Tessa Munt

The Minister will see my pile of papers, which I hope are criticisms that I never have to raise again. I welcome his statement and the work being done, particularly by Sir Brian Langstaff and others. I also welcome his intention to listen to and work with the infected blood community. This scandal remains the worst treatment disaster in the history of our national health service, and it is a source of shame for successive Governments and for the health service. We have heard from our constituents, who have been let down by medical professionals and the NHS. In many cases, they were victims of deliberate malpractice and cover-up. All those warnings about unsafe blood were ignored and officials failed to inform patients. In many cases, those patients paid, or are still paying, with their lives. An estimated 30,000 victims suffered, and that suffering was compounded by the further injustice of having to wait decades for compensation. As of my latest data, I understand that six times as many people have died waiting for justice as have benefited from this scheme. I hope the Minister can update me with a slightly more accurate figure. Payments to date have been made at an infuriatingly glacial pace. I would like to ask the Minister about the timelines for delivering compensation. Can he reaffirm that all eligible victims—all 30,000—will receive compensation by 2029? Will he confirm that the consultation he will undertake will not delay in any way or affect the speed at which the payments are being made? More specifically, I have challenged him before about the 916 victims of the special category mechanism. Are they in a different state from the advice given in August last year? Have things changed completely from the situation in February this year, when the rules changed? I just want to check something that I am not entirely clear about. With the Infected Blood Compensation Authority, the current approach was that people could not apply for compensation, and you are now saying that they can and that they will not have to wait—