Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many documents did the 2015 Penrose Inquiry on contaminated blood in Scotland request from his Department; how many of these requests were (a) accepted and (b) rejected; and how many documents submitted contained redacted information.

Although the Department was not called to provide witnesses to the Penrose Inquiry, we cooperated fully with Lord Penrose’s requests for documentary evidence, and the Departmental evidence that Lord Penrose used is referenced in his final report. Lord Penrose published the report of his public inquiry into infections acquired in Scotland on 25 March 2015. Nothing was withheld.

All documents up to 1995 are available through the National Archive.

Any redacted documents provided to the Inquiry will have been redacted in line with standard practice to protect personal information and with current Freedom of Information requirements.