Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care on compensation for people impacted by infected blood and also by variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.

In his 2022 Compensation Framework Study, Sir Robert Francis recommended that variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD) was not included in the Infected Blood Compensation Scheme. He noted that “this is a rare disease for which there is a separate compensation scheme. It is unlikely, therefore, that a separate category is justified in this scheme. However, many of the infected have been warned there is a risk of their having vCJD. Assuming that risk, insofar as it exists, is shared by all who have received blood or blood products in the relevant period, there is no special case for taking it into account in this scheme."

Chapter 5 of the Infected Blood Inquiry’s May 2024 Report examines the Government response to vCJD.