Infected Blood Compensation Scheme (Amendment) Regulations 2026
House of Lords · Lords Chamber · 22 Jul 2026 · 20 speeches · Official Report
Motion to Approve
Moved by
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent
That the draft Regulations laid before the House on 18 June be approved. Relevant document: 8th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee (special attention drawn to the instrument )
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent
My Lords, we must never lose sight of why we are here to debate these regulations. The infected blood scandal was a catastrophic failure of the state. It is a tragedy measured not only by the pain and suffering of its victims but by the decades it took for the suffering to be recognised. The victims in the scandal have suffered unspeakably, and the former Prime Minister, when leader of the Opposition, acknowledged the suffering caused by continued systemic failure. Our new Prime Minister has long supported the infected blood community and its fight for justice. I want to reassure noble Lords that the Government will not deprioritise this important work. Before I move on to the substance of the SI, I will take a moment to reflect on the people behind the statistics, specifically the families of the infected, who have had not just to watch as their loved ones suffered in front of them but to fight for justice, in some cases for decades, putting their lives on hold and changing them irreversibly. We must recognise the sacrifice of the families, carers and campaigners. When I first spoke at the Dispatch Box on the infected blood scandal in March last year, it was to discuss the second set of compensation regulations. I updated your Lordships’ House on the progress IBCA had made, specifically that 255 people had been asked to start their compensation claim, and £44 million-worth of offers had been made. A substantial amount of progress has been made since then. Indeed, as of 14...
Amendment to the Motion
Moved by
At end insert “but that this House regrets that the draft Regulations do not address the concerns expressed by many victims about the changes made from the original proposals in Sir Brian Langstaff’s Inquiry Report and Additional Report on Compensation; further regrets the slow progress they make in addressing the cases of affected victims, while welcoming the progress in compensation for the living infected victims; expresses concerns about the arrangements for estates of deceased victims; and notes the difficulties in implementation they will pose for the Infected Blood Compensation Authority, which may lead to further delays in providing compensation.”
I thank the Minister for her introduction to the SI and for the recent meeting. I will ask her many questions. If she cannot answer them all, I will look forward to hearing from her in due course. I have tabled this amendment because of very serious disquiet from infected and affected victims about changes to the scheme, including some in this SI, and real worries about the new processes. I thank the individuals and infected blood organisations for contacting me and echo the points made by the Minister about the seriousness of what has happened to them and their lives and the loved ones they have lost. Unfortunately, the changes have destroyed what remained of the trust of many of the victims and have had a deeply damaging consequence on people already victimised for decades by our NHS and Governments past. There was real hope after Sir Brian Langstaff’s full inquiry report in May 2024 and his additional report last July stating that government and IBCA needed to review their processes to get them right and follow his recommendations. IBCA says that scheme managers attend a three-week training course. Astonishingly, there are no assessors or reviewers who have clinical experience in this specific area. Victims tell me that assessors just do not understand what had happened medically to victims, causing immense distress. Both the Haemophilia Society and the Hepatitis C Trust say that the arbitrary and indefensible inequities resulting from this lack of expertise must be...
My Lords, time is short not just for speakers in this debate, but increasingly so for the remaining victims of infected blood to get justice after one of the biggest ever failures by the British state on record. Curiously enough, all infected blood records are missing in Northern Ireland, for unknown reasons; therefore, I am speaking simply for England, Scotland and Wales. But I strongly agree with all that my noble friend Lady Brinton has just said in speaking to her regret amendment. For sure, there is an ongoing process to recognise and compensate, but it has been fraught with a lot of confusion, muddle and terrible delays, and still today, no sense of urgency that I can see. These 10 regulations are in fact just one more skirmish with reality, causing alarm indeed in the way they have been mooted. For example, one correspondent from the infected blood community world, who I do not know, wrote to me out of the blue, thinking that this set of regulations gives the last chance to do anything at all. This is not so, if Ministers decide, for they can change policy and can change pace at will, but I have no sense that this is happening. Indeed, the obfuscation continues. The Minister kindly provided me with a Written Answer earlier this month, telling me that there have been 19,565 claimants to the Infected Blood Compensation Authority, of whom only 3,336 have been paid. That is clear and straightforward, and I thank her for that. On the other hand, in a parallel...
My Lords, we must thank the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, for her introduction to this amendment. Like others, I have had some desperately sad correspondence from widows whose husbands died relatively early after infection. Infection denied them children, some suffered serious discrimination within their family, some find that their husbands medical records are missing, and probate rules have created barriers. All those affected are so deeply wounded by the lasting emotional, financial and practical consequences of the scandal, retraumatised over decades of seeking accountability. As one widow wrote, “no amount of money will bring back our loved ones, and there is no way you can put a figure on what we have had to go through”. There are ongoing problems, and we must follow Sir Brian’s lead. Two years ago, though, not a penny was going out the door in recognition of the wrongs perpetrated. The delays until now are shameful. I thank the Minister and the civil servants for meeting me. The civil servants working on this are being as scrupulous as they can. The compensation coming from the Treasury, in effect from taxpayers, recognises as a nation the extent of the scandal: the NHS purchased contaminated products, and some professionals abused the trust of people in services meant to protect and respect life. We have gone from nowhere to where we are today, thanks only to those wronged speaking out, time and again, to a system that seemed deaf to their plight. My noble friend...
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, and all the speakers in this debate thus far. I continue where she left off, taking a moment to look at the big picture. We have a huge problem with trust in politics and government in our society at the moment. Sometimes, attached to that is the idea that, in the past, there was some golden age when everything worked. This tragedy, this awful behaviour by the state, is a demonstration that that is not the case. We have huge problems of dysfunction in the way our state has worked over long periods of time. As the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, said, addressing this fairly and justly, with compassion and care, could start to repair the relationship between the state and people. I note the powerful speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, who, like all the speakers before her, has been very much a leader in this area. I come along modestly and add the Green Party’s support when I can. I thank the Minister for addressing the start of this debate with appropriate seriousness and recognising the sacrifice of families, campaigners and those who have been affected, who have demonstrated that campaigning works, in that we at least have a compensation scheme. But their experience also demonstrates that you cannot say, “We’ve won our fight, now we can get on with our lives”. People have to keep fighting and fighting and fighting. That is an unreasonable burden to put on people who have already fought for so...
My Lords, my mum Sheila Davies died from liver cancer in 2017 after a long battle with hepatitis. She did not drink, she never smoked, and I think she went out of the country a grand total of three times. In fact, she rarely ventured outside Plymouth, where she worked in the MoD. She worked all her life, paid her taxes, bought up my twin brothers as a single parent, and did not moan. In fact, she was the most stoic, brave, and principled woman I know. In the late 1970s, she had a gall bladder operation in Devonport Hospital, Plymouth. The gallstones they removed filled a jam jar. I remember her shaking them at me at the kitchen table. I was 15. She was on warfarin at the time and therefore needed a blood transfusion, which was standard practice for a large-wound operation, and she thought nothing of it. As with so many hepatitis cases, it took 20 years before the symptoms started to really impact her life. From that moment, she was on a cocktail of tablets, drugs and endless tests, yet she never stopped working through colds, flu and infections. She never explained to us children what she had, so she dealt with that fear all alone. I rang her best friend at the weekend to check, and my mum had never told her either, such was the shame and stigma that came with the diagnosis of hepatitis and HIV, which meant that so many people were shunned and abandoned. Whole families of haemophiliacs died while communities ostracised them. In many cases, it was women who picked up the...
My Lords, it is an honour to follow the noble Baroness. When one hears stories directly like that, they have an impact. I am so sorry for the noble Baroness’s loss. As ever, I have to declare my interest: one of my sister’s twin boys-my nephew, who was a haemophiliac-was infected with hepatitis C and died at the age of 35, leaving behind a 10 month-old baby daughter. I more than support the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton. Of course, although progress has been made, the implementation of the compensation scheme is still causing unnecessary and huge distress to too many victims and their families. Despite those of us who fight in this Chamber and raise the issues we are hearing about today about the affected and the infected, nothing fundamentally changes on those issues. I begin by acknowledging this Minister’s personal commitment to this issue, which is appreciated. I know that much work has gone into establishing the compensation scheme, but the measure of success is not the creation of the scheme but the experience of those going through it. I want to raise three practical concerns today. The first is the burden of evidence. Time and again, I hear from victims and bereaved families who are being asked to provide information that they have already supplied many times over many years to government departments, previous support schemes and the infected blood inquiry itself. Others are being asked for records dating back 40 or 50 years, which have...
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness. I want to mention in particular the contribution from the noble Baroness, Lady Davies of Devonport, who set out so powerfully the real-world consequences of this scandal: not just the infections but the stigma that went with them. I thank her for doing that in this debate. I thank the Minister for all her work on this; I know she has been a passionate advocate for change. I also want to use this debate to pay tribute also to the outgoing Paymaster General, Nick Thomas-Symonds, for all that he did to implement the inquiry’s recommendations. We now have an operational, funded compensation scheme that has paid out more than £2.5 billion. The difference this has made to victims is immeasurable. For many infected people, it has brought not only financial security but, after more than 40 years, the sense that they can begin to move forward with dignity and hope. I pay tribute to the Terrence Higgins Trust for its tireless work in supporting people living with HIV and hepatitis C, and ensuring that victims’ voices have been heard, because there are a couple of outstanding issues for those co-infected with HIV and hepatitis C from contaminated blood and blood products that I want to mention today. The first regards interferon treatment. Many people co-infected with HIV and hepatitis C could not wait for newer, safer treatments. Their health was deteriorating, HIV treatment options were limited and the pressure to act was...
I am deeply conscious of how much knowledge many noble Lords have on this topic, knowledge that has often been tragically accumulated through their own personal experiences and those of their families. I pay tribute to those, both in this House and outside it, who have done so much to expose the scandal and to push for justice, including of course several noble Lords who have so eloquently spoken in this debate. If I may, I will briefly mention one other: my noble friend Lady Featherstone’s late sister, Della, who I remember as always such a smiling and happy person, but who was also such a formidable campaigner, driven by her own family’s tragedy. Of course, one issue of widespread concern, as the noble Lord, Lord Patten, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, in particular have touched on, is the speed with which compensation payments are being made and will be made, especially given the steady death toll, sadly, of victims of this tragedy. I very much welcomed the Government’s response when the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, of which I am a member, dug into this SI, confirming that they expect the “vast majority” of payments for infected people to be made by 2027 and for those affected by 2029. Last year, however, the noble Baroness, Lady Anderson, the Minister, went a little further on 19 March, when she talked of IBCA’s “aim to have made the majority of payments far ahead of those dates ”.-[ Official Report , 19/3/25; col. 1316.] I hope she might be able to...
My Lords, before I speak to the Motion to approve these regulations and to the regret amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, I want to begin by reflecting on the courage and tenacity of all infected and affected victims of the infected blood scandal. They have shown immense strength in the course of their long campaign, and they deserve justice without delay. There is one point that ought to be made at the outset: the previous Minister for the Cabinet Office rightly placed great store by the delivery of infected blood compensation and repeatedly presented it as a central priority. Victims are now entitled to ask where it leaves them. Not only do they have to live with the uncertainty that inevitably accompanies a change of Government but the latest figures demonstrate that the pace and consistency of compensation payments remain well behind where they should be. After everything these families have endured, they should not be expected to endure yet more uncertainty about when justice will finally arrive. I thank the Minister and the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, both for their time and for putting the victims at the centre of their remarks. Our shared, cross-party objective of delivering justice for the victims is why we are having this debate, and we will continue to work constructively to maintain that consensus across the main parties. As the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, notes in her amendment, we should recognise the progress made by the Government...
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent
My Lords, before I start, I put on record that I am in awe of the noble Baroness, Lady Davies, and her speech. I can only imagine how difficult it was for her to stand up and do that. She demonstrates what we have all listened to on many occasions: the pain and heartbreak, and why we are actually here, because behind each statistic that is so easy for us to talk about there is a family still grieving for their loved one. We are so grateful that she and the noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone -I will call her my noble friend-are here to remind us every day of the realities. I also put on record my personal thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell, who is not able to be with us today. She makes sure that, every day, she speaks truth to power on behalf of everybody who is suffering. I thank all of them for doing so. Many points have been raised. I am really aware that this is the first time I have done a timed SI and that this is such an emotive issue, so I may not be able to answer every point. As ever, I will reflect on Hansard and write, but I want to put a couple of things on record. When we discuss the issues of infected blood, we know that people are listening to us to make sure of what the Government are saying and that we are sticking with what we have promised, so I want to make sure of that too. In answer to a very important point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, I want to make it clear that the £11.8 billion allocated by the previous Chancellor of the...
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Davies of Devonport, for her very moving contribution about her mother’s own experience, reminding us of the consequences of stigma, hidden infections and diseases such as hepatitis not being identified, which meant that she could not be treated. I understand what it took for the noble Baroness to give that speech, but it was very powerful. I am sorry that the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell of Surbiton, cannot be here this afternoon, and I pay tribute to her many decades of campaigning for justice for victims of contaminated blood. My noble friend Lady Featherstone’s family’s experience was sobering for us all and a reminder of the real impact of this. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Patten, for his informed contribution, which stressed the urgency of resolving the many outstanding issues, and I am grateful to the Minister for responding to that. The noble Baronesses, Lady Finlay and Lady Bennett, both spoke movingly about the bigger picture; we must not lose sight of that. The noble Lord, Lord Doyle, reminded us of the progress that has been made. I apologise that my speech did not talk much about progress-there has been some. My concern is what is still outstanding. The noble Lord, Lord Pack, made a very important point about inflation, which I hope the Minister can look at. I thank the Minister for her measured and caring approach, as ever. This is something on which we all want to work together, but today’s debate has demonstrated...
Amendment to the Motion withdrawn.
Motion agreed.