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.

• 21 May 2026 · Family Justice System: Domestic Abuse and Safeguarding · Hansard source

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  Order. I remind hon. Members to bob if they wish to be called.

• 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 Sept 2025 · Duty of Candour for Public Authorities and Legal Representation for Bereaved Families · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mrs Hobhouse. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool West Derby (Ian Byrne) for securing this important debate. As the MP for Sheffield and Hillsborough, who was living locally at the time, I will never forget the harrowing scenes—things that people really should never see—with many people just roaming around our area in complete shock. I pay tribute to the many neighbours who helped by letting people into their houses, giving them cups of tea and allowing them to phone to reassure their parents and families that they were okay. No family should ever have to face the indifference, the lies and the avoidable trauma that the survivors of Hillsborough and the families of the 97 have experienced. I recall the debate we had on the Hillsborough families report more than two and a half years ago and the warm words and cross-party support on display for the Hillsborough law then. But warm words are comforting for only so long and, after 36 years of waiting the families deserve both the truth and justice. That was why I was proud to stand on a manifesto committing to the Hillsborough law. Beyond that manifesto commitment, the Prime Minister pledged in 2022 that “one of my first acts as Prime Minister will be to put the Hillsborough law on the statute book”. We are now a quarter of the way through the potential lifespan of this Parliament and, while I appreciate that the legislative process takes time, we have not seen any public progress on that commitment. To me, our manifesto pledge was a clear commitment to the Public Authority (Accountability) Bill of 2017, which was tabled by the former Member for Leigh and subsequently re-tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool West Derby. Importantly, we are in a position where we have a Prime Minister who has taken silk and is a former Director of Public Prosecutions. There is no man more eminently qualified to judge the Hillsborough law on its merits than him, and I trust that he would have considered the viewpoints of these anonymous detractors before making public promises. The speculation about what form the Hillsborough law may take is only rampant due to an information vacuum that has regrettably been allowed to exist. Can the Minister outline for us, either today or later in writing, the timeline for the implementation of the Hillsborough law and commit to publishing a draft of that law, to give us proper time to review the Government’s proposals? It is vital that we get this right.