I categorically disagree with the comments from Simon Jenkins about the use and purpose of public inquiries, and with his particular reference to the NHS infected blood inquiry (Public inquiries are institutionally corrupt, we should just give the money to victims, 17 June) .
After nearly 40 years of campaigning and the refusal by the state to acknowledge the harm done to thousands of people, the NHS infected blood inquiry was finally announced in 2017 when all opposition parties in the Commons came together, threatening to vote against Theresa May’s minority government.
It was the only way to force the state to take responsibility for its actions and to find out what went so wrong for so long – and why.
The fact that for decades successive governments brushed under the carpet the scale of the worst treatment disaster in NHS history is inexcusable.
It is in telling the story of those infected and affected in the scandal at the inquiry, much of which has never been heard before, that is so important. Jenkins is also wrong to say that “it is telling us little or nothing that a bunch of assiduous investigators could not have discovered in a few weeks”.
This completely ignores the scale of both what happened for about 20 years all over the UK with the use of contaminated blood products and then the cover-up for 20 years more by the state.
Of course, compensation should have been paid much sooner, but fighting for a public inquiry was the only option open to these families in order to move this forward. After all the misery that they have endured, they should not be criticised for fighting for justice with the only tools currently available to them.
Diana Johnson MP
Labour, Kingston upon Hull North
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