Gill Furniss MP: speeches

Speeches

• 18 Jun 2026 · Infected Blood Compensation Scheme · Hansard source

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  We find ourselves at a critical juncture in time as we approach the laying of the final amendments to the scheme in the fourth set of regulations. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham and Chislehurst (Clive Efford) for securing the debate and all the work that he and the all-party parliamentary group on haemophilia and contaminated blood have done. I also pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North and Cottingham (Dame Diana Johnson) who ably led the APPG previously for her years of tireless campaigning and to the Minister for the countless hours he has spent working on this issue and his willingness to engage with me and other hon. Members every time we speak to him. The infected blood scandal has rightly been described by the chair of the infected blood inquiry Sir Brian Langstaff as the worst treatment disaster in the history of our national health service. Between the 1970s and the early 1990s, tens of thousands of people were knowingly exposed to unacceptable risks and infected with HIV, hepatitis B and hepatitis C. More than 30,000 patients received contaminated blood or clotting products, many of which were sourced from high-risk paid donors in the US, including prisoners and drug addicts. The result was catastrophic, claiming at least 2,900 lives. In some particularly horrifying cases, children as young as two were used as guinea pigs in clinical trials without the knowledge or consent of their parents. Doctors, the blood services and successive Governments did not put patient safety first. Many of those affected have had to live with the consequences of those failures for decades. One such person is my constituent John, who I know will be watching the debate. Like many hepatitis C patients, John was initially unaware of his illness. Once he became symptomatic, he spent 40 years desperately trying to figure out what was causing myriad inexplicable symptoms. The impact that that search for answers has had on every aspect of his life cannot be overstated. It was only after a chance conversation several years ago when a doctor offhandedly asked if he had ever received a blood transfusion that the truth came to light. John’s story is tragically mirrored in thousands of households across the country. The survivors and bereaved families have battled for justice for too long, but in May 2024 hope was brought to many of those homes when Sir Brian Langstaff delivered his landmark report. The previous Government committed to providing compensation to those infected and affected by this catastrophe, and this Government, on its election six weeks later, rightly set aside nearly £13 billion for compensation and rapidly launched a compensation scheme. Yet as we stand here over two years on from that final report, that promise remains unfulfilled for the vast majority. The sense of exhaustion, anger and desperation within the community is palpable. These issues could have been mitigated if, as Sir Brian wrote, “decisions about those who should receive compensation are not made without them.” The minimal involvement of the people affected in the development of the compensation scheme has introduced problems and injustices. The most urgent issue is the pace of delivery, which remains glacial. Out of 18,000 registered claims, just over 3,000 people have had compensation paid. Even more are still waiting to be invited to claim compensation. This has left tens of thousands of individuals in a state of agonising limbo, often in poor health and at the end of their lives, without any guidance about when their claim will start, praying that their case will be processed before it is too late. This is a particular concern for affected survivors who are unmarried and childless. The rule that their claim dies with them if they pass away before an offer is made is a source of total despair, and we must change it so that these claims become part of their estate. We cannot forget the stigma of HIV during this period and the impact that it would have had on victims’ personal lives. Will the Minister look at this, pressure the Infected Blood Compensation Authority to rapidly increase claims processing rates or provide additional resources for it to do so, and ensure that compensation payments are paid in line with the CPI measure of inflation? I fear that there are a number of inequities in the composition of the scheme that must be addressed. Under a provision called the special category mechanism, people can claim additional compensation for the financial loss and care costs that they have occurred as a result of their infection. However, this additional compensation applied only from 2017—an arbitrary administrative date inherited from a previous support scheme. I strongly believe that people should be compensated from the day that their harm occurred. If the Minister could confirm whether his Department is looking into this matter, or provide the Government’s justifications for maintaining this cut-off either today or later in writing, it would be most welcome. Furthermore, the evidential barriers placed before victims are often cruel and unnecessary. It is heartbreaking to hear of elderly mothers being asked to find 40-year-old school reports or GP letters to prove that they lived with children who died in the 1980s. These records often simply do not exist, and families are stuck in a loop of searching for the impossible while they themselves age and fall ill. We need a common-sense approach that relaxes these requirements, particularly for proven family relationships. Again, I would welcome the Minister’s assurance that the evidence requirements will be permissive and flexible to ensure that those eligible are not unduly excluded and to avoid retraumatising claimants. In a recent report, the National Audit Office found that there is currently no dedicated team within Government that has central oversight or offers support to those setting up or administrating compensation schemes, and victims have no route for formal redress. I support the National Audit Office’s call for a central oversight body for compensation schemes, and I hope that the Government will respond to its report in due course. The need for change is clear. Ultimately, there is only one way in which we can prevent a repeat of this sorry saga. I agree with others that we desperately need a Hillsborough law with a fully-fledged duty of candour to prevent institutional scandals and cover-ups from ruining even more people’s lives and to ensure that victims of the state get the justice they deserve at the time they need it.

• 3 Nov 2025 · Public Office (Accountability) Bill · Hansard source

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  My neighbours and members of my community were opening their doors to people and giving them cups of tea, because they were clearly in shock, and also letting them use their telephones to tell their loved ones that they had survived. At that time, I was about nine and a half months pregnant. My daughter was born on 1 May, and every year when that date comes around I think of those who did not have a daughter at home, whereas I was lucky enough to have my baby. Today is a very emotional day for Sheffield, or at least for me, as I remember how it was—as I remember that that happened in the city where I was born and the city that I love. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool West Derby for reminding me that the few little bits that we could do meant something to those people, and I will be ever proud of my constituents for what they did. The Bill is long overdue, and I apologise to the people sitting in the Gallery for that, because we should have done better in the past. For a long time, public bodies have not considered themselves to be accountable, which is why the word “accountability” is in the Bill’s title. I think we are now bringing home to people out there—people who work in other areas—the fact that they have always been accountable. We are just reminding them, and ensuring that there will be consequences for those who think that it does not apply to them, including prison sentences. That is only right. I feel today that we are putting right the wrongs that have been long with us in our society. I agree with those who have said, “This is having a go at the working class, because they do not know any better, they have no money, and they cannot easily get hold of legal aid”—which, indeed, does not even exist now. I should like to think that today is a celebration of the people who have campaigned tirelessly over the last 36 years, because without them, we would not be here. I say to them, “You guys were really tenacious as friends of the victims, and you have kept going and telling everyone what was wrong.” I absolutely concur with what Members have said about The Sun . I would never buy a copy of that paper, and I never have after that day, because the part that it played in this tragedy should be subject to an open inquiry so that we can see who collaborated in ensuring that it looked as though people were drunk, people were out of their heads on stuff and people had caused the tragedy, when they already knew that it was their fault. Let us never, ever see another such episode. I believe that the Bill is the way we will get through this, and that today will go down in history as the moment when the truth became known.

• 3 Nov 2025 · Public Office (Accountability) Bill · Hansard source

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  It has been a massive privilege to have all the families appearing with us today. Without their presence, this law would not be being passed. Let me also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool West Derby (Ian Byrne), my right hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool Garston (Maria Eagle), and all the Liverpudlian Members sitting behind me who have worked so hard over the years. The failure to hold public officials accountable when they are at fault has been the foundation of innumerable scandals in our history. Just a few of them are Orgreave, Windrush, Grenfell, the nuclear test veterans, the infected blood victims and the post office workers. All those people have suffered at the hands of the state through no fault of their own, but, to our eternal shame, their suffering has been compounded by indifference, inaction and, in some cases, malice on the part of the very bodies that are meant to serve and protect them. The need for change is clear. It is vital that we have a Hillsborough law worthy of the name, and I am very pleased that the Bill will meet that standard: I am certain that my colleagues on the Bill Committee and my colleagues in the other place will ensure that that happens. The introduction of a Hillsborough law was one of the most important manifesto commitments for me, if not the most important, and I greatly appreciate the Government’s affirmation that they will resist any attempts to water the Bill down. I believe that my colleagues and friends will do the same, and, as the Member of Parliament for Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough, I know that many of my constituents will strongly welcome that commitment. On 15 April 1989, we were home to the country’s biggest sporting disaster. At the time, I lived just around the corner from the football ground, and I have never forgotten that day. I went out to buy a card for my best friend’s birthday, and I was walking down my street just after it had happened, when people were leaving the ground. At my local shops there was one telephone box, and there must have been 80 to 100 people queuing up beside it, in complete silence. Not a word was being spoken. As I carried on towards home, it became apparent that the people walking around in our community were completely dazed and traumatised by what they had seen happening on that day.