Pneumoconiosis etc. (Workers’ Compensation) (Payment of Claims) (Amendment) Regulations 2025

Baroness Donaghy Excerpts

Monday 3rd March 2025 Grand Committee

The good news is that time is of the essence, and the Prime Minister is giving a reception for Welsh Members of both Houses. I therefore sit down and conclude.

[Baroness Donaghy (Lab)]

My Lords, it has become a tradition for me to follow my noble friend Lord Jones on this subject. I thank the Minister for her presentation and the proposed uplift. I also pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman-Scott, for the work that she did when in government and thank my colleagues in the DWP with whom I work as chair of the mesothelioma oversight committee, as I have been doing for a considerable number of years now. That group represents the trade unions, victims, insurers and all interested parties. That quiet work is done and the tragedies carry on. The numbers may be smaller but, unfortunately, there will be a long tail indeed. Some professional people are going to get it—those teaching in schools with asbestos—as will other areas.

To inform the Committee—I have said this before—I lost a sister-in-law to mesothelioma in Scunthorpe. We still do not know whether that was because she pushed trolleys around as a nurse in a hospital basement that was full of asbestos or whether it was because she was washing her husband’s uniforms when he worked at the Scunthorpe steelworks. I also lost a very close friend in my union, on the same subject, so this is a personal issue, as well as something that I have been pleased to do for the DWP.

That is really all I have to say, except to ask the Minister—my noble friend Lord Jones indirectly indicated the future—what money the Government are thinking of putting into more research on this dreadful disease.

[Baroness Janke (LD)]

I, too, thank the Minister for her presentation. As she said, we have heard from many other noble Lords about sufferers from these diseases and that they are the legacies of old industries and still very much in evidence among many communities across the country. The diseases are not caused just by such industries; some sufferers still do not know how they contracted them. They are vicious and cause tremendous suffering, so I think, as the Minister said, that this is vital support for the sufferers. We also need to recognise that these are sick people; they may be very old and dependent on this payment. With the rising costs of energy, and so on, I hope that we might, at some stage, look more closely at how adequate these upratings are.

I am grateful to hear about the mesothelioma oversight committee, which I had not heard of before, but I would like to know a little more about the profile of this cohort of recipients. We hear a lot about their suffering—they have suffered through no fault of their own—and, as the noble Baroness said, their life expectancy is very short. So that would be helpful to me, but obviously we cannot have that today. The noble Baroness mentioned the number of recipients—I am sorry; I did not manage to write that down—but perhaps we could have something on that, on the age profile and on how many dependants are receiving the payments, as opposed to the actual sufferers. Can we hear a bit more about the life expectancy of some of the sufferers? It may be that we might get a more detailed approach to this payment, perhaps with the help of the mesothelioma oversight committee and other bodies.

I believe the Labour Party will conduct a benefit review. I hope there may be an opportunity to look in more detail at some of the cohorts. I have mentioned before that benefit payments are not really related to the cost of living or the cost of healthy eating. In looking at whether these recipients’ payments are adequate, we ought to think about the treatment, the suffering and the conditions that they must endure.

I hope that we may have the chance, in a review, to look at the particular needs of these people who are suffering from these terrible, debilitating and terminal diseases. I am sure that we all support the uplift, but I suspect that we all wonder whether it is adequate, so I hope that that will be looked at again.