Infected blood scandal shows need to end 'cover up' culture
'It is too easy to cover up in this country' warns campaigning mayor Andy Burnham
Britain has a “cover up” culture that makes it too easy for public bodies to avoid taking responsibility for wrongdoing, it was claimed yesterday.
Former health secretary Andy Burnham says urgent change is needed to avoid a repeat of the Post Office and infected blood scandals.
He said: “It is too easy to cover up in this country.
“You can have something go wrong and an official line develops - often with the help of the Treasury, which tries to limit the financial exposure.”
He fears the plight of thousands of veterans stricken with cancer and heart problems following nuclear weapons tests will be the next scandal on the scale of the row over tainted blood.
Some of the children of around 40,000 troops who witnessed the testing in Australia and the Pacific between 1952 and 1963, were born with disabilities as a result of the exposure to radiation.
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Mr Burnham, a leading campaigner for justice for victims of the infected blood scandal, called for Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer to pledge a public inquiry for the nuclear test vicitms in their election manifestos.
The Greater Manchester Mayor said: “At the heart of the government machine there is a lack of humanity and compassion.
“I am convinced that it is a cover up on the same scale as infected blood.”
He added: “What we now need is for all the political parties to make a commitment to a public inquiry.
“I am calling on them to include a manifesto commitment to a public inquiry into the scandalous treatment of our service personnel who were sent overseas without any protection straight into very harmful radiation.
“They were basically tested on.”
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Mr Burnham, a former Labour minister, argues there is a pattern of cover ups in the UK which could also be seen in the response to the 1989 Hillsborough tragedy, when 97 Liverpool fans died.
He has also called for those responsible for the infected blood scandal to face prosecution.
“It’s too easy for people to say ‘I didn’t know about it’.
“Minister after minister, from the 1970s onwards, was told that nobody was knowingly given unsafe blood products. But the public inquiry has found that just wasn’t true.
“I don’t think you would go after junior civil servants but with senior civil servants who signed off that line, I think there is a very robust case for misconduct in public office.”
