I’d like to thank Julie, Dai, Rhun, Mark, Hefin and Jenny for tabling this individual Member’s debate and for giving us all the opportunity to discuss this very important topic. The contaminated blood scandal is one of the darkest periods in the history of our NHS. The fact that people who sought help from the health service were exposed to deadly viruses is shocking enough, but the fact that they have been denied a proper explanation as to how this was allowed to happen is inexcusable. The previous UK Government did apologise to patients infected by contaminated blood and their families, but they were still denied a full, independent public inquiry.

Successive Governments have monumentally failed to address the concerns of the victims of the contaminated blood scandal. In comparison, following pressure from the Scottish Parliament’s health committee, the newly elected SNP Government in 2008 ordered a full public inquiry into the infection of people with hepatitis C and HIV contracted from NHS treatment. The inquiry began in 2009 and published its final report in March 2015. The report spans five volumes and runs to over 1,800 pages, having considered the treatment of bleeding disorders and blood transfusions in Scotland between 1974 and 1991.

The people of Wales deserve no less. We need a full, independent inquiry covering the use of blood and blood products in the Welsh NHS. Seventy people have died in Wales as a result of the contaminated blood scandal and numerous others are living with diseases they acquired as a result of the treatment they received. However, we don’t know how many others have received treatment, contracted an infection, but remain undiagnosed. The Scottish inquiry recommended that everyone who received a blood transfusion before September 1991 be tested for hepatitis C. That’s the purpose of such inquiries: to establish the facts, to make recommendations and to ensure that lessons are learnt so that we don’t make the same mistakes again.

We need to establish the facts of what went on in our health service during the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. These families deserve an explanation. How was a large American pharmaceutical company allowed to collect blood from prisoners in America and from the third world without any testing of the donors? How were the products produced from this blood licensed? Were products produced by this company still used in Welsh hospitals after they were withdrawn from the US? Have we learned anything from this dark period in the NHS’s history and are we sure that something like this could never, ever happen again? Only a full, independent public inquiry can address these questions. Only a full, independent public inquiry can provide answers to the victims of this scandal. And only a full, independent public inquiry can provide closure for those who have sadly passed away, and their families, as a result of receiving this contaminated blood. I urge the Welsh Government and the UK Government to work together to do the right thing and order such an inquiry while many of the victims are still with us. Thank you very much. Diolch yn fawr.