Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has apologised “sincerely and unequivocally” to the victims of the contaminated blood scandal, saying it was “a day of shame for the British state.”
The Prime Minister apologised in a packed House of Commons hours after Brian Langstaff published his report accusing the British government of covering up the disaster.
Sunak spared no element of the British government in his criticism, which highlighted the blunders of ministers, civil servants and the NHS. However, he himself faced accusations that he had added to the victims’ pain by failing to set up a compensation scheme a year ago when Langstaff first proposed it. He said:
This is a day of shame for the British state. Today’s report shows a decades-long moral failure at the heart of our national life – from the National Health Service to the civil service to ministers in successive governments at every level – that people and institutions in which we place our trust failed in the most harrowing and devastating way.
Sunak also added:
This is an apology from the state – to every single person impacted by this scandal. It did not have to be this way; it should never have been this way. And on behalf of this and every government stretching back to the 1970s, I am truly sorry.
Ministers will announce on Tuesday how much money they will allocate to compensate victims and their families. Sunak promised on Monday:
Whatever it costs to deliver this scheme, we will pay it.
He was speaking after Langstaff presented the findings of his 2,500-page report at Westminster’s Central Methodist Hall. The report says much of the damage caused by the scandal “was avoidable” but successive governments have “failed to put patient safety first”.
Sunak’s speech in the Commons followed a string of apologies by prime ministers on behalf of the British state, including David Cameron’s apology for the Bloody Sunday massacre and the Hillsborough tragedy.
On Tuesday, John Glen, director general of payments, will tell all about the compensation scheme. Earlier, Sunak has authorised payments of around £10bn, which will be funded by additional borrowing and accounted for as capital expenditure to avoid breaching the Government’s borrowing targets.
History of the scandal’s origins
The mass human infections occurred in the 1970s and 1980s. Most of the victims suffered from haemophilia, or a blood clotting disorder, and were injected with a drug called clotting factor VIII, a gene defect in which can lead to haemophilia. The US produced the drug, where high-risk people, including drug users and prisoners, often became donors. Donated blood had no HIV tests until 1986 and no hepatitis C tests until 1991. And one carrier of the virus is enough to spoil the entire batch, Sky News reports.
By August 2022, some 5,000 witnesses in the case had given evidence, at which point the authorities promised to pay victims £100,000 at least.
