Former health secretary says he was misled over infected blood scandal
A Tory former health secretary has said he was misled over the infected blood scandal as he apologised for the “pain and misery” caused to victims and their families.
Lord Lansley said ministers were “repeatedly advised that something was true which was not true”.
He was backed in this by Lords deputy leader Earl Howe, a former health minister, who said it raised questions over the advice given by officials.
More than 30,000 people were infected with deadly viruses between the 1970s and early 1990s as they received blood transfusions or blood products while receiving NHS care.
The 2,527-page report from the Infected Blood Inquiry, published on Monday, found the infected blood scandal “could largely have been avoided” and there was a “pervasive” cover-up to hide the truth.
Some 3,000 people have since died.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak issued a “wholehearted and unequivocal” apology to the victims on Monday, saying the publication of the report into the disaster was “a day of shame for the British state”.
Speaking at Westminster, Lord Lansley (pictured) said: “As a former secretary of state for health can I say that I very much share in the sense of failure that was forcibly expressed by the Prime Minister.
“Can I say from my own personal point of view how sorry I am for the pain and misery that so many of the victims and their families have experienced.”
As health secretary back in 2011, he had announced extra financial support for people infected with hepatitis C after receiving contaminated blood products.
Lord Lansley said: “We believed… that we were substantially enhancing the level of support payments, the relief that would be provided to victims and their families and meeting many of their needs.
“Clearly it was inadequate.”
He told peers ministers were led to believe the higher level of compensation made in the Republic of Ireland was not needed “because we did not share the same liability”.
Lord Lansley said: “That was clearly not true.
“Ministers were repeatedly advised that something was true which was not true.
“That is not to absolve us because we take responsibility as secretaries of state for our departments and for what has been done or failed to be done during our time in office.
“Collectively we must accept that responsibility.
“But I think inside Government this must be a case of never letting the scale of that failure within Government to be repeated in the future in any other circumstances.”
Lord Howe said: “Both he and I were advised at the time that there was no comparability between the situation in the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom, the situations were entirely different.
“That was not true, but that was the advice that we received.”
He added: “It does raise the question of how was it that successive ministers of health and secretaries of state for health… were advised in the way that they were by officials.
“This is a question that merits the closest scrutiny and I undertake that that will be done.”
Liberal Democrat Baroness Featherstone’s nephew died aged 35 after being infected with hepatitis C, leaving at the time a 10-month-old daughter.
She expressed her “admiration and heartfelt thanks” to inquiry chairman Sir Brian Langstaff “because he really didn’t hold his punches”.
She also praised former prime minister Theresa May, who she worked with as a minister in the Home Office, for ordering the inquiry back in 2017.
Lady Featherstone said of its damning findings: “It felt like a day of reckoning. That justice had finally been done.”
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