Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, whether it is his policy that the new £10,000 lump sum payment for widows and widowers of primary beneficiaries under the new contaminated blood support scheme will also be available to the widows and widowers of people who were not directly infected by contaminated blood but who contracted HIV and hepatitis C from people who were.

The Department is still working with a reference group of experts and the current schemes on this policy. As soon as the policy is confirmed, the Department will publish it and will give guidance as to who is eligible.

However, we expect that any bereaved partner or spouse of a secondary infectee will also have access to discretionary support, where the primary infectee was infected in England.