20 May 2022: Patten - B

The witness said that he felt the over-riding responsibility was to “get on with things” (things such as publishing a leaflet as quickly as possible, while trying not to offend any special groups along the way). He mentioned how he had homosexual friends who even stayed at his house, but while he didn’t set out to offend anyone such as gay people, the most important thing was to protect people under public health considerations. Counsel also checked with the witness if the same applied to blood collection policy, if it turned out some sections of the population had to be discriminated against. Lord Patten agreed to this too.

Leaflet distribution also became a matter for considerable debate, for example, to minimise the chance of embarrassing people who might simply pick the leaflet up and due to some of the intimate descriptions (the gay sex stuff) in the text, they might be uncomfortable and worried someone could see them holding such a leaflet. On leaflet distribution methods (yes, it got down to that level) it seems like an accepted option was not the safest in public health terms but was the least costly. Again, the witness agreed with the assessment. By his responses, Lord Patten seemed to be claiming he was focusing on acting quickly over cost implications, and on prioritising public health safety over the risk of offending some (gay) people. He obviously does not want to be seen as a vacillating villain. The Chair interjected with a question/observation about the timetable of Parliament around August. The witness thought that it meant he didn’t get a holiday that summer. He was probably not alone in missing the chance to get away that year. If only so many infected people and their families had missed just one summer holiday; if only.

The witness admitted that while he had read Lord Glenarthur’s evidence to the Inquiry, he had not read Lord Clarke’s evidence. (What?!? … oh, its ok, those who wrote Lord Patten’s statement will have read Lord Clarke’s statement … no, they didn’t need to, because they wrote it.)

On the troublesome statement – primarily attributed to Lord Clarke – that there was “no conclusive evidence” of AIDS being transmitted through blood, Lord Patten said it was in the “Zeitgeist” of the DH before he got there. It was not unusual for Junior Ministers to be given a line they had to say. He felt the phrase was not first used in a major announcement, but it crept in. The shift away from that phrase, the witness thinks, was due to a shift in scientific knowledge. On the direct question to him about the correctness or not of using that phrase, Lord Patten suddenly started to speak very slowly and carefully as he tiptoed word-by-word through his answer. He said he was “certain” that such a choice of phrase was subject to the influence of a number of experts to justify its use. He did not think Dr Woolford would have shied away from using more accurate and clearer words if the evidence pointed that way. Overall, he thought that choice of words “could” (or “should” suggested Counsel) have stopped being used sooner than it was.

The letter from Dr Galbraith, the leading exert in the field, as he returned from a trip abroad, wherein he recommended stopping the use of US blood until the question of how AIDS was transmitted, was not seen by Lord Patten. His instinctive reaction would have been to “push the panic button,” he said. He felt sure Lord Glenarthur had not seen it either because he would have expected his colleague to respond in the same way. Anyhow, did anyone anywhere ever see the Galbraith letter anytime? Lord Patten finds it very hard to understand how this information was never picked up (he said, with a big sigh at the end). The witness asked who the CMO was at the time. When he was told it was Dr Yellowlees, there was a small but noticeable physical response, followed by a weighted comment that he was not sure how much Dr Yellowlees would delegate things. Why do politicians insist on playing word games rather than saying it like it is? If he is so motivated to get on with things, that would surely be helped by using plainly spoken language. Meanwhile, somewhere in the leafy suburbs around London, someone is looking for their missing weasel.

The Council of Europe (Committee of Ministers) document made recommendations about how to respond to AIDS, some of it very relevant to the UK. This included steps to take if any country had not achieved self-sufficiency; as the UK still had not. This paper has come up at various times during the Inquiry. It must count as an “inconvenient truth” to those who let these matters float aimlessly for far too long resulting in more people that necessary being infected, and those infected not being supported. And this is despite any protestations of “we were doing our best” (some people better check the dictionary definition of “best”), and declarations that “we needed to get on with it” (ditto for “get on with”).

Medical civil servants did not move on as frequently as more regular civil servants, or Ministers for that matter. The staff turnover rate resulted in too frequent losses of knowledge and momentum. Then it was noted from a letter how there was a different length of reported trial period for the AIDS leaflet. Lord Patten thought it was always three months, but the document mentioned six months. The ensuing discussion on this obviously earth-shattering point made it all the more thankful to see the lunch break come along to save us from death by dreary detail.