally on the compensation scheme, the Minister announced that for past financial loss, the Government will use whichever calculation is “most financially beneficial” for the recipient. We welcome that pragmatic step, but can he clarify whether the removal of the 25% deduction for past care will be applied automatically to all existing offers, or will those people who have already received offers need to reapply to have their awards adjusted? As the Minister said, the compensation scheme must “embody their stories”. Justice delayed is justice denied, and we must ensure that the new supplementary awards do not become a secondary bureaucratic hurdle for a community that has already given so much testimony and waited so long.

Before I close, I turn to a matter that seems to be missing from the Minister’s statement: the inquiry. When he last updated the House before Christmas, I raised the need to

“move from a period of review to one of rectification and delivery.”—[Official Report, 30 October 2025; Vol. 774, c. 516.]

I also asked him how and when the inquiry might be drawn to a close so there could be a degree of policy certainty. I did not hear him refer to that in his statement, so will he confirm that, with the implementation of the key recommendations from the additional report and Sir Brian’s letters, the public inquiry has now drawn to a close?

Once again, I thank Sir Brian Langstaff and his team for their diligent and comprehensive work over the past eight years to help deliver some justice after decades of scandal and suffering. Most of all, I again pay tribute to the tireless campaigning of the many victims and their families who were infected or affected by the infected blood scandal. They have suffered for far too long in ways that we can barely begin to imagine, and no compensation scheme can ever reverse the horrific harms needlessly done to them. I hope, however, that the universal acceptance of the conclusion of the reports and the determination of us all to do what we can to make changes that will stop others suffering in future will bring them some comfort.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

I thank the shadow Minister for the tone that he took in that response and for the supportive tone that he has taken throughout. I will pick up on some of his earlier points. I agree with him entirely when he talks of the heinous nature of the medical experimentation on children that happened during this scandal. Although I have increased the specific amounts, it should be pointed out that those amounts do not stand in isolation; they are specific amounts for the particularly egregious nature of what happened, which are within much higher settlements, and that is exactly as it should be.

On the point about the inquiry, yes, there has now been the formal exchange of letters between me as the responsible Minister and Sir Brian Langstaff. Also, I entirely agree with the shadow Minister about the need for policy certainty going forward. He asked some very reasonable, detailed questions, and I will come back to him properly in writing on those, but let me just deal with a few of them.

I want to bring forward further legislation as soon as possible. When I have brought forward legislation in the past, parties across the House have always worked in a collaborative way throughout to get it through as quickly as possible. Obviously, positions are a matter for the Opposition parties, but continuing that constructive spirit is helpful in getting these things through as quickly as possible.

On the issue of exceptional loss, again, that £60,000, as referred to by the shadow Minister, is not designed to be a very detailed, individualised assessment. That is not what a tariff-based scheme is meant to do. Rather, it is meant to look at the situation of loss of a chance—the situation where somebody, but for their infection or how they were affected by the infection, would have had the opportunity to have gone on and perhaps been a higher-than-average earner but were denied that—and is designed specifically to look at that. On the other very reasonable and detailed matters that the hon. Gentleman raises, I will ensure he gets a full written response.