Health and Community Care Committee, 25 Mar 2003
Meeting date: Tuesday, March 25, 2003
Official Report
115KB pdf
Hepatitis C
Agenda item 3 is our final discussion of the parliamentary session on hepatitis C, with which we have been dealing for well over two years. Disappointing letters from the Minister for Health and Community Care and from the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions have been circulated. As members know, the committee suggested to the Minister for Health and Community Care ways in which payments could be made to people who have suffered because of defective blood products. It is unfortunate that the minister has not accepted our suggestions as a way forward.
We asked the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to come to the committee to answer questions about implications for Westminster and the potential clawback of any payments that might be made. It is unfortunate that the secretary of state has twice declined to come to the committee to answer such questions. That is disappointing, given the manner in which the committee has proceeded with the issue: we have tried to be as constructive as we could be.
Two draft letters have been circulated to members as private papers, but we are having our discussion in public, so it is important to put on record our final thoughts on this important issue and to do what we can. One letter is to the Lord Advocate. The committee agreed last week that, if all other courses of action fail, we would invite the Lord Advocate, Colin Boyd, to examine the issue; we would draw the matter to his attention under schedule 6 to the Scotland Act 1998 and ask him for a determination on the related devolution issues.
In the third last paragraph on the second page of the letter, we should take out the text in brackets. Legal advice suggests that that text relates to a political decision rather than to a legal decision. We are asking the Lord Advocate to investigate the legal aspects of whether the Scottish ministers can act as has been proposed. The clawback issue is a political matter: Westminster has the legal right to derogate social security payments and benefits and the choice whether to exercise that right is a political decision.
Do members have comments on the letter? Are we happy for it to be sent?
I am happy for the letter to be sent.
The next letter is the committee's final letter to the Minister for Health and Community Care. It points out our considerable frustration and disappointment, although the minister has made progress on the issue, which is no accident, because the committee has exerted much pressure. The Executive said on record to the committee that it will make the proposed payments and the minister believes that he has the power to make the payments, but no progress has been made beyond that for those who have suffered.
Our letter says that on 29 January, the minister told the committee that he felt that he had the power to make payments and that he wanted to do that; however, we are near the end of March and no further progress has been made. The letter asks about progress on discussions with the UK Government and calls on the minister to answer a variety of questions about progress, the powers that he thinks he can use and whether he might consider pressing ahead with a scheme on his own in the absence of a UK Government view. We also ask him to respond before dissolution at the end of this week.
The letter is fairly strongly worded and reflects the committee's extreme frustration, disappointment and anger on behalf of the people who have suffered through no fault of their own. The letter reflects fairly the committee's consistent views. As members have no comments, we will sign off that letter. There are a couple of typos, but we will sort them out.
This is the final meeting of the Health and Community Care Committee in this parliamentary session so I want, before we move into private session, to record in the Official Report my thanks to the committee clerks, who have served the committee well. I hope that they have found time to read the Official Report of last week's stage 3 deliberations on the Mental Health (Care and Treatment) (Scotland) Bill.
That is the last thing that they need.
I am sure that they have not read the transcript of the whole debate; however, I refer them to what committee colleagues and I said at the end of the debate about the great amount of work that the clerks put into the bill. I thank not only the clerks who are currently working with the committee, but those who have been with it throughout the four years of the session. They have worked incredibly hard and all the committee's members have appreciated their support.
I thank the two members who have been deputy conveners—Mr Malcolm Chisholm and Margaret Jamieson—for their support and considerable input into what I hope was the smooth running of the committee. I do not know what happened to Mr Chisholm—does any member ever hear of him?
I also thank all my committee colleagues. We have sometimes been a thorn in the Executive's side, but we have also tried to be constructive, particularly in respect of hepatitis C. Considerable progress has been made on hepatitis C, on free personal care—proposals for which initially came from a Health and Community Care Committee report—and on a variety of other issues. This has been a good and hard-working committee and I want to record in the Official Report my thanks to all members who have served on it.
Meeting continued in private until 10:32.