Markus Andrews

The government is prepared to pay compensation to people affected by the contaminated blood scandal if an ongoing public inquiry recommends it, Matt Hancock has said.The Infected Blood Inquiry is examining how thousands of patients came to be infected with HIV and hepatitis C through contaminated blood products from the 1970s to the early 1990s.At least 3,000 people have died and many have been left with serious disabilities in what has been labelled the worst treatment disaster in NHS history.Mr Hancock told the inquiry on Friday that resolving the matter of financial support and compensation was “long overdue”.He said: “Should the inquiry’s recommendations point to compensation, then of course we will pay compensation.”Sir Robert Francis’ review on compensation is there in order that the government will be able to respond quickly to that.”The government announced on Thursday that Sir Robert Francis QC, who chaired the inquiry into the Mid Staffordshire NHS trust scandal, has been appointed to study options for compensation.Some of those affected already receive payments through the England Infected Blood Support Scheme. The scheme has proved controversial due to a cut-off point that denies compensation to anyone infected after 1991. Earlier this year, The Independent revealed that one victim had brought a judicial review against the government to challenge the cut-off date.The health secretary also gave the inquiry his “commitment” that anyone already receiving support payments would continue to receive them for life.Mr Hancock told the inquiry on Friday that the government had a “moral responsibility” to address the impact of the scandal, adding: “I think that resolving this problem, this whole tragedy and all that it has left behind, is long overdue.”Des Collins, senior partner at Collins Solicitors and legal adviser to more than 1,500 people affected by the scandal, said: “My clients tonight will be breathing a huge sigh of relief.”It may have taken some 40 years, but for the first time today we heard the UK government committing to paying due compensation to the infected and affected by this huge scandal, if recommended to do so when the inquiry reports. Bravo, Mr Hancock, for doing the right thing.”The inquiry has heard week after week of truly harrowing testimony from living victims and relatives of those who have died. We’ve also seen how disparate the various support schemes paid to date have been between the countries of the United Kingdom. Fairness must prevail.”We now go forward with renewed positivity and intend to work closely with Sir Robert and his team to achieve a just and lasting outcome.”The independent inquiry into the contaminated blood scandal was launched in 2019 and is being led by former High Court judge Sir Brian Langstaff.Two previous inquiries, the last one ending in 2015, were branded whitewashes by campaigners. In 2019, victims raised fears of a cover-up after it emerged hundreds of documents relating to the scandal had been removed by government officials and were missing. More

Today’s daily politics briefingNo 10 has refused to rule out the possibility that hormone-injected beef will be exported from Australia to the UK as part of a free trade deal between the countries.The prime minister’s spokesperson did not give a commitment on the issue, simply saying that the UK will not “compromise on our animal welfare or food standards” and that imported produce will need to “comply with our import requirements”. This comes amid reports that Boris Johnson’s government is ready to offer Australia a zero-tariff, zero-quota trade deal – despite opposition from cabinet ministers and British farmers’ fears of ruin from cheap meat imports.The prime minister is believed to have given his international trade secretary Liz Truss the go-ahead for a free trade agreement, with the goal of inking a deal in time for next month’s G7 summit in Cornwall.Meanwhile, ministers have been accused of a “shocking” lack of knowledge about Northern Ireland following the UK’s Brexit agreement with the EU.Labour claimed the government had failed to understand protocol arrangements contained in Mr Johnson’s deal. It follows an admission by Brexit minister David Frost that No 10 had failed to secure the agreement it wanted for Northern Ireland.Show latest update

1621607620Opinion: Craven Tory attacks on BBC will have chilling effect on its journalism Tory ministers are lining up to criticise the BBC in an attempt to benefit from their continued culture wars, writes Sean O’Grady. Culture secretary Oliver Dowden and justice minister Robert Buckland are among those who have called for reform at the broadcaster, after a report found that Martin Bashir had secured his landmark interview with Princess Diana deceitfully. As O’Grady points out, no amount of regulation “will protect any organisation from a rogue individual”. Instead of admitting this reality, the government has made use of the false narrative that the BBC is left-leaning, according to O’Grady. “They are using the Bashir scandal to fight and win another battle in their culture wars, and neuter an organisation powerful and respected enough to hold them to account,” he writes. Rory Sullivan21 May 2021 15:331621606233Foster will decide when to step down as NI first minister, Poots insists The recently-elected DUP leader Edwin Poots has suggested he will not make Arlene Foster leave her role as first minister before the end of June.Reports had suggested that she could be forced out of her job earlier than anticipated. In response, the former DUP leader Peter Robinson said: “Having left her humiliated, they now want to leave her as roadkill.”Speaking in County Tyrone on Friday, Mr Poots should Ms Foster would decide when to leave office. “She’s under absolutely no pressure from me to do otherwise,” he said.The environment minister has confirmed that he will appoint a colleague to be first minister and will not assume the position himself. Rory Sullivan21 May 2021 15:101621605033No signs England will have to ‘deviate’ from road map, PM says The prime minister has expressed his optimism that he will not have “deviate” from England’s road map out of lockdown.The next stage of lockdown easing – due on 21 June – has been called into question because of the spread of the B.1.617.2 variant. Speaking on Friday, Boris Johnson said: “We will be letting everybody know exactly what sort of arrangements to expect for June 21.“But what I can tell you, and just to stress that I am still seeing nothing in the data that leads me to think that we’re going to have to deviate from the road map – obviously we must remain cautious but I’m seeing nothing that makes me think we have to deviate.”He added that “Covid status” certificates would not be needed “to go into pubs or anything else”. Rory Sullivan21 May 2021 14:501621603833Downing Street plays down cabinet reshuffle speculation No 10 has played down reports that Boris Johnson plans to announce a cabinet reshuffle on Wednesday.The shake-up will deliberately coincide with Dominic Cumming’s long-awaited appearance from a committee of MPs so as to dilute its impact, a senior minister told the BBC. Earlier this week, the former aide said he would expose a “crucial historical document” showing the government’s decision-making during the first coronavirus wave. The threat follows his description of the plan as “part disaster, part non-existent”.A Downing Street spokesperson declined to confirm or deny that there would be a cabinet reshuffle. “It’s not something that we would comment on,” they said. Sky News’ Sam Coates later tweeted that the government had dismissed the speculation as “total rubbish”.Rory Sullivan21 May 2021 14:301621602633Government blasted over free trade deal promise to farmers A video has been circulating widely on social media of cabinet minister Michael Gove promising that post-Brexit trade deals would not undercut British animal welfare standards. This comes as a potential Australia trade deal threatens to ignore this promise. In the clip, the then environmental secretary tells BBC Countryfile: “There is no point in having high environmental and high animal welfare standards if you then allow them to be undercut from outside.”He added that to do so would mean “you’re simply offshoring those low standards and that’s wrong”. Alastair Campbell, the former Labour strategist, retweeted the video, saying it was illustrative of a government that is “destroying a country value by value, sector by sector, lie by lie”. Rory Sullivan21 May 2021 14:101621601213Hormone-injected beef could be imported under Australia deal Downing Street has refused to rule out the possibility that hormone-injected beef will be exported from Australia to the UK as part of a free trade deal between the countries. Although the prime minister’s spokesperson maintained that the UK will not “compromise on our animal welfare or food standards”, they declined to give a commitment on the use of hormones. They added that food would be allowed into the country as long as it complies “with our import requirements”, which were not specified. Rory Sullivan21 May 2021 13:461621600233Free trade deals present ‘fantastic opportunity for our farmers’, claims Johnson The prime minister has claimed that British farmers will prosper under new free trade deals, despite the farming sector’s outcry over the reported terms of an imminent agreement with Australia. After saying he wanted “a global future” for the UK, Boris Johnson added: “I do think that free trade deals present a fantastic opportunity for our farmers, for businesses of all kinds and for manufacturers.“I think it is vital that as a great historic free-trading nation that grew to prosperity thanks to free trade and thanks indeed to the Royal Navy, that we see these new openings not as threats but as opportunities.”The British farming sector, however, is fearful that a tariff-free deal with Australia on beef and lamb exports would give Australian farmers an unfair advantage because of the scale of their farms and their lower environmental standards. Rory Sullivan21 May 2021 13:301621599047Joblessness soars in hard-hit UK tourist destinations Joblessness has soared in some of the UK’s tourist hotspots, Labour has warned.The party released a dossier showing that the 20 areas with most tourism jobs had recorded an average 150 per cent increase in benefits claims during the pandemic, 41 per cent higher than the national average. The worst-affected places include the Scottish ski and hiking resort of Aviemore and the popular English town of Dartmouth in Devon. Seema Malhotra, the shadow business minister, said that businesses “saddled with debt” will not simply bounce back in these areas. “The government must provide businesses with a fair repayment scheme based on the amount they’re making, or risk more people falling out of work and further damage to local economies reliant on trade from tourists,” she said. Rory Sullivan21 May 2021 13:101621597881PM calls on BBC to change after report on Bashir’s Diana interviewBoris Johnson has called on the BBC to change after the publication of a damning reporting into how Martin Bashir secured his famous interview with Princess Diana. Speaking to reporters in Portsmouth, the prime minister said he was “obviously very concerned” by Lord Dyson’s report.“I can only image the feelings of the royal family and I hope very much that the BBC will be taking every possible step to make sure nothing like this ever happens again,” he added. Rory Sullivan21 May 2021 12:511621595863Australia deal would harm Northern Ireland, says incoming DUP leader A tariff-free trade deal between the UK and Australia would damage Northern Irish farming, the incoming leader of the DUP has said.Edwin Poots, who will soon take over from Arlene Foster, said he strongly opposed the proposal. In a letter to the British environment secretary George Eustice, he wrote: “Australia has a number of distinct advantages over Northern Ireland, and the rest of the UK, in terms of the land available for farming, climate and lower standards, that allows its farmers to be able produce at a considerably lower cost, particularly in the beef and sheep sectors.“Consequently there is a lot of potential for Australian beef and sheep exports to the UK to expand substantially over time if tariffs are eliminated.“Australian beef and sheep products have the potential to undercut UK producers and to reduce Northern Ireland’s market share in GB which is our most important market for these products.”The DUP politician added that if the deal goes ahead, it would set a precedent for agreements with other major exporting countries. Rory Sullivan21 May 2021 12:17 More

China on Friday rejected European Parliament demands that it lift sanctions against European Union legislators in order to save a trade deal between the two sides. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said the sanctions were justified and demanded that the European side “immediately stop interfering in China’s internal affairs (and) abandon its confrontational approach.” “The unreasonable sanctions imposed by the EU have led to difficulties in China-EU relations. That is what China does not want to see, and the responsibility does not lie with the Chinese side,” Zhao said at a daily briefing. The European Parliament warned China on Thursday it won’t ratify a long-awaited business investment deal as long as sanctions against European Union legislators remain in place. China made its sanctions move after the EU, Britain, Canada and the United States launched coordinated sanctions against officials in China over human rights abuses in the far western Xinjiang region. Among those targeted were five members of the European Parliament — Reinhard Butikofer, Michael Gahler, Raphael Glucksmann, Ilhan Kyuchyuk and Miriam Lexmann.The investment accord was agreed to in principle in December and needs lawmakers’ approval to take effect. In addition to the lifting of sanctions, legislators said they will take into account the human rights situation in China when deciding whether to approve the deal. The EU hopes the agreement, known as CAI, will create new investment opportunities for European companies in China by ensuring they can compete on an equal footing, and help correct a trade imbalance. China is now the EU’s second-biggest trading partner behind the United States, and the bloc is China’s largest trading partner, according to EU figures. China and Europe trade on average over 1 billion euros ($1.2 billion) a day.Zhao reiterated China’s stance that the agreement is a “balanced and win-win deal that benefits both sides, rather than a gift or favor bestowed by one side to the other.” “China has always been sincere in promoting cooperation between the two sides, and we hope that the European side will move in the same direction as us, with less emotional outburst and more rational thinking, and make the right decision in their own interests,” Zhao said. More

Boris Johnson said he was “very concerned” about the findings of the official report which found TV journalist Martin Bashir behaved deceitfully to land his BBC interview with Princess Diana.Speaking during a visit to Portsmouth, the prime minister said he hoped the public broadcaster “will be taking every possible step to make sure that nothing like this ever happens again”.Mr Johnson said he would “very grateful” to Lord Dyson for his report into the interview controversy, adding: “I can only imagine the feelings of the royal family.”The government has vowed to examine how the BBC is run after Lord Dyson’s damning report examining how the broadcaster got its bombshell 1995 Panorama interview with Diana.The investigation concluded that Mr Bashir used “deceit” to land the interview, and also lambasted the BBC for its “woefully ineffective” investigation the following year.Culture secretary Oliver Dowden condemned “damning failings at the heart of the BBC” and suggested that a review of the broadcaster due to start next year could now be widened.“We will now reflect on Lord Dyson’s thorough report and consider whether further governance reforms at the BBC are needed in the mid-term charter review,” he tweeted.However, Mr Dowden also hinted at a recognition that the scandal had taken place under a different management regime at the BBC, with signs of welcome changes at the top in recent years.Mr Dowden added: “I welcome the fact that the new leadership launched this independent inquiry and expect them to ensure that this can never happen again.”Downing Street said a mid-term charter review of the BBC will only be focused on the corporation’s governance and regulation – not its editorial independence.Justice secretary Robert Buckland pointed to Mr Bashir’s use of “false documents” in the run-up to the interview, describing the findings of Lord Dyson’s report as “hugely serious”.The minister told Sky News on Friday: “There is a lot of work for the BBC to do in order to make good what happened here.”Scotland Yard has said it will “assess the contents” of Lord Dyson’s report to ensure there is “no significant new evidence”. Police had previously decided against pursuing a criminal investigation into the controversy.It follows scathing criticism of the BBC offered by Diana’s sons. William and Harry both condemned the broadcaster, saying their mother’s Panorama interview fuelled her “fear, paranoia and isolation” and was part a wider “culture of exploitation”.The government recently backed away from a different battle with the public broadcaster, dropping threats to decriminalise the licence fee.Meanwhile, the influential Public Accounts Committee warned on Friday that the BBC had “ducked the hard choices” over budget cuts which it will be forced to make.Labour MP Meg Hillier, committee chair, said that “reorganising the deckchairs” in “this Titanic organisation” was not enough at a time when 200,000 households a year were cancelling their licence fee. More

No 10 has refused to guarantee that a ban on hormone-injected beef will remain in place in the trade deal with Australia, set to be sealed within weeks.Boris Johnson’s spokesman insisted the UK will not “compromise on our animal welfare or food standards” – but declined, four times, to give an explicit commitment on the use of hormones.Instead, he said only that food allowed in under future deals will “have to comply with our import requirements”, without setting out what they would be.The words fell far short of the guarantee given, last year, by both Liz Truss, the trade secretary, and the environment secretary George Eustice – who are now locked in a fierce spat over the Australia deal.In November, the pair wrote: “Chlorinated chicken and hormone-injected beef are already banned in the UK and we will not negotiate to remove that ban in a trade deal.”Australia is known to have demanded, as far back as 2018, that Britain accepts hormone-treated beef imports as the price of a symbolic early post-Brexit trade agreement.The practice is widespread in Australia and the EU has claimed at least one of the hormones used by cattle farmers is carcinogenic – something fiercely disputed by Canberra.The government has guaranteed that “any changes to existing food safety legislation would require new legislation to be brought before parliament”.But some MPs remain suspicious that changes could be made using regulations, rather than primary legislation – using so-called ‘Henry VIII powers’ to bypass MPs.Anne McIntosh, a Conservative peer and campaigner, told The Independent: “The government must honour its commitment to keep the trust of the British people, one million of whom signed the petition calling for such a safeguard.“That means no entry for any beef from Australia or elsewhere produced with hormones or in other ways does not meet our standards.”The National Farmers Union has reacted angrily to an apparent Cabinet agreement to offer Australia a zero-tariff, zero quota trade deal, despite farmers’ fears of ruin.Mr Johnson is believed to have given the go-ahead for the offer to be made, settling a major Cabinet row and over-ruling the concerns of Mr Eustice and Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove.The full removal of tariffs and quotas is only like to happen after up to 15 years – in an attempt to calm the protests of worried farming groups.But Minette Batters, the NFU president said: “If accurate, this will have a massive impact on British farming – and we are still waiting to hear from government.“A tariff-free trade deal with Australia will jeopardise our own farming industry and will cause the demise of many, many beef and sheep farms throughout the UK. This is true whether tariffs are dropped immediately or in 15 years’ time.” More

A Good Morning Britain interview with Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor Robert Buckland came to an abrupt end when Mr Buckland walked off, after a heated discussion with hosts Ranvir Singh and Kate Garraway.The minister was being questioned on amber list countries, with over 250,000 people expected to leave the UK for countries on this list in the next five days.When questioned, Mr Buckland explicitly said “Amber is a no”, which led to Ms Ranvir pressing him over why we don’t just have red or green options.Ms Singh responded: “A lot of people are booking new holidays. The issue is, of course, what is the point of an amber list?“I really struggle to understand this. Why not just have a green list and a red list so people know go or don’t go?“What is the point in dangling this carrot of countries that might or might not be green in two weeks’ time?”Ms Singh went on to add that people were being put in a difficult position of having to choose between losing money or breaking the law which she called “outrageous.”The Lord Chancellor answered, somewhat skirting round the question and saying that he thinks “having an amber system is sensible.”Ms Garraway interrupted, him: “Why don’t you just answer Ranvir’s question? Because I think that’s what is at the heart of people’s concern.”The exchange began to get increasingly more heated with Mr Buckland saying that he feels it is “right to have [amber], rather than the binary system, you have that middle tier which does allow for some essential travel.”Ms Singh responded: “I think that’s a complete neglect of the reality!” and accused Mr Buckland of shying away from the initial question.“We shall have to leave it there, because we have asked you several times for you to explain the relevance of the amber list and people at home can decide whether they are satisfied or not with your answers,” she added.This was clearly enough for Mr Buckland who said: “Well if you could let me get a word in edgeways, then I would have given an answer, thanks, thank you,” before removing his microphone, picking up his Pret coffee and getting out of his chair.Currently, Britons who travel to countries on the amber list are required to isolate for 10 days on returning to the UK. They can do this at home, rather than paying to stay in a quarantine hotel, as people coming from red list countries must do.The amber list has been causing confusion as it is legal to travel to countries on it, yet frowned upon. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said that trips to an amber list country should be kept for “some pressing family or urgent business reason,” yet with many people booking holidays to these countries there has been significant confusion. More

The UK’s top tourism destinations cannot be expected to “bounce back” without government help from the Covid crisis that has left businesses in debt and a disproportionate part of its workforce jobless, Labour has warned.The party produced a dossier showing that the 20 areas with the highest amount of tourism jobs have seen an average 150 per cent increase in people claiming out-of-work benefits during the pandemic, compared to a national average of 109 per cent.Worst-hit was the ski and hiking resort of Aviemore in the Scottish Highlands, which saw a 241 per cent increase in claimants, followed by Portree on the Isle of Skye (236 per cent), Kingsbridge and Dartmouth in Devon (233 per cent), Pitlochry and Aberfeldy in Perthshire (224 per cent), Ullapool on Scotland’s west coast (206 per cent) and Kendal in the Lake District (205 per cent).Other tourism-dependent destinations with an above-average increase in unemployment included Minehead in Somerset, Pwllheli and Porthmadog in Wales, Fort William and the isles of Mull and Islay.Meanwhile, latest figures show accommodation and food service businesses across the country are in more than £6bn of debt from the pandemic, while arts, entertainment and recreation businesses – including tourist attractions like zoos and theme parks – are facing a bill of almost £1.5bn.And the latest ONS Business Impact of Covid Survey, released on Thursday, showed more than one in 10 hospitality and accommodation businesses has low or no confidence that it will survive the next three months. One in five hospitality businesses said they are at moderate risk of insolvency.Labour shadow business minister Seema Malhotra warned: “While the vaccine rollout and roadmap to reopening is good news for businesses, it’s clear that ministers should not expect businesses saddled with debt taken on to survive the crisis to simply bounce back. It is far from job done.“The government must provide businesses with a fair repayment scheme based on the amount they’re making, or risk more people falling out of work and further damage to local economies reliant on trade from tourists.” More

The surge in the Indian Covid-19 variant was fuelled by failures in England’s test and trace system, a report has found.Eight local authorities did not have access to the full data on positive tests in their areas for three weeks in April and May, it says.The number of missing cases was highest in Blackburn with Darwen, in Lancashire – where a recent rise in infections was linked to the Indian variant.The other areas affected by the apparent technical glitch were Blackpool, York, Bath and North East Somerset, Bristol, North Somerset, Southend-on-Sea and Thurrock, the BBC revealed.Officials at one of the councils affected said the centralised test and trace system failed to notify its staff of cases, meaning their contacts could not be traced locally.The “rapid spread of Indian variant cases … may be partially or largely attributable to risks in the international travel control system”, the report states.But it adds: “These were exacerbated by the sporadic failure of the national test and trace system.”Six of the local authorities affected told the BBC that they had experienced problems in tracing contacts.Jonathan Ashworth, Labour’s shadow health secretary, seized on the revelation, saying: “This is deja vu and echoes the mistakes made last year with Boris Johnson’s ‘whack-a-mole’ approach.“It beggars belief that yet again local health experts on ground have been left in the dark for two weeks when we know acting with speed is vital to containing an outbreak.“Ministers need to explain what’s gone wrong and provide local health directors with all the resources they need to push infections down.”But Mr Johnson’s spokesperson played down the impact of the problem, saying: “This issue was across a small number of local authority areas and was quickly resolved.”Asked if the problem had helped the Indian variant spread, he said: “I don’t think it is possible to draw that conclusion from this.”The government has continued to call the test and trace system “world-beating” – despite a parliamentary inquiry finding, in March, that it was making no “measurable difference”.The MPs condemned an over-reliance on consultants paid up to £6,600 a day, a failure to meet the surge in demand for tests last September and never hitting a target to turn around face-to-face tests within 24 hours.Contact tracers have consistently reported only having enough work to fill half their time, even when cases were rising.Between 21 April and 11 May, the system only provided details of a limited number of positive cases of coronavirus to the eight local authorities, the BBC said.On 11 May, they were told by the Department of Health and Social Care that, over that period, 734 positive tests had not been reported.It meant that, in many cases, the councils were also unable to offer financial support to people isolating. More