Health Committee, 16 Sep 2003

Meeting date: Tuesday, September 16, 2003

Official Report 163KB pdf

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Hepatitis C

We proceed early to agenda item 4 on hepatitis C. Members have a paper from the clerks in front of them. I remind members that we are still in public session and ask their views on how we should proceed. Possible future actions are suggested at the bottom of the paper.

I endorse the future actions that are suggested by the clerks, which are that we should take further evidence from the petitioners and Lord Ross. We need to hear their views on what is being proposed by the minister, the missing bits—in particular, payments to the relatives of the deceased—and what should happen next. We must find out whether they think that there are sufficient outstanding issues for a public inquiry. I would be open to suggestions for others from whom we might take evidence. However, as a minimum we should hear from Lord Ross and the petitioners.

Can somebody remind me who the petitioners are? Did the Health and Community Care Committee take evidence from petitioners, and who were they?

It was the Scottish Haemophilia Groups Forum.

Yes, but were there not others as well? There were a number of individuals.

We can look back.

There is a judgment to be made whether we want to invite just the forum or the individuals as well. We should certainly invite the forum.

We must get up to speed with the previous committee's work. Two members of this committee have direct knowledge and experience of that. However, there are other issues. The committee needs to get legal advice about whether there should be a public inquiry or a court action. The payment is an ex gratia payment; it is not a recognition of fault. The finding of fault is a separate issue. We must also tie in what the petitioners are looking for, which takes us back to the questions that I raised last week about the roles of the Department for Work and Pensions and the Benefits Agency. Those are Westminster issues, but they will affect the net value of any settlement to any individual.

Also, we could do with some evidence about whether some kind of tribunal was going to be set up to judge cases and claims, which would have been recognised by all parties concerned. I am not sure whether we need to speak to the Minister for Justice about that or whether we need just a piece of legal advice about the role of the Scottish legal system in this case. Certainly, people outwith the committee to whom I have spoken seem to be of the view that there is a requirement for a test case if the fault-finding route is to be pursued rather than a settlement based on what the committee agreed in the past, which is what the expert group recommended.

On a point of clarification, the committee can take legal advice on the matters of tribunals and public inquiries.

Have the petitioners or Lord Ross made any representation to the committee that they wish to return to give further evidence?

No, I am told that they have not.

Last week, we requested some information from the minister. Is that information available?

I am advised that the Official Report shows that we did not state that we were going to write to the Minister for Health and Community Care on that issue. We wrote to the minister on other issues. The committee has seen the letter about the Primary Medical Services (Scotland) Bill, which we wrote to him about.

I think that the minister said that he would get back to the committee on some questions that were left hanging in the air.

Can the clerk double-check that in the Official Report of last week's meeting? While that is being double-checked I will move on to the next point that was raised.

The points that I have raised relate to what was said at our away day about patronising people and inflating their expectations of what can be done for them. If we are serious about addressing the issue, we must get further input from the minister. It would have been expected that the petitioners and Lord Ross would make representations through the committee. There are complex issues that are not necessarily for this committee to solve.

The Health and Community Care Committee devoted a lot of time and energy to the issue. I am concerned that we do not detract from the big issues that affect the vast majority of people who receive care in the health service. We should not detract from our ability to address those matters in our work programme by encouraging people to come to the committee when we are uncertain about the reason for doing so and about what the outcome might be.

I say for clarification that at last week's meeting I raised a point about an article in The Sunday Times that referred to further documentation. The Minister for Health and Community Care said that he was not aware of that. I sent him a link to the documentation—it is a website link—so that he could get it for himself. He now has that link to the journalist and to the provider of the information—who was a source to the journalist—so he can find out whether he was already aware of that documentation. We will formally write to the minister now and send members a copy of the letter.

I emphasise that I think that it is very sad that people have had to wait for so long when some people in other places have already received compensation. There is a great difference between the sum of money offered in Ireland and the sum being offered in Scotland. People will probably be desperate to take whatever money comes their way, but it might be that if they follow a legal route they will get a larger sum of money. However, some people might be deprived of a payment for much longer if they go down the legal route.

I am not convinced, after last week's committee meeting, that it is a straightforward matter of whether people will fall into the category of £20,000 or are sick enough to receive £25,000 or more. The issue is more complicated than that. Although we were waiting for an answer at last week's committee meeting, I came away more confused than I was before the meeting.

Perhaps the people who suffer from the illness—it was not of their choosing; it was inflicted upon them—deserve to receive a payment as soon as possible. They need to get legal advice and so do we. We need more information. We should invite witnesses to come to the committee so that we can get further information.

Jean Turner has highlighted a point that David Davidson mentioned—new members of the committee do not know what has gone before in the previous parliamentary session. Those of us who were on the committee in the previous session and were involved in the previous investigation understand the situation.

Jean Turner highlights a point that I have been concerned about in some of the correspondence that the committee has received on the matter this week from the various interest groups. They compare the £20,000 that they say the Minister for Health and Community Care has offered with the £300,000 that is being offered in Ireland. We are not talking about compensation and we have never been talking about compensation. We are talking about an entirely different matter. A fundamental point that has not got across to people is that the minister is not offering compensation.

What we talked about at last week's meeting—the convener referred to this—was examining information that has come to light that may perhaps be new evidence. We can write to the minister and ask whether, in his opinion, it is new evidence. The committee can decide whether we think that that provides sufficient scope to open up a further investigation.

I am concerned about our raising people's expectations if we start to consider the whole matter again. Given that, under the next agenda item, the committee will shortly decide on its priorities, we must now decide whether enough evidence is available to allow us to open up the matter again. The only way in which the committee can make such a decision is if we are briefed on the issue. Perhaps that could take the form of a private briefing—the committee has received such briefings on other issues—which would allow new committee members to be brought up to speed on the full, thorough and comprehensive investigation that took place in the previous session of Parliament. Until we do that, the situation will be difficult for members such as Jean Turner and David Davidson, who do not know what happened in the past. We should not decide how to proceed until we receive such a briefing.

The situation is difficult for the people who have been afflicted, who might be considering whether to accept the offer or to take the legal route. We must take that into account.

I would like to hear what Lord Ross has to say about the offer. I take the point about raising expectations, although I would like to debate the issue of whether the offer is compensation or simply a payment. However, the main issue is how the amount has been calculated. From the committee's report, it seems that Lord Ross's proposals were different in many respects from the offer. I would like to hear Lord Ross's reaction to the proposals, as he is independent. I am not sure whether that is appropriate, but it would take the emotion out of the issue—although the emotion is rightful—and allow us to hear what the man who chaired the expert group has to say about the offer.

I have no objection to bringing Lord Ross before the committee, assuming that he wishes to come. That would, in part, brief the other members of the committee. The committee's report is fairly lengthy and it would be good to have clarity on the issue. However, we should do that only if we are to have a private briefing, following which we can make a decision in the full knowledge of what has gone before. We should not take any other action at this stage.

The only problem with that suggestion is that committees are constantly accused of not discussing issues in public.

We are about to go into private session.

There is a good reason why the next agenda item is to be taken in private—it is simply a piece of housework and is about our forward work programme. However, the problem with Janis Hughes's suggestion is that the issue involved is a matter of substance. Lord Ross was appointed by the minister to chair the expert group.

Janis Hughes's suggestion, which is sensible, is that new members should be briefed on the committee's previous work on the subject, which, I imagine, is a matter of public record. We should ask somebody to brief us on what has happened previously and to bring us up to date so that we can decide how to proceed with the matter, which is a serious one. As a new member, I would find such a briefing useful.

I simply read the previous committee's report.

I did not disagree when the convener asked whether we should take agenda item 5 in private, although I do not really agree that we should. As other members wanted to take the item in private, I saw no reason to make a fuss. I am fed up of making a fuss about discussing work programmes in private. I do not like discussing such matters in private, partly because of the type of discussion that we are having now. How can we possibly decide what to do on the issue of hepatitis C in isolation from decisions on the other major pieces of work with which we will deal? We are being asked to decide on the hepatitis C issue separately, which is not logical.

In the next agenda item, we should consider what we want to do in the coming period. I am conscious that the previous committee spent a huge amount of time on hepatitis C. I agree with Duncan McNeil that the committee is in danger of raising expectations about what we can achieve. It is all very well coming to a decision on hepatitis C in public session, but we might then go into private session to discuss the work programme and say, "Actually, I'm glad we are in private session because we have not really got much time to devote to hepatitis C after all." The situation is completely illogical. We should defer the decision to the next agenda item.

I have nothing against Janis Hughes's suggestion—it is a good one—but we are talking about unfinished business, whereas the future work plan is very much about the new issues that this committee will consider. Given that the issue was raised by the petitioners, who wanted us to do something, it would seem odd not to, at the very least, hear what they have to say about the outcome. If we do nothing else, surely we have to hear their view on what is on the table. We have not done that.

This is unfinished business. Whether we go beyond that is a matter for debate. I accept that there are issues to be addressed. I am happy to take part in a private briefing and to have that debate. However, we owe it to the petitioners to at least have their views on the package on the record.

Janis Hughes picked up the point that new members made. There is an issue about getting the committee up to speed. The content of the committee's report did not cover all the aspects, options and choices that were discussed in the many sessions prior to the publication of the report. It is important that we receive a briefing on that.

I asked for legal advice because there is confusion about the difference between an ex gratia payment and what somebody could achieve by legitimately going to court and proving their case—even with legal aid, I might add. Those are two distinct things. It must be said that an ex gratia payment is not the same thing as compensation, which backs up the point that others have made about expectations. This committee may not be in a position to do anything more than expose a particular set of facts. We need to know, from legal people who are external to the Parliament, what the Scottish legal system does when it comes to compensation. What are the issues? That is not our issue. We are looking at the ex gratia payment that the minister offered, which is quite separate from any other payment. There is a lot of confusion in our minds.

I have no difficulty with holding a private briefing session on the facts that have already been covered, because that would just be a catch-up session, which would be done behind the scenes anyway if somebody new came to the committee. Shona Robison is right that we should bring back the petitioners to tell us their current view, because that would be moving on.

We have heard a bit from the minister. The minister has to come back, as does Lord Ross, to give us an idea of where he was at. However, we need to have explained to the committee the ground rules of what we can and cannot do, so that we are not in the position of saying to people that we will deliver, because we do not know what we can deliver. We have to get that support.

I agree with most of Mike Rumbles's comments. Our suggestions are not mutually exclusive. The bottom line is that we have live petitions that we have to address. I do not feel that the committee will be in a position to address those petitions until it is in full possession of the facts.

I suggested a private briefing, not because I thought that we should do it without people hearing, but because it would not be necessary for previous committee members to attend if they did not want to. It could be done outwith committee time, which would preserve our committee time for some of the other pressing issues that we need to deal with. However, we need that information to be given to all committee members so that, in the context of the work programme, we can consider whether we wish to proceed with any further action in the area.

That is where we stand. I accept that we cannot discuss the work programme properly without having the briefing, but we have to address the petitions, as they are still on-going, and the issues will come up again at a future date.

I will try to sum up. I have noted requests to have a briefing, take legal advice, see the minister after he has had the chance to look at documentation and other issues, possibly take evidence from Lord Ross, and take evidence or responses from the petitioners. Those are the five matters that have come up. I have not put them in any order.

Those are just the issues that have been raised.

That is all that I am saying. I suggest that the committee would wish first to have a briefing, and thereafter decide where to go with the other matters that I have just put into the pot, such as whether to take evidence from the petitioners, Lord Ross or both.

But I would still want to hear the minister's response, as part of the information process.

I was coming to that. Concurrent with that, we could take legal advice on our position and request a response from the minister if he has had the opportunity to examine fresh documentary evidence. Those last two items are the written stuff. We will put the briefing into the schedule, and the other two issues will be dealt with afterwards. Is that fair enough?

Members indicated agreement.

We have finished the public business, and we move on to item 5.

Meeting continued in private until 15:35.