BILLIONS will be set aside to compensate the victims of the infected blood and Post Office Horizon scandals, Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced today.

About £11.8 billion will be available for 30,000 NHS patients who were infected with HIV or hepatitis C from contaminated blood products from the 1970s to early 1990s, a scandal that caused thousands of deaths.

And £1.8bn will compensate subpostmasters wrongly accused of fraud due to faulty software, some of whom faced jail, fines, and ostracism.