The government has published its report into the infected blood scandal, saying it will pass legislation this month and expect compensation by the end of the year for victims.
The long-running scandal saw thousands given infected blood, leading to infections and diseases which killed many. It has been reported that 30,000 have been infected with with HIV, hepatitis C and/or hepatitis B and more than 3,000 died, according to The Hepatitis C Trust.
The previous government launched a review, with Sir Keir Starmer promising to conclude it and pay up, after being elected.
In its review which concluded in May, the scandal was branded an “unprecedented systematic failing”, with the previous government making payments of £100,000 in October 2022, and £210,000 in June 2024.
In May, a compensation scheme was announced, after Sir Robert Francis KC led an independent review. As a conclusion, the government said there will be five different categories for compensation .
Former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak called the scandal a “day of shame”, as the previous paymaster general committed to start payments this year.
Later this month, legislation will be passed, with compensation being given in two phases, one by the end of the year, and the second in 2025.
Paymaster general Nick Thomas-Symonds said: This is an important milestone for victims and campaigners who have waited too long for justice.
“We’re going to do everything possible to deliver compensation quickly.
This morning, the government agreed individual payments of “£10,000 for those subjected to ‘unethical research’ identified by the Infected Blood Inquiry.
One particularly harrowing example of this is the treatment at Lord Mayor’s Treloar’s College, where almost 100 children with haemophilia were infected with HIV and Hepatitis C in the 1980s.”
“Sir Robert recommended that there will be a higher award of £15,000 for children who were subjected to research while resident at Lord Mayor’s Treloar’s College. The government agrees with him, and these payments will be included in the Scheme.
Thomas-Symonds did not put a figure on the total cost when asked by Times Radio, but said more than £1bn had already been paid out.
“The total estimate will be set out in the Budget red book because there is still work to do on that,” he said.
Speaking on Times Radio, he added that “no amount of money can ever make up for what happened there or indeed what has happened to people across the community or people who’ve lost children and other relatives, of course not.”
“But what the government is putting forward here is a recommendation from Sir Jonathan Montgomery and indeed Sir Robert Francis is a scheme that firstly will provide in so many cases money that is going to make a change in the lives of people.
“So for example someone with haemophilia who then contracts HIV and say Hepatitis C could get compensation of up to £2.8m. So the award you’re talking about which is the particular figure is part of a much larger amount and the reason the government has taken that figure is it’s the figure that Sir Robert Francis asked the government to consider for children at Tralaws College, that sum of £15,000.”
He added that “the government hasn’t reduced it, hasn’t altered it, we’ve accepted the recommendation. But the point I want to emphasise is that is only a very small amount of the totality of the money that people will get. But as I say that money will not make up for the horrific experiences people have been through.”
On the interim compensation he confirmed it is already “just over a billion pounds”.
Before October’s budget, he said “there is a figure of people that are already on the support schemes, there’s 3,500 infected people, 950 bereaved partners that we can already identify very clearly. But the affected people… that number now has to be ascertained.”
Richard Warwick, who was infected during experimental trials in a particularly egregious case at Treloar’s school, described a £15,000 offer as a “kick in the teeth” and said surviving pupils will consider taking legal advice.
Warwick was infected with HIV and hepatitis B after receiving blood products at the school as part of medical treatment for haemophilia, which he was diagnosed with at three years old.
“The surviving pupils had a chat,” he told the PA news agency. “I don’t know where they’ve plucked the figure from but we all think it is derisory and insulting.
“It is unbelievable and unfathomable where they got this figure from.”
He said it was “such a small amount” for a scandal that was “perhaps a breach of the Nuremberg (code)”.
Previously, law firms have said they would help victims with legal action over compensation claims.