More than £13bn promised for infected blood and Horizon scandal victims

Rachel Reeves made the announcement at the start of the Budget
The chancellor has announced the government is setting aside more than £13 billion to pay compensation to the victims of the infected blood and Horizon scandals.
Rachel Reeves made the announcement at the start of the first Labour Budget in almost 15 years, promising to set aside £11.8bn for the victims of the infected blood scandal with £1.8bn for the subpostmasters who were wrongly convicted by the Post Office.
During the announcement, the chancellor accused the Conservatives of not setting aside any money to pay for the compensation saying: “The Leader of the Opposition rightly made an unequivocal apology for the injustice of the infected blood scandal on behalf of the British state… but he did not budget for the costs of compensation.”
She said the announcement is “long overdue for the pain and injustice that they have suffered.”
The handling of the compensation schemes for both scandals has been criticised by victims and campaigners for taking too long.
Post Office CEO Nick Read told the Horizon Inquiry earlier this month he felt “deep regret” over how the compensation had been handled.
Earlier this week ITV News reported Parliament would launch an inquiry into the delays in providing the compensation to subpostmasters.
Between 1999 and 2015, more than 700 Post Office sub-postmasters were convicted of theft or false accounting and thousands more were forced to make up shortfalls due to a problem with Fujitsu’s Horizon software.
Four suicides were blamed on the scandal.
Former prime minister Rishi Sunak called it one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in British history, with Parliament overturning all of the convictions.
Those wrongfully convicted are eligible for compensation, along with more than 2,750 subpostmasters who have been affected by the scandal but not convicted.
The larger sum of money is being set aside for the infected blood scandal, which has been labelled the “worst treatment disaster in the NHS.”
Between 1970 and 1991 it’s thought up to 30,000 people were infected with HIV and Hepatitis C after they were treated with contaminated blood often bought from the US.
Those affected by the scandal are split into two groups.
The first group are people with haemophilia – experts believe 1,250 people contracted HIV and Hepatitis C.
Two-thirds then died of AIDS-related illnesses, with an unknown amount transferring HIV to their partners.
The second group were those given blood transfusions after childbirth or surgery – 27,000 of whom were infected with Hepatitis C.
In total, more than 3,000 people are known to have died.
Many of those who were infected had to give up their jobs and live on benefits because of health problems and many of these are now entitled to compensation.
The average package is expected to be around £100,000 but some are set to receive much more.
Jason Evans, director of Factor 8 – one of the leading infected blood campaigns – welcomed the Chancellor’s announcement and said while compensation costs may “seem high”, that is “because the scale of suffering, loss and death due to the scandal is high”.
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