Question reference: S5W-26302
- Asked by: Richard Lyle, MSP for Uddingston and Bellshill, Scottish National Party
- Date lodged: 8 November 2019
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Current status: Answered by Joe FitzPatrick on 20 November 2019
Question
To ask the Scottish Government whether it has been consulted by the UK Government on achieving comprehensive parity across broad issues of support for people infected and affected by contaminated blood and blood products; how many meetings have been held on this issue and who attended; whether proposals on how to achieve parity were presented or discussed at any of these meetings, and, in light of the UK Government indicating that new money will be made available to Scotland to achieve parity in terms of regular payments to infected people, with a commensurate uplift in support to widow and widowers, whether this money has been made available and, if so, when it will be utilised.
Answer
There has been one ministerial meeting on the issue of parity, with representation from all of the four UK nations and some further, informal discussions have also been held at official level, although no proposals have yet been presented. The Scottish Government is willing to discuss how we can increase parity between the four UK schemes, but we need to ensure each scheme retains the flexibility to reflect the needs of its own beneficiaries and to ensure the Scottish Infected Blood Support Scheme can continue to reflect the principles agreed by both the Financial Review Group (in 2015) and the Clinical Review of the impacts of chronic hepatitis c (in 2018).
The Scottish Government is not aware of any commitment from the UK Government to provide additional funding for the Scottish Infected Blood Support Scheme.