15 July 2022: Burnham - A

Andy Burnham presents as a no-nonsense Northerner (and strong candidate for the next Labour leader). He strode in slowly, deliberately, while scanning the room. He was dressed is black, including an open-neck shirt.

BOMBSHELL: Before anything happened, Sir Brian had an announcement to make. It was in relation to the evidence of Sir Robert Francis. The Chair was considering exercising his powers under the Inquiry Act to make an interim recommendation. He considered two points from the evidence of Sir Robert, the first being the compelling case for immediate interim payments, and the second being the likelihood of it taking considerable time to achieve the necessary logistical arrangements involved in setting up a compensation scheme as he had proposed. Thus, Sir Brian was inviting submissions on two matters. Firstly, should he recommend immediate interim payments? Secondly, what should be the scope of his interim recommendation, and why? Sir Brian set a deadline of 10 days for responses to be received, meaning the window would close at 5pm on Monday 25 July 2022. There was stunned silence, with a palpable frisson.

Returning to the actual business of the day, Mr Burnham started as a Minister in the Department of Health in 2006. He became Chief Secretary to the Treasury for a short while, before in 2009 becoming Secretary of State for Health. After the election he continued in Health, but in the Shadow role. He had had no responsibilities for blood policy but had experience of Inquiries because he was involved in the Shipman Inquiry. The Chief Medical Officer (CMO) was Liam Donaldson. He met almost every day with his key advisers, including the CMO. When he was appointed, there was no induction by just a pile of Lever-Arch files on his desk to read through and then he simply had to get on with it. Mr Burnham thought it was right and proper for Ministers to be guided by officials. But that information had to be truthful, comprehensive, and unbiased. Soon after his arrival in office he had to deal with a pandemic (“Swine Flu”, the one before Covid that most people have forgotten about because it didn’t come to much – but that’s enough said on that topic.) The witness had the responsibility to Chair the weekly COBRA meetings.

The delegation of responsibilities of Ministers is often inherited, but the Secretary of State has the role overall for assigning briefs. He was involved from a Health perspective with the Treasury, but it was when he spent time in the Treasury as Chief Secretary that his eyes were really opened to the enormity of the Treasury role in Government. Relative to working with the Devolved Administrations, he found it somewhat unusual due to the pandemic overarching much of the pressing issues. The links between the four Health Ministers (including Nicola Sturgeon in Scotland), worked well. There were some differences, but none too challenging.

On his overall role, he was quoted as having a straightforward view on the role of the Minister about high quality and safe provision. He added in hindsight that it would extend to include the promotion of good health. From a media interview, it was reviewed how Mr Burnham overruled the advice of officials on the Mid-Staffs issue and did set up an Inquiry, despite what he was advised. It was led by Sir Robert Francis QC. (Where have we heard that name before?) The witness was beginning to realise that maybe these departmental lines were maybe not always helping and he expanded that consideration to begin thinking about what else might need to be reviewed. He was also opening up to the relevant issues for blood contamination following the Archer Inquiry. From the interview, he reflected how he was “a bit harsh” in his comments on the “Rolls-Royce” department that is the Treasury.

(Bombshell Alert 2) There was a 2006 letter from Caroline Flint rejecting a call for a Public Inquiry which had come from Pete Wishart MP, where Mr Burnham was also referenced. It included, yet again, the same old lines to justify saying “No”. Mr Burnham stated that he was glad to be referred to a particular paragraph in the letter. In his opinion, the false lines were holding back Governments from moving forward with the best policy and decision-making. He spoke about a letter drafted by an official which he had signed as Minister and sent to Dave Tonkin, a long-standing campaigner on contaminated blood which he later discovered was wrong. Sir Brian asked the witness to explain from his experience how these false statements continue to be used even though they have been proven to be wrong. The witness said he felt that the main reason for these lines was the fear of an issue ending up costing the Government money. He said the “system” was problematic. The system has failed the infected blood community for over five decades. (Yes, he really said that.) This assertion produced a spontaneous round of applause from those in the room. This is seminal. This writer is grateful for the opportunity to be in the room when these words were spoken, not in deference to the witness necessarily, but to hear live this admission from a senior political figure who has thrown a live grenade into the cosy world of officialdom.

Counsel then turned the screw by displaying a document highlighting a litany of reasons for Government not participating in the Archer Inquiry. The witness commented that the displayed note was “so revealing”. The first assertion in the document was a blanket false statement (“no evidence/no case to answer”), followed by a long list of reasons to back up the case for not participating. He stressed his high regard for the officials involved, but on this matter, they got it fundamentally wrong. There was no mention of the suffering of people, just a concern over reputational concerns and money. Departmental lines allow for these situations to be maintained. He mentioned how difficult it can be to be in a room full of people who are saying one thing and you want to go against all their arguments and say “no” to them, and go and do something different.

With respect to the Archer Report, he recalled reading the conclusions and flicking through the body of the text. Almost immediately upon being appointed, Alf Morris was banging on his door to get a response. In his understanding he wondered how he could even begin to open up an issue with such big financial implications when everyone including the Treasury had considered it and signed off the response. The power of the official line, albeit wrong, was very difficult to overcome. Parts of the Archer Report were displayed, related to financial relief, and this was compared against the Government response which basically said there would be a review of Skipton in five years’ time.

PLP stands for Parliamentary Labour Party and is a resource to Labour MPs to help them respond to letters from constituents or to prepare for debates. It gave the Labour Party’s lines on all issues which might come up in Parliament. Clearly, this resource had been influenced by the departmental lines in relation to contaminated blood by its use of the same wording based on civil service advice. There was also a response to Mr Burnham as Minister from Rowena Jecock with the lines being maintained and a further illustration of how any injustice is always seen through the prism of cost implications. The witness referred to the way the Government gave the impression they were doing a good thing out of the goodness of their heart, and then offering “a few scraps” as a result, because that was all they could afford. Too often the arguments were all about finance, which would put pressure on any Ministers who might be contemplating doing something different to the established line.

The questioning shifted to the handling of correspondence. Health Ministers receive thousands of letters. The Secretary of State would have to reply to Privy Council members or the Royal Family, for example. MPs would get a response from the relevant Junior Minister. Everything else including letters from the public would almost always be dealt with by the centralised postal office, answered by officials, and rarely seen by a Minister. A letter from the Haemophilia Society was probably seen by the witness, not least because of the organisation’s connection to Alf Morris. A letter from a member of the public was noted to be for the personal attention of Mr Burnham as Minister. Mr Burnham was 100% certain he would not see a letter like this. He reflected on how painful it was to read, as part of the bundle sent to him by the Inquiry and apologised for the way it was not brought to his attention because if he had, his natural response would have been to want to do something about it. The response was sent out by the Customer Service Centre. The witness said the response was a “meaningless letter” full of “cut and paste lines” which were “appalling”. He did not agree with statements in the letter asserting that the Government had done everything it could in relation to the Archer Inquiry, yet this was being sent out in his name.