Lord Patten (Con)

My Lords, I listened with great care to what the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, said, and I should begin by saying I agree with all the words of regret in her amendment. It seems clear to me that, in recent responses to public inquiries, delay, obfuscation, the rewriting and scrambling of old regulations and the belated—“Oh, good heavens, we didn’t notice that!”—introduction of new regulations are leading to the most painful experiences. Earlier this month, it was not on infected blood but on people in the Post Office who have suffered terribly by delays. There was a postmistress—forgive me, I do not remember her name—who was lamenting the fact that she had been promised compensation, apologies and then suddenly her husband, who was also a postmaster, died. Earlier in March, she was lamenting that justice had not been done because justice had been delayed. I know it is not meant to be like that and I do not intend to say that people are malicious, but, when I attended the infected blood inquiry for a bit and, in particular, listened to Sir Brian Langstaff, the chairman, who did such a tip-top job in bringing forward his recommendations, he had a very clear charge sheet for how it was all to be done—but it has not happened. He must regret that very much, and I think that those who are due compensation and an apology must be lamenting. Of course, many of them are quite advanced in years and, as the years pass, people die and, just like with the postmaster husband of the unfortunate postmistress widow to whom I have just referred, with great respect, I fear that we are going to see more people at risk of not getting their compensation or their apology and dying because of these new regulations that have been brought in, I believe unnecessarily. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, on what she has done. I have two requests only. They are pointed requests, but I make no apology for that. The first is to ask the Minister by when—specifically, in which month, in which year—she expects all compensation for the persons infected by blood whom we are talking about to have been completed. If we do not have that, we have no measure of whether these regulations are effective. Equally, could she give me her best estimate, in a letter, perhaps, in her normal courteous way, if she cannot manage it tonight, for understandable reasons, of how long it will take to complete, to the nearest month and the nearest year, for all those carers who also seem to be horribly caught up in this endemic delay, following Sir Brian Langstaff’s recommendations which are now growing old, as people themselves are growing old?