Mesothelioma Lump Sum Payments (Conditions and Amounts) (Amendment) Regulations 2018

Debate between Baroness Finlay of Llandaff and Lord Jones

Tuesday 27th February 2018 Grand Committee

[Lord Jones (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her introduction and I acknowledge the great expertise of my noble friend Lord McKenzie from all the years of his work. He puts the rest of us on this side of the Committee in the shade. I welcome the regulations and the 3% increase.

In the late 1960s, factory workers in Hebden Bridge were playing snowballs with deadly blue asbestos. At that time and later, medical experts and legislators began to take an interest in this dreadful problem and its dreadful consequences. I was alongside the late Mr Michael Foot in Prime Minister Harold Wilson’s Administration as long ago as 1975 when he introduced his historic health and safety at work legislation. The legislation got through, but it was strongly opposed. Good things have arisen from Michael Foot’s historic measure.

One welcomes the reference at paragraph 2.1 of the Explanatory Memorandum to dependants, although I have a point of issue. Like a previous speaker, I wonder whether the Minister might enlarge on how that paragraph might affect dependants—that is, the conditions of entitlement. Surely the Government might look again at this matter and reconsider their decision not to increase.

There are historical references in relation to the Pneumoconiosis etc. (Workers’ Compensation) (Payment of Claims) (Amendment) Regulations. This legislation arose out of the interest of a former Leader of the Opposition in the House of Lords, the late Cledwyn Hughes, who was of course for many years Member of Parliament for Ynys Môn—Anglesey—the activity and interest of a distinguished solicitor in Anglesey, Sir Elwyn Jones, and that of a leader of the Transport and General Workers’ Union in north Wales, based in Caernarfon, Mr Tom Jones. Their intervention on the worries of quarrymen in north Wales led directly to this legislation, which we are now renewing. I had the honour of serving in Harold Wilson’s Administration alongside Mr Cledwyn Hughes. With Sir Elwyn Jones and Mr Tom Jones, we worked hard on getting a fair deal for those quarrymen.

It is a matter of social history. In north Wales, the quarrymen who went underground had to bring their own candles into the caverns before they hacked out the slate that roofed the world—the new world and the old world. This is the origin of the struggle of the quarrymen. Ultimately, this legislation gave them some recompense—those who survived, of course.

There may be Members of your Lordships’ Committee who from time to time go to Penrhyn Castle in north Wales, a National Trust property. The owner was a quarry owner. He built it on the massive profits made from roofing the world. There was a great dispute between the quarry owner in a mighty mansion and the poor striving quarrymen who had to bring their own candles underground and who suffered injury and disease. That was history. I make these remarks with regard to the late Michael Foot and fellow Welshmen from my homeland because, although the Minister may well know these details that I put before the Committee, her youthful advisers in the department may not know them. It is important for the passage of legislation that the people who power the department know the history and the origin. Too often, they do not.

I have previously asked why this lengthy agenda cannot be taken on the Floor of the House, because the issues, the values and the money are mighty in total. It is not good enough that we know that there are the usual channels. We know that. I thought it only right that I should intervene.

I say to conclude that there was that great quarry owner in that great castle in Penrhyn and there were the quarrymen with very little, who, to use a common phrase now, were barely getting by. It may be of interest that at the end of the strike many of those quarrymen buried their hammers and chisels and left for ever and we were left with terrible bitterness. It is only right that this Committee should know from whence the legislation came and those who brought it about.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, that very powerful speech by the noble Lord, Lord Jones, has certainly put the history of north Wales into the context of this measure. I shall bring us up to the present day and I am sure that the noble Lord will agree with me that there is ongoing concern, particularly in Wales, where we know that there is still asbestos in schools. I have asked a lot of questions about asbestos in schools in Wales, and there has been a real problem about who actually has responsibility for dealing with it because it seems to fall between the devolved Government and the Westminster Government. I do not expect the Minister necessarily to have an answer to that today. I would love it if she did because I worry that we may be sitting on a future epidemic, another cohort. One of the problems in schools is that if you bang nails into the wall or children fall very heavily against a wall that is cracked, you will get a shower of asbestos dust coming out from the hole or the crack. The children are running around, breathing fast and inhaling the dust, and it will sit in their lungs for many years. We know perfectly well that not everybody who inhales asbestos fibres goes on to develop mesothelioma, but a significantly large percentage does.