2. Will the First Minister make a statement on the support available to haemophiliacs and their families in Wales? OAQ53881

I thank the Member for that question. Services available to people in Wales with haemophilia include specialist physiotherapy, psychology, social services and access to latest treatments. In addition, the Welsh infected blood support scheme provides a package of financial and other measures for people affected by infected blood.

First Minister, you will recognise, as most of us here do, that the contaminated blood scandal is one of the great and terrible scandals that's occurred—admittedly, well before devolution, but one where there is a legacy with us to this day. You'll also be pleased, I'm sure, to welcome the commencement, at long last, of the contaminated blood inquiry, which has started to take place. And I'm sure you will also welcome the actual work that Julie Morgan has done with Haemophilia Wales, and with the families and the victims throughout Wales, and the work she's done with the cross-party group. But, First Minister, as the inquiry started, the UK Government announced a financial package of support—until it turned out that that financial package only applies to England. It appears that Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are an afterthought and are not included within it, that there is no new money, no new funding, no new consequential. And this, First Minister, must be one of the most cruel and reckless activities by the UK Government—raising expectations while not providing any financial support. First Minister, will you urge the UK Government firstly to ensure that there is new money—proper money—to fund these people who deserve it, and that there is proper provision for the widows? And can you inform this Chamber what discussions, what contacts, you have had from the UK Government, because they are certainly writing in correspondence that there are negotiations about to start? And will you also arrange to meet with the cross-party group—or members of your Government to meet with the cross-party group—so that they can be involved in any forward planning, any decision-making process, but also for an explanation as to where we are with this inquiry and with the issue of support for victims?

Llywydd, can I thank the Member for those very important questions? Let me begin by agreeing with him that, of course, we welcome the establishment of the inquiry, chaired by Sir Brian Langstaff. I'm pleased to be able to report to the Chamber that the Welsh Government has secured core participant status in the inquiry, which gives us extra rights of access to the inquiry, and the inquiry, I understand, intends to come to Wales on 23 July and will spend four days here taking evidence directly from those affected and those infected in the contaminated blood scandal, and we will do whatever we can as a Welsh Government to assist people to make sure that they can put their case to the inquiry.

But to go to the specific point the Member raised, on 21 January this year a meeting was held, chaired by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, at which it was agreed that there was a need for a UK-wide approach, with parity for all those affected, and that meeting was attended by Scotland, by Wales, and by UK Ministers, and we came away from that meeting having signed up to that proposition and made efforts to secure further meetings beyond 21 January. However, on 30 April—the first day of the infected blood inquiry—the UK Government made a unilateral announcement of additional funding for English patients only. There was no consultation, there was no prior ministerial notice, and it was a breach of the agreement that had been reached on 21 January. We since had a letter from a junior Minister at the Department of Health. It takes your breath away, really, when she says to us, 'I believe', she says, 'That we could all benefit from greater dialogue and co-operation on these matters'. It beggars belief, really, that such a letter could be sent to us when they had done exactly the opposite. The campaigners, the charities and campaign groups who had been part of the meeting on 21 January have since written to the Prime Minister saying that their understanding was that those discussions were for the whole of the United Kingdom. 'We assume', they said, 'That the decision involved devolved administrations and have learned with a mixture of disappointment, anger and frustration that that has turned out not to be the case'.

Now, Llywydd, during the first decade of devolution, the Government at the UK level observed scrupulously the agreement that anything that had happened prior to devolution was a cost on the UK Government. Things that have happened since devolution, of course, are a cost on us here. The awful scandal in contaminated blood happened many, many years before devolution and the devolution rules seem to me unambiguously to require that if money is provided by the UK Government for patients in England, then the same help must be available to patients throughout the United Kingdom, and we will continue to make that case as vigorously as we can with UK Ministers.

First Minister, as part of the inquiry work taking place here in Wales, could you provide some clarity, perhaps, as to when pharmaceutical professionals in Wales could be expected to administer the trialled recombinant, laboratory-made factor products such as Fc-fusion, PEGylation and albumin fusion, and also advise what work this Government is doing with patients here in Wales in terms of communication as to how these drugs might actually make a big difference to their lives going forward?

Well, Llywydd, on 6 March, my colleague Vaughan Gething provided a written statement to the Assembly, setting out a fair and comprehensive package of additional support for families and individuals here in Wales. We believe that that went some way to meeting the concerns of those families. I'm happy to write to the Member on the specific question of when pharmaceutical professionals will be able to administer new forms of drug therapy, but we have been talking in this question about something more fundamental than that. We've been talking about financial support to people who have been infected by a failure on the part of the national health service nearly 40 years ago that will allow them to live decent lives at this point in their life cycle, and, while there are other things that we want to do, that fundamental issue deserves to be tackled right across this Chamber.