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Lord Morris of Manchester: My Lords, how can we then defend the continued existence of the Macfarlane Fund for people with haemophilia infected with HIV?

Lord Filkin: My Lords, I am about to come to that point.

Lord Morris of Manchester: My Lords, I hope that my noble friend will also be referring to the vaccine damage payments scheme.

Lord Filkin: My Lords, comparisons have been made between the decision not to offer special payments to haemophiliacs with hepatitis C and the special payments established in the late-1980s for haemophiliacs with HIV and the ex gratia payments we are making to people with variant CJD and their families. However, the Government recognise that there are significant and real differences between those situations. I believe that the party of the noble Lord, Lord Astor, when in government, also recognised that point as they reached the identical judgment as this Government in those situations.

In the case of HIV we need to think back to the circumstances of the late 1980s when HIV had a vast and dramatic effect. It was a source of massive fear and stigma for all those who became infected. There was widespread public reaction. There was no treatment known or thought to be possible for it and death from AIDS related diseases was considered inevitable for all people who had HIV. That is not the situation for those with hepatitis C. It was in that context that special payments were introduced and the Macfarlane Trust was established. We see that as a reflection of those truly exceptional circumstances and the poor prognosis at the time for people with haemophilia who became infected with HIV.

Although the Government have agreed ex gratia payments for victims of variant CJD, the circumstances and background of that situation are again truly exceptional. Variant CJD is a particularly horrific condition. It is incurable. It is inevitably fatal

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and it is devastating in its effect on sufferers and their families, both to know that one has it and in the form of dying that follows from it. That, fortunately, is not the situation with hepatitis C. It therefore, does not change our longstanding policy on compensation for injuries caused by the NHS which I firmly believe is the right one.

The noble Lord, Lord Morris, referred to Justice Burton's judgment. In short, the judgment effectively found that there was a liability between the period of time when it was possible to introduce a cure and a cure was introduced, and when it was covered by the 1998 Act.

Mention has been made of the policy and practice of other countries. Clearly, the Government are tracking the position closely. There is not time to give chapter and verse on every other country that has made judgments. The vast majority of countries do not make compensation for haemophiliacs with hepatitis C. Those countries that do, such as Canada and Ireland, particularly focus compensation on periods when they believed that they had negligence in relation to the delay in introducing treatment to blood plasma products after it was found possible to so treat them and reduce the risk of infection from hepatitis C.

The noble Lord called for a public inquiry. In essence, the Government's position on that is that there is nothing of fundamental significance that we do not know about a public inquiry that would be brought out by it. The Government did not take part in a whitewash in 1997-98. There was a serious attempt by officials and Ministers to look afresh at the decisions that were taken by the previous government to establish whether they raised anything that required to be considered afresh. That was done fully and carefully. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Morris, regrets the fact that the position was not changed.

Reference has been made to the position of the noble Lord, Lord Owen, as Minister responsible for health, in relation to self-sufficiency in blood plasma products. Again, time does not allow me to go into full details. However, the essence is that at that time all blood plasma products were infected, we believe, with hepatitis C, and whether they had been imported or not would not have fundamentally affected the vulnerability of haemophiliacs to infection, which all of us regret so deeply.

For those reasons, with regret, I do not believe that there is benefit to anyone from a public inquiry, and the Government therefore do not support that. However, to go back to where I started, there is continuing concern in the Government and across the House for the affliction of people who suffer haemophilia and hepatitis C or HIV with it. I have marked the fact that we shall be publishing a very serious national consultation strategy and I very much hope that there will be vigorous engagement with that in the coming months. Ministers will of course be very pleased to meet the Haemophilia Society and its

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president. We have the greatest respect for its work on behalf of the people who suffer from this very serious affliction.

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now adjourn during pleasure until 8.31 p.m.

Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.

[The Sitting was suspended from 8.23 until 8.31 p.m.]

Police Reform Bill [HL]

House again in Committee on Clause 66.

Lord Dixon-Smith moved Amendment No. 318:

Page 59, line 22, leave out from first "to" to "the" in line 23.

The noble Lord said: Amendment No. 318 continues a line of debate that we began at an early stage in the Bill. Again, I do not believe that I need to go into too much detail. But, given the obligation on police authorities to take guidance into account, the way that the clause is drafted is tantamount to dictating the contents of the local strategy. We do not believe that that is right. We entirely accept that the Home Secretary has every right to have a say in what the Home Office's priorities are and should be. No one has any difficulty with that. It is absolutely right that local police authorities should have to take that into account in large manner, and their three-year strategies should be consistent with it.

But the fact is that in the 40-odd police authorities across the length and breadth of the country, some of which are in charming and relatively rural and remote areas, some of the problems of the more metropolitan areas do not exist. In many of the far-flung regions of this country—if anywhere in this country is far-flung; I doubt that it is—the problems of London and the South East are totally alien. It seems to us that the powers that are given in the Bill are a little over-restrictive and perhaps are not sufficiently likely to recognise the differences that exist in different parts of the country. Those differences should properly permit priorities which are more different than might be implied by the Bill as it is worded at present. I beg to move.

Lord Bradshaw: I rise to support this group of amendments. I shall not reiterate what the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, said, although I very much agree with him. We consider the suggested form to be over-prescriptive. We believe that we shall find a different form in different places—that is the essence of local policing. We hope that the Minister will allow more laxity in what is submitted. We also hope that this measure is not being introduced only for the benefit of the officials in the Home Office rather than for the benefit of the people who are being policed.

One amendment in the group relates to a matter that we discussed previously. If the Secretary of State is to issue modified or revised guidance, we believe that it should be issued by, we suggest, 30th June in the year

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preceding the beginning of the relevant three-year plan. That time is needed in order to carry out proper consultation and prepare the plan for presentation. Every month taken in excess of that will mean that the plan must somehow be rushed through the process. But in the end—the objectives of the Home Secretary have come very late this year—it is inevitable that parts of the plan will already have been put together.

We believe that it should be mentioned on the face of the Bill that police authorities, persons who represent chief officers in the police force which is maintained by those authorities, together with other people thought fit, should be consulted. Therefore, we support all the amendments. We hope that the Minister will give consideration both to the prescription and to the date, in particular.

Lord Rooker: The one amendment which neither noble Lord mentioned by number is Amendment No. 321. I shall be happy to take away that matter for consideration and return to it. I thought that I should place that on the record at the start.

We believe that the amendment is unnecessary. We have always consulted widely but, as I said, I shall take away the matter and reflect on what has been said, which is nothing! It is true that the theme of consultation was present throughout the debate but, in fact, no one mentioned Amendment No. 321.

We debated the issue of timing in the early stages of the Bill. We understand the restrictions on timing and somehow we must ensure that guidance on the content and form of the plans is issued in good time; otherwise, we shall not receive good reports. It is as simple as that. The police authorities would rightly put the Home Office in the dock if it were not realistic in relation to timing. I fully understand that there would be a breakdown of the tripartite arrangements. As I have said repeatedly, the Government want to support police authorities and chief police officers. We cannot do that if they cannot do their job properly; and they cannot do their job properly if we do not work to a decent and reasonable timetable in issuing them with the guidance.

The guidance should not be seen as threatening; it is intended to be helpful. I know that it does not work if one says, "I'm the man from the Government. I've come to help you". That will not be accepted. But the guidance is not intended to be threatening; it is intended to be useful to chief officers and police authorities. We want to be confident that the local plans are being shared with the local committees—a key element of the plans—and we want the local plans to be consistent with the national plan. But it is true that we must get our act together with regard to the timing. In relation to consultation, to which Amendment No. 321 relates, we shall consider the matter to see whether we can place something concrete in the Bill by Report stage.

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