Ian Sollom MP: speeches

Speeches

• 1 Sept 2026 · Criminal Justice Reform · Hansard source

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  I welcome the Lord Chancellor’s announcement of investment in the Probation Service. Will he lay out what the Government are doing specifically to fix the vetting delays and staff attrition problems that have kept levels broadly stable despite previous investment, and will he commit to a date by which Cambridgeshire and Peterborough will exit prioritisation?

• 6 Jul 2026 · Payment Scheme · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister for his continued commitment to improving the compensation scheme and for keeping the House up to date on its progress. I know that he takes this matter seriously, and I hope that we will see him continue to do so after the summer recess. We Liberal Democrats welcome many of the changes being made today, as we welcomed the previous changes made in April. The infected blood scandal is the biggest treatment disaster in NHS history, and such a disaster should never be allowed to happen again. The suffering inflicted on infected and affected people was, and still is, immeasurable. It was compounded by a cover-up that no amount of compensation will ever truly make up for, but it can go some way. After all this time, it must happen quickly, fully and fairly. Unfortunately, the experience of too many of those impacted is that that is not currently happening. Today I would like to draw attention to some significant omissions still missing from the legislation, and I hope that the Minister will take them on board in his efforts to achieve justice for everyone impacted by this scandal. I will share some stories from my constituents by way of example. The first is the lack of a dedicated care award for living affected persons. One of my constituents infected with hepatitis C 30 years ago has repeatedly raised with me her concern about elderly affected carers who are still alive and providing care. Three decades on from her infection, her mother continues to live with her and provides care daily, yet there is no separate pathway for her to claim compensation for this. To possibly pre-empt the Minister’s response that care awards can be applied for through claims made as an infected person, I would argue that this method only works if it is performed at pace. We know that the speed of compensation is not what it should be. My constituent tells me that it is “painful to contemplate” that she “may not receive compensation in time to meaningfully support or repay” her elderly mother “after a lifetime shaped by…infection.” I would be interested to hear from the Minister what consideration the Department has given to calls for a dedicated care award paid directly to eligible living affected persons, and why, while simultaneously promising to speed up compensation, he is continuing to compensate carers only through this complex existing pathway. Also missing from the regulations are measures to remove the impossible evidentiary demands currently in place, such as requiring victims to produce non-existent records, forcing elderly and grieving parents to go through complex online verification processes, or parents of children who died as a result of infected blood products being asked to prove that they lived with their child at the time. By way of example, I have a constituent whose father received blood transfusions following a severe car accident in 1989. He contracted hepatitis C and subsequently died from leukaemia in 2007. The records of his treatment across two hospitals have been destroyed, and his daughter has reached a complete impasse in trying to claim compensation for this incredibly traumatic series of events. I appreciate that some of this was only raised with the Minister very recently, but I do wonder if he might tell the House what steps he has taken to urgently investigate those reports and what steps he is taking to ensure that no victim is retraumatised and prevented from being served justice by having to provide impossible evidence. I have on several occasions raised my constituents’ concerns about disparities in compensation for different diseases. One of my constituents has lived without his mother for 25 years after she died from hepatitis C in 1998, and he questions why claiming in her case involves complex severity bands whereas claiming for a living infected person with HIV is done through one single band. Can the Minister clarify whether he is still considering where there may be broader structural differences within the scheme and how they might be addressed? My final, broader, point is that there are very few accountability mechanisms in place for infected and affected people to genuinely hold both IBCA and the Cabinet Office to account. Both have been responsive when I pass along letters from my constituents, but that does prompt the question of why they were not so responsive when the constituents made contact themselves. Victim and patient voices matter, and they must be listened to at every level. We Liberal Democrats would mandate integrated care boards to include patient voices at board level through organisations such as Healthwatch, and we share the disappointment of many impacted by the infected blood scandal that the Government have consistently, it seems, listened to the advice of the technical expert group over the lived experience of hundreds of victims. We need to end the culture of cover-up exposed by the infected blood inquiry and other scandals by immediately introducing that legislation to impose a statutory duty of candour on all public officials and establishing a patient safety taskforce to improve data sharing, analyse patient risk and co-ordinate safety responsibilities. I therefore ask the Minister for an update on the progress of the Hillsborough law and stress once again the urgency of getting it through this place. In closing, I pay tribute to every victim of this awful scandal and reiterate calls from across the House for IBCA to work faster to ensure that justice is served for all.