Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)

I thank my noble friend for her work in getting us to this point. We put on record our thanks to her, the noble Earl, Lord Howe, and the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, as the leading negotiators making sure we got to this point. My noble friend was not allowed to say sorry, but I can say sorry to those people who have been affected by this. I get to do that because of the fights that she had. For that, I am grateful; I do not have to have so many fights with my civil servants. With regard to transparency, noble Lords will appreciate that we are talking about a cohort of people who have been affected by infected blood and who have no trust. Rightly, there is no reservoir of good will. We have to be as transparent and open as we possibly can to make sure that they know what is happening, why it is happening, at what speed and in what process. While the speed may be a challenge, we have to make sure that it is in place. One thing that I have not said yet but wanted to put on record is that, as of 1 October, staff at IBCA are now directly employed and are no longer seconded civil servants. They are now public servants who work for IBCA. I think that helps lead to transparency of and trust in IBCA. In addition to the fact that we publish everything—the reviews are making sure that we are able to do that, including transparent publication in relation to the technical expert group meeting minutes—everything we are doing is trying to rebuild trust with that community.