The Know Daily - Tuesday 5 December 2023

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Some tort-ally cute news this Tuesday: the world’s oldest living land animal, a Seychelles giant tortoise named Jonathan, has celebrated his 191st birthday. The long-time St Helena resident is thought to have been born in 1832, “predating the invention of the postal stamp, the telephone, and the photograph”, noted Euronews. 

🗳️ A step closer to justice   

MPs have voted to speed up compensation for victims of the NHS infected blood scandal. 

Go on…
The amendment to the Victims and Prisoners Bill requires ministers to set up a new body to deliver full compensation to victims within three months of the bill becoming law. Under the plans, a High Court judge will chair the body, taking into account “speed, simplicity and fairness”, said Sky News.

Twenty-two Conservatives voted against their own government last night to allow the amendment to pass by 246 to 242, delivering PM Rishi Sunak his first Commons defeat.

What does the scandal involve?
During the 1970s and 1980s, around 4,800 people with haemophilia and other blood clotting disorders were infected with HIV or hepatitis after being given contaminated blood products. More than 3,000 people have since died.

The scandal is now the subject of a statutory inquiry. The inquiry was due to publish its final report this autumn, but this has been delayed until the spring. Earlier this year, its chair Brian Langstaff called for a full compensation scheme to be set up immediately, and said it should be widened to include orphaned children and parents who lost children.

What’s the current compensation situation?
At present, only victims or bereaved partners can receive an interim payment of around £100,000. The government has previously said that there is a “moral case” for compensating victims, but that it wanted to wait for the outcome of the inquiry. 

But MPs had called for the process to be accelerated, with campaigners saying that “time is of the essence”, said The Guardian. 

What next?
In a statement posted to X last night, Labour MP Diana Johnson - who tabled the amendment - described the result as an “important step forward in what has been an extraordinarily long fight for justice”, adding: “it is not the end”.

The legislation now needs to be approved by the House of Lords before becoming law.