8 June 2022: Lister - B

Mr (Vladimir) Lister was taken to the new Millennium era and his advice to Lord Hunt. The HIV Litigation was appearing to be at odds with the DH position (and concomitant party lines) of making no-fault payments; albeit the relevant law was more a matter of consumer protection not medical negligence. It was almost as if the game being played was to skilfully negotiate around any and all threats to established policy positions as if they were sacred tenets never to be challenged. Maybe the possibility of a small group making a claim on public funds was an unconscionable compromise to be defeated for the benefit of the general population by protecting the public purse. That, and the prospect of setting a precedent which might open those annoyingly opportunistic flood gates for anyone with a gripe against the State. Most Governments promote their stated irrevocable stance of never negotiating with terrorists and hostage-takers, yet in the background they do exactly that when push comes to shove. Clearly, how things are presented is more important than how things are. Yet for virally infected people, that resistance is more easily maintained since the State holds all the power. In our case, victims are hostages to mis-fortune, where the lack of “fortune” is, in reality, just the limits imposed by poverty.

An internal document displayed in evidence related to potential pay-outs came across as coldly and calculatingly dehumanised by the almost exclusive emphasis on paying out as little as possible when it becomes inevitable that that would have to happen. For example, if some token allocation of money to haemophiliacs was to be begrudgingly allowed, there was to be no similar support to non-haemophiliacs because it would cost too much more. There is no acknowledgement whatsoever of the suffering caused, the terrible challenges being lived with, and any kind of culpability of the State. The witness appears to gleefully accept his skill in crafting advice, regardless of the possibility that it was either towards maintaining the policy or beginning to nudge a shift away when other factors make it more important to the omnipresent need for the civil service to maintain the power status quo. Are all civil servants assessed for their levels of being a sociopath or a psychopath before being given more senior roles? Ultimately, his efforts to move things through Yvette Cooper were stymied by the Secretary of State, John Hutton.

The Lord Ross group became increasingly consequential to the situation in the rest of the UK. Mr Lister’s main contact was Bob Stock. They kept each other informed of developments. When asked if there was any possibility of England following Scotland’s anticipated lead, the witness retorted that Scotland should have followed the position in England (accompanied by a smug smile as he said it – must be instinctive).

When Malcolm Chisholm appeared to be moving towards making payments in Scotland, the feeling in Whitehall was that he should have “toughed it out” and resisted the pressures to establish any payment scheme. Mr Lister was tasked with preparing a submission to go to Scotland to demonstrate that under devolution Scotland did not have the authority to act unilaterally on this matter. He/they tried to say that because Social Security was not devolved, and it might be argued the matter of support payments was more that area of competence rather than being a Health issue, then it was beyond Scottish powers. They certainly wanted to delay Malcolm Chisholm in making an announcement in order to maintain a UK-wide position, which effectively meant that they wanted to bring Scotland back into line. It was a straightforward political issue, with no reference whatsoever to the victim-survivors’ plights. How dare those troublesome Scots upset the applecart.

Much of the focus of the Inquiry with Government witnesses has been when the Conservatives were in power; which has certainly not been a misplaced focus. But increasingly, the Labour Party are being seen as culpable in their own ways. They were certainly willing to maintain the lines and policy priorities which kept the barriers to resolving the Contaminated Blood Scandal well and truly raised. Can there be any of the political parties who can come away from the Scandal with clean hands? Surely not.

Mr Lister said he still believes he was right to do what he did at the time (i.e. continually standing in the way of people getting even minimal financial help), and anyway, he was not sufficiently senior to do much else. Basically, his is another “I did my best given the times” defence.

On the alleged independence of the Alliance House bodies, the informality of how top-up funding would be made available was insufficient and at least to be seen as unhelpful. It gave no confidence to these charities. Basically, there was no specific departmental budget heading for meeting the on-going costs. The groups were expected to ask for money at the end of a year and the matter would apparently be met through the  Department’s underspend for that year. The witness recognised how inadequate an arrangement this was, but it didn’t seem a big deal to him. His statement describes the links to Government as “light-touch”, yet the entirety of the funds came from Government. They were required to submit a business case for additional funds. Hey, only an idiot would write such a document without specific reference to Government priorities and policies. Is it any wonder that the witness could not recall any example of these bodies seeking to do anything at variance with what Government wanted them to do? Mr Lister says (now) that there was no way the Government would not have provided any funds needed. However, the lack of clarity at the time about financial security must have been a useful method of maintaining “soft” but effectively fear-driven control.

This writer has met this witness’s “type” before. Certain civil servants act as if they are in post simply to minimise any exposure of whatever government they serve of having responsibility to act on (and pay for) an identified social need. They wear as a badge of honour their capacity to minimise or neutralise any external pressures to do anything. They say as little as possible and don’t give out any useful information unless they are forced to, particularly if that could be used to oppose the preferred positions. The sense of power imbalance must be engrossingly toxic in a heady way. How people get their kicks is indeed strange sometimes. Surely, this systemic compromising of normal human compassion should be more unthinkable that it was/is.

The practice of only appointing retired civil servants to positions such as Trusteeship of Alliance House bodies was seen by Yvette Cooper as a manifestation of the “0ld-boys network”. Mr Lister managed to maintain no flicker of change to his smug-style smile while stating that the first duty of these Whitehall alumni was to the charity, and there was no expectation at all of them acting in any way to push the Government line to the exclusion of all else. Opposite to politicians and the telling movement of their lips when they are vocalising a terminological inexactitude, by contrast civil servants are more like ventriloquists because you don’t notice their lips moving when they are spinning a yarn. It must be a gift held only by these so-called “gifted amateurs”.

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