Nick Thomas-Symonds

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for his question. On the first point he makes about his constituent who has received a payment but without any clear explanation, one of the things the Government are committed to do is to try to make this whole process as clear as we possibly can. If he wants to write to me about that particular case, I can ensure that the explanation and, indeed, the correspondence is looked at appropriately. On my hon. Friend’s second point, he is absolutely right that the voice of victims must continue to be heard. I think the consultation exercise that took place during the general election campaign was hugely important. It is important that the Government listened and made the substantial changes to the scheme we have made on that basis. It is hugely important, too, that the voice of victims continues to be heard as the infected blood compensation scheme continues its work, and I know that is a shared priority for Sir Robert Francis. On the £15,000, can I also say that we accepted that recommendation in full from Sir Robert Francis? It is a marker of the appalling unethical medical research, but as I said in my response to the shadow Paymaster General, the overall awards, which appear under five different heads of loss, will of course be substantially larger, and that is a very small part of them.