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time and time again. The last time I spoke in an Adjournment debate the only Members present were waiting for a lift to Hampstead ; the fact that there are several hon. Members here tonight shows that there is disquiet, and I hope that the Minister--Mr. Tam Dalyell (Linlithgow) : Hear, hear.
Sir Geoffrey Johnson Smith (Wealden) : My hon. Friend will be aware that many hon. Members who are not here tonight warmly support what he has said and want further action from the Government.
Mr. Marshall : I thank my hon. Friend for that short, pertinent and welcome observation, and I thank the hon. Member--I shall not be so indiscreet as to mention his name--who said, "Hear, hear," from a sedentary position.
I thank the House for the way in which this debate has been received.
10.15 pm
Mr. Hugo Summerson (Walthamstow) rose --
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker) : Does the hon. Gentleman have the consent of the hon. Member for Hendon, South (Mr. Marshall) and of the Minister?
Mr. Summerson : I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon, South (Mr. Marshall) and the Minister for giving me one minute in which to speak.
I cannot understand the Government's obduracy over this matter. I can understand the legal frame of mind that shrinks from anything that implies liability, but the lawyers who fear liability should turn their minds to finding a way that would permit payments without imputing liability. If the will exists, the words will be found. I have at least one HIV-infected haemophiliac in my constituency. His story wrings the heart. He and the others are suffering grievously through no fault of their own. They need a generous and just sum to enable them to live out the rest of their lives in some comfort and dignity. I should like to add my voice to that of my hon. Friend and appeal to Ministers--including my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State--to take whatever action is necessary to ensure that that comes about.
10.16 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Mr. Stephen Dorrell) : My hon. Friend the Member for Hendon, South (Mr. Marshallhas used the opportunity of this first Adjournment debate of the autumn term to draw attention to an issue of undoubted public concern. I shall begin by trying to sketch out what I see as the common ground between him, the Haemophilia Society and Ministers. I am struck by the extent of the common ground between us on this subject.
First, it is clearly common ground that this story represents a terrible human tragedy, made more poignant by the fact that its cause was that people came to the NHS to receive treatment intended to enhance their lives and it ended up shortening them. There is sometimes a tendency for Ministers to reply to debates of this sort by citing statistics and legalistic arguments, and I shall have
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something to say about the Government's legal position in a few moments, but I begin by reminding the House of the facts. We are talking about 1,200 men and women who sought care from the NHS and received a lethal dose. We are talking about people who relied on the expertise of health professionals and--although they could not have known this at the time--found it wanting. We are talking about 1,200 families of people who were already sick and who looked to the NHS for hope and found it cruelly snuffed out. Of course my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State and I feel a profound sympathy for the people caught up in this tragedy. He and I want to help, and of course we both feel these basic human emotions. However, those emotions do not add up to a policy.As I have discovered in the last six months, it is part of the lot of a Health Minister to witness a wide variety of human devastation. If my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon, South doubts that, I invite him to come with me on some of my visits to national health service installations, where I see people whose lives have been permanently scarred by spinal injuries or mental handicap that may have been caused at the moment of birth. A visit to the patients in any children's hospital is also enlightening. One learns quickly that a Health Minister cannot right all wrongs, because that object is not achievable. All that we can do is to offer the best health care within the resources that are available.
My hon. Friend asked us to look again at the judge's statement on which he placed some weight. Much of what Mr. Justice Ognall said in that statement gives rise to no disagreement from the Government. He said :
"The plight of the plaintiffs--or many of them--is a special one : (a) All of them suffer from or live in the shadow of a fatal condition for which there is presently no known cure."
That is obviously true. The judge said :
"Many have already died, and in the nature of things many more will die without knowing the outcome of this litigation. It seems to me, at least, that this factor should be treated as cardinally important."
As I shall show, the Government have already acted on that understanding. The judge said :
"It is common ground that all plaintiffs are entirely blameless I believe that the legal profession has a duty to do its best to see that the legal system does not become a scapegoat in the eyes of the public for what I fear may be perceived as the unjust and inhumane denial of any significant measure of compensation to the plaintiffs. The law must take its course' is not an attractive principle in the context of this case."
I agree with all those quotations. The judge's argument is based on the proposition that the Government have a moral obligation to the victims in this case. The Government accept that moral obligation and that is why funds have been made available, first in 1987 and again last year, to the Macfarlane Trust. Those funds were made available well ahead of this litigation and made possible a minimum payment of £20,000 to each person affected and assistance to families in need. We gave an undertaking, repeated many times, that the Government will review that assistance to ensure that it is adequate to meet the case. The total already amounts to £34 million.
Mr. John Marshall : Will my hon. Friend give way?
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Mr. Marshall : I know that my hon. Friend will give way only once. Will he underline his statement that the Government are willing to reconsider the amount of assistance? That is very important.
Mr. Dorrell : As I have already said, the Government have repeatedly said that they will keep under constant review the payments made to the Macfarlane Trust and the fund attached to it to ensure that they match the case. Our track record demonstrates that in practice we have done that.
The judge argued that there is a moral obligation and, outside the context of their case, the plaintiffs also argue that case. The Government accept that obligation and acted on it well in advance of the litigation, and that reflects the sense of urgency that has been argued in support of the case. Once again, that argument gives rise to no disagreement. The disagreement between the parties is not over the principle of moral obligation, because all are agreed on that. Apart from the court case, the disagreement is over the level of compensation that will discharge the moral obligation.
We must acknowledge that here we are in difficult country and that legal practice simply does not help. The courts can help us with the amount of compensation that is payable in cases where a person is proved to have been negligent. In this case, the Government and all the defendants in the action deny negligence and we are left with the question about the level of compensation that will discharge the moral obligation.
That raises the more fundamental question--and one that is not capable of being settled by a law court : What is the value of life? The court asks not that question, but what is the amount of compensation necessary to put a plaintiff in the position in which he would have been before the damage caused by negligence. That is not the question in this case and it is not relevant when considering a moral obligation. The only disagreement is the level of payments necessary to discharge that moral obligation--a matter that, in the nature of things, can be only a matter of judgment.
My hon. Friend the Member for Hendon, South referred to the thalidomide case. That was a different case, because the payments were made in settlement of a negligence action. They were explicitly and closely linked to the scale of damages payable where negligence is proved. That would not be right in this case, because it is the defendant's view that there was no negligence. Against that background, it would be wrong to link payments made in discharge of a moral obligation to payments that would have been made in the event of a successful negligence action.
It is also argued that there should be no-fault compensation. People say, "Why inquire about fault? There is an injured party, so why not just pay damages?" That raises two points. First, even those who support the principle of no-fault compensation do not support the suggestion that, in the event of compensation being paid in cases where no fault is proved, that compensation should reflect the damages that would have been paid if negligence were proved. No one has argued that that would be the proper quantum for damages. Secondly, the whole issue of no-fault compensation was extensively examined by a
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royal commission--the Pearson committee in 1978--and rejected. Its advice has been accepted by Governments of both parties.I strongly believe that this is a sad case. The moral obligation exists and has been acknowledged by the Government. The argument is not one of principle against a moral obligation. However, there remains another disagreement, and it is the subject of the action before Mr. Justice Ognall. Some 1,000 victims and their families are suing the Government and other defendants for negligence. They are perfectly entitled to do so, and I make no complaint about it. It would be unwise to comment on the detail of the action. However, I wish to comment in general terms about why I am in no doubt that the action should be resisted. As I have already stressed, it is based not on a moral responsibility--that is not in dispute--but on alleged negligence by the Department of Health, the national health service and others. That is a quite different proposition. Each case is individual and the Government cannot simply admit negligence where they believe that none exists.
I have studied the background. I am not a lawyer, but as a layman I do not believe that, in common sense, the negligence claim stands up, not least because it has not been shown what more attractive alternative action was available at the time. What more attractive alternative decision would have been sensible on the basis of the evidence then available? When reviewing the papers, time
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and again I asked myself whether, on the information available at the time, I would have acted differently. Time and again, I could only answer, "No." Ultimately, it is for the court to decide whether there has been a case of negligence. If the individual plaintiffs believe that negligence exists, it is not for a politician to interfere. However, I have seen no evidence of that and therefore I believe that it is right to resist the claim of negligence, while acknowledging the moral obligation--as we do.I see a sad story of people trying to help and, unwittingly, making matters worse. I see clearly a case in which the Government have tried to discharge --and, indeed, have discharged--a moral obligation to act. I cannot accept that that moral obligation is affected by an independent belief by some victims that they have a claim in negligence.
10.29 pm
Mr. Tam Dalyell (Linlithgow) : It is 12 long years since the Pearson commission reached its conclusions and thinking has moved on since then. A great many hon. Members, some of whom could not be here tonight, support the hon. Member for Hendon, South (Mr. Marshall)-- The motion having been made after Ten o'clock and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. Deputy Speaker-- adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order. Adjourned at half-past Ten o'clock.
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