Compensation payments for infected blood will begin this year | Politics | news

The first payments of a long-awaited scheme to compensate victims of the tainted blood scandal will take place before the end of the year, with some receiving more than £2m.

Paymaster-General Nick Thomas-Symonds pledged to “move swiftly to deliver such cruelly delayed compensation”.

Writing in the Sunday Express, he said: “It will be a historic moment when the first victims receive compensation after decades of pain, strife and disappointment.”

But campaigners urged the Government to speed up the payments, warning that victims had waited 40 years for justice.

Thousands of people contracted HIV, hepatitis or both after receiving contaminated blood, blood products and tissues between the 1970s and the late 1990s. The scandal was highlighted by a Sunday Express campaign.

More than £1bn has already been paid out in interim compensation, but the full scheme is not yet in place despite a public inquiry led by Judge Sir Brian Langstaff concluding in April 2023 that it should be “set up now “.

Thomas-Symonds will table a motion in the Commons on Wednesday to allow payments to be made.

He said: “The infected blood scandal, which saw thousands of people receive infected blood or blood products during the 1970s and 1980s, is one of the most serious injustices in our national history. “

He added: “By enacting this compensation scheme, the Government is legally bound to carry out the scheme and deliver compensation.

“While all of this is important, it means nothing if people don’t get their compensation quickly and efficiently. We are determined to put money in people’s pockets, building on the interim payments that have already been made done”.

Andy Evans, chairman of campaign group Tainted Blood which represents more than 2,000 victims, said the Government and the Infected Blood Compensation Authority (IBCA) should speed up payments.

He said: “Those infected and many of those affected, such as parents and widows, are getting older and their hopes have been raised after Sir Brian Langstaff’s admirable report and recognition of what we have all suffered, now only to deal with further delay and apparent extra administrative burdens of the application process, which is only now being tested.

“We recognize that this will have significant budgetary implications for the Government, but it is one that successive governments have shied away from.

“We are working as closely as possible with the IBCA to assist and welcome the good communications that are finally emerging, but ultimately we ask for expediency.”