After decades of injustice, there is finally progress for the people infected and affected by the contaminated blood scandal with a victory in Parliament to change the law.

I was proud to vote last night, along with my Labour colleagues, to establish a body to administer the compensation scheme for victims of the infected blood scandal. This was tabled by my Labour colleague Dame Diana Johnson. Thanks to years of campaigning by people infected and affected by the contaminated blood scandal and in Parliament by Diana and others and hard work by the Labour team, I am pleased we were successful in getting this through as an amendment to the Victims and Prisoners Bill.

This now means that the provision will go through further stages of the Bill’s progress through Parliament.

Labour will be fully supportive of this amendment all the way, seeking justice for those infected and affected by blood contaminated products. We will fight hard to defend this progress and hope that the government will now support it, after they voted against it last night.

On behalf of constituents who are affected by this scandal I have long been calling on the Government to urgently speed up the process of delivering justice to victims and their families. This includes calling on them to get on with the work needed to set up the structure of the compensation scheme to ensure victims and others affected are compensated as soon as possible.

My Labour colleague and Shadow Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, wrote a letter to the Chancellor on 3 December, to inform him of the Labour party’s support for the clause. This led to our voting for the amendment last night and we will keep up the pressure.