Ben Everitt MP voted against a Labour amendment, passed last night, to hasten efforts to compensate victims of the infected blood scandal.

Mr Everitt voted with the whip and the Government. He was not among the 22 Conservative MPs who rebelled to support the Labour amendment requiring ministers to establish a body to administer the full compensation scheme within three months of the Victims and Prisoners Bill becoming law.

The amendment would establish a body for a full compensation scheme for thousands of patients infected with HIV and hepatitis through contaminated blood products in the 1970s and 1980s.

Theresa May set up an Infected Blood Inquiry in 2017 to investigate the scandal and possible compensation.

The proposal, tabled by Labour former minister Dame Diana Johnson, was approved by 246 votes to 242, majority four, inflicting Rishi Sunak’s first Commons defeat as Prime Minister and the first defeat on a whipped vote since the general election in 2019.

Chris Curtis, Labour’s parliamentary candidate for Milton Keynes North, said: “This is an issue that affects thousands of people across the country, including families in Milton Keynes. The Conservative MPs who voted with their Government to block speedier compensation are on the wrong side of history, and the wrong side of their constituents.”