Rachel Reeves has revealed compensation worth more than £13 billion for victims of the contaminated blood scandal and the Post Office Horizon scandal.

The announcement will be welcomed by campaigners who have repeatedly criticized payment delays.

Unveiling her Budget today, Mrs Reeves said £11.8bn would be set aside for victims of the infected blood scandal and £1.8bn for victims of the Post Office Horizon scandal.

The chancellor said: “The previous government also failed to budget for costs they knew would materialise. This includes funding for vital compensation schemes for victims of two terrible injustices: the tainted blood scandal and the Post Office Horizon scandal.

“The Leader of the Opposition has rightly made an unequivocal apology for the injustice of the infected blood scandal on behalf of the British state, but has not budgeted for the costs of reparations.

Sir Alan Bates led the search for justice for victims of the Post Office scandal

Rachel Reeves poses in front of number 11 with the red box this afternoon

“Today, for the first time, we will provide targeted funding to compensate those infected and affected, a total of £11.8 billion in this budget.

“I am also today setting aside £1.8 billion to compensate the victims of the Post Office Horizon scandal, compensation that is long overdue for the pain and injustice they have suffered.”

At the beginning of this year a The National Audit Office (NAO) report found that there is no centrally coordinated approach when the Government sets out new compensation schemes, resulting in a “relatively slow ad hoc approach” to dealing with claims.

It recommended that, by the end of the year, Cabinet should set up a center of expertise within the Government to provide guidance or a framework for public bodies wishing to set up such schemes.

In response, critics said the new Labor government must “act now” and pointed out that the time for “talk and more promises is over”.

More than 700 postmasters were prosecuted for theft by the Post Office and received criminal convictions between 1999 and 2015 because the flawed computer system they used, known as Horizon, made it appear money was missing from branches their.

Many were jailed and bankrupted, while at least four are believed to have taken their own lives.

The prosecution continued under the watch of disgraced chief executive Paula Vennells, despite being repeatedly told there were concerns about the reliability of evidence used to bring innocent workers to justice.

The contaminated blood scandal saw more than 30,000 people receiving NHS treatment between the 1970s and early 1990s infected with contaminated blood and contracting hepatitis C, chronic hepatitis B or HIV.

Infected blood activists gather in Westminster, London, demanding reparations for victims

Victims will be compensated under a tariff scheme which was due to start making payments at the end of the year.

There is no cut-off date for eligibility for compensation around the time a person was infected, but evidence requirements will be higher for people infected after screening for the conditions was introduced in 1972, 1985 and 1991 respectively .

Payments can also apply to people who contracted diseases from a victim through sexual contact in a long-term relationship, childbirth or accidental needlestick injuries, but not if a patient contracted them by sharing needles while taking medicines.

According to an explainer, patients can choose to take compensation as a lump sum or in installments over five, 10 or 25 years, with future payments increased by inflation.

The government would pay a lump sum to the personal representatives of eligible infected patients if they die before receiving their full entitlement.

The global payment will be made up of a number of awards, including a harm impact award which “compensates for past and future physical and mental injury and emotional distress and hurt feelings”, a social impact award for stigma and social isolation and the autonomy award which considers how infected blood may have affected patients’ private and family lives.