| When I asked Sonia Macleod if there is anything like an agreed starting point for fair compensation figures, she directed me to the Judicial College’s guidelines on damages in personal injury cases. You can see the version used in Northern Ireland here. The numbers are fascinating, and suggest how arbitrary or even cold some of this can inevitably seem: up to £850,000 for very severe brain damage, £750,000 for the loss of both arms, £50,000 for an injury to the thumb requiring the amputation of the tip but not its total loss, £4,500 for the loss of a back tooth. “Courts provide what would often be termed ‘full compensation’,” Macleod said, “to restore you to the position you would have been in if not for the injury. But that’s almost impossible – it’s a legal fiction.” The approach in cases like the contaminated blood scandal, where there is a general recognition of the state’s responsibility and a powerful political incentive to be seen as doing the right thing, is quite different. “There’s a question about legal entitlement. But there’s also a moral question – and the indication here is that there will be a more generous approach than the law would necessarily oblige.” Yesterday the government published tables of illustrative awards that revealed how significant the payments will be in the most severe cases: as much as £2.7m for someone living with HIV and hepatitis C, and £110,000 for the partner of someone who died. Even so, it is just as impossible to recreate the life that might have been. What is the government doing for the victims of the infected blood scandal? The Cabinet Office minister John Glen set out the government’s response to Langstaff’s report in parliament yesterday. He announced an additional £210,000 payment within 90 days for living claimants who had been infected, on top of the £100,000 they have already received, with full payments to be made by the end of the year. Glen said the £210,000 figure was arrived at as the highest possible sum that would be applicable across all cases, and could therefore paid without delay. He also announced that the payments will be exempt from tax, and that Francis would run the authority overseeing the scheme. Finally, he said that the views of the infected blood community would be sought before the plan was finalised. Those are important features, Macleod said. “People are still dying, and time is not on their side – so it’s really important to be as speedy as possible. A tariff system makes payments simpler and quicker, rather than individualising the scheme to each person. And all of this has to be done in conjunction with the people who have been affected. In the past, that consultation has not been done in the way it should have been.” She also welcomed the news that Francis will oversee the scheme – which was also applauded by victims and family members in the House of Commons gallery. “Where the body that caused the harm is running it, that is never going to fly. It lacks independence and credibility. You have to have decisions taken away from the agency that caused the harm.” What will they be compensated for? There will be payments to those indirectly affected, primarily family members of those infected, as well as the victims themselves. The government has largely accepted the categories of compensation that were set out by Francis: injury, social impact, autonomy, past and future care needs, and past and future financial losses. Some of these are clearly more tangible than others, from a concrete financial loss at one end of the spectrum to the loss of the ability to form long-term relationships at the other. Those losses might be harder to put a figure on, but they are no less profound, as those who have lost loved ones to Aids or hepatitis because of infected blood would attest. “If the criteria are relatively straightforward, you can judge eligibility quickly,” Macleod said. “That shouldn’t be an issue here, since most people are already receiving payments. “The next step is quantifying the payment levels, and how you judge that – so, for example, decisions by panels will take longer than those by individuals. And if you’re going for a tariff, rather than an individually tailored award, you have to be generous enough to cover the most severely affected. But there will be injustices within that: some people who have had massive knock-on impacts that aren’t quantified, some people who you might say that you don’t think the losses are quite as severe. It’s a horrible job.” One measure of how difficult some of these assessments can be: a parent whose child has died is eligible for £30,000 less than someone who lost their partner. That might make sense in terms of financial impact, but it is easy to see that it could also appear to minimise such a grievous loss. Are there other ways to make sure that victims feel the scheme is just? | 