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An inquiry into the UK's biggest health scandal will release its final report in the coming hours.

More than 30,000 people in the UK were infected with HIV and hepatitis C after being given contaminated blood products by the

National Health Service in the 1970s and 80s. It was the most widespread miscarriage of justice in UK history.

700 hardworking postmasters and postmistresses prosecuted for theft, fraud and false accounting from the late 90s to 2015.

32 billion items of PPE bought in the heat of a national emergency.

But now the government's spending watchdog says it can't sign off on UK contracts to private companies

because of potential conflicts of interest, documentation errors and lack of transparency.

This is not just something which happened, it is happening. It was, as I say,

a disaster which was no accident. People put their trust in the doctors, in the government,

to keep them safe, the map trust was betrayed.

I want to start with an apology on behalf of the British state

to each and every one of you and indeed to all of the families affected by this tragedy.

It should never have happened.

The British state is knee-deep in scandal.

Year after year, decade after decade, the same story, but with different characters, different subjects, plays out with precisely the same plot.

Information is hidden, complaints and questions ignored,

ranks closed, justice delayed and delayed and delayed and denied, imbalances of power

between citizen and state and system which lead inexorably to its abuse.

It would be comforting to think that we had exhausted this catalogue of catastrophe and shame.

But what if I told you that thousands and thousands of women had been told to take a drug that for decades the authorities and NHS had known could cause autism and severe disabilities

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