Call for inquiry into contaminated blood

THERESA May has faced calls from six opposition leaders to announce a Hillsborough-style inquiry into the contaminated blood scandal.

A joint letter said the probe should look into allegations of a cover-up and claims that patients were not told of the risks, even after the dangers became clear.

The letter is signed by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and, significantly, the DUP’s leader at Westminster Nigel Dodds – whose MPs the Prime Minister relies on to prop up her government.

Mrs May has promised that health ministers “will look at any new evidence that is brought forward” on the scandal, in which haemophiliacs and others were infected with hepatitis C and HIV from blood products during the 1970s and 1980s.

The joint letter to Mrs May – also signed by Ian Blackford, the leader of the SNP in the Commons, LibDem leader Tim Farron, Plaid Cymru’s Westminster leader Liz Saville Roberts and Green co-leader Caroline Lucas – called for the establishment of an inquiry with the power to compel all those involved in the scandal to participate.

The leaders said: “We believe those affected have a right to know what went wrong; and why. Whenever public disasters of this kind take place, Government has a fundamental duty to support those affected in getting the answers they need; to disclose everything they know; and to ensure that officials are called to account for their actions.

“We regret that for many decades, the victims of the contaminated blood scandal have been denied this.”