Penny Mordaunt said she does not believe the Government has been dragging its feet on the issue of paying full compensation to those affected by the NHS infected blood scandal.
She was giving evidence to the Infected Blood Inquiry, as bereaved relatives of victims of the scandal called on the Government to pay wider compensation.
The current Commons Leader, formerly the minister responsible for the Infected Blood Inquiry as paymaster general between February 2020 and September 2021, insisted there was “no let-up” in her time in the role.
But she also described how she had tried and failed to secure a meeting with then chancellor Rishi Sunak and other Treasury ministers about preparing for the possibility of paying compensation in 2020, with Government bandwidth “very stretched” by the pandemic.
Ms Mordaunt said the Covid pandemic had been an “all-consuming” issue, and there was a “pretty chaotic situation” at the Treasury and Department of Health at the time.
I do not think there is any delay to moving as quickly as we can on these matters— Penny Mordaunt
Concerns of delays in the Government’s approach to compensation were put to Ms Mordaunt, and she was asked if, hypothetically, the Government was deliberately dragging its feet, whether that would be morally objectionable.
Ms Mordaunt replied saying “yes”, it would be, but added: “That has not been my experience in my current role.”
Elsewhere in her evidence, she said: “I do not think there is any delay to moving as quickly as we can on these matters, and it would have been pointless to have set up this inquiry and the (compensation framework) study not to then proceed with making redress.”
The inquiry was established in 2017 to examine how thousands of patients in the UK were infected with HIV and hepatitis C through contaminated blood products in the 1970s and 1980s.
About 2,900 people died in what has been labelled the worst treatment disaster in the history of the NHS.
Inquiry chairman Sir Brian Langstaff has said that an interim compensation scheme should be widened so more people – including orphaned children and parents who lost children – could be compensated.
Sir Brian said in April that he was taking the unusual step of publishing the recommendation ahead of the publication of the full report into the scandal so that victims would not face any more delays.
Under the initial scheme, victims themselves or bereaved partners can receive an interim payment of around £100,000.
The inquiry has recommended the Government establish an arms-length compensation body now and definitely before the final report in the autumn.
The evidence session heard how Ms Mordaunt wrote to Mr Sunak when he was chancellor on July 13 2020 saying: “I believe it to be inevitable that the Government will need to provide substantial compensation. The costs are likely to be high.”
“I believe we should begin preparing for this now, before the inquiry reports,” she said in the letter.
Ms Mordaunt told the inquiry she did not receive a written response, or even a formal acknowledgement to say it had been received, but she added there were “discussions between officials”.
The lack of a response would have been unusual at other times, she said, but noted the situation was “not normal” during the pandemic.
She then wrote again in September 2020, saying: “I cannot stress enough the urgency of taking long overdue action on financial support and compensation.”
In a handwritten addition to the letter, she wrote: “We have ideas about a solution to this and have been trying for some time to secure a meeting with you.”
I think that there is a moral obligation to address the many issues that those affected by this have, and I am very conscious that that can't happen soon enough— Penny Mordaunt
In his written evidence to the inquiry, Mr Sunak said it was “unclear” whether he saw either of Ms Mordaunt’s letters, but that it was not uncommon for his correspondence to be filtered by ministers’ staff.
He said a holding response was sent to the second letter in September, but added “I do not know if anything else happened thereafter”.
On the time taken to commission a study looking at options for a framework for compensation, first announced in March 2021, Ms Mordaunt said: “This was against a backdrop of immense activity on that all-consuming issue of the pandemic.
“So I think that was a factor in terms of speed of response to things. But I think not an unreasonable one given how much bandwidth that that issue was absorbing in Government.”
Asked if in hindsight it took too long to commission the study, she said: “I think that everything about the situation has taken too long.
“In my shift as paymaster general I do not think we could have worked faster in thrashing out and dealing with some of these issues.”
She also told the inquiry: “I think that there is a moral obligation to address the many issues that those affected by this have, and I am very conscious that that can’t happen soon enough.”
Applause could be heard coming from the room when Ms Mordaunt’s evidence session came to an end.
