Mesothelioma Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Empey and Lord Moonie

Wednesday 5th June 2013 Grand Committee

[Lord Moonie]

I am sure that the Minister will be grateful to know that I shall be brief. Unlike the many lawyers that I see round about, my background is in medicine. I trained in the 1960s, and I further trained in epidemiology in the early 1980s. I had friends who died from this disease.

I want to make a very brief point. The first formal recognition of this disease in Britain came in 1932, when the first regulations were introduced. Since then, it has been very clearly established that this is an occupational disease—that it is virtually impossible to acquire the disease other than in a situation where the fibres are present. Therefore I am speaking specifically in support of the wives and families who may have been affected. There must surely be a case for accepting, after 80 years, that the bringing home of clothes with asbestos fibres upon them was a negligence on the part of the employer.

[Lord Empey]

My Lords, like many Members, I have the honour to have represented a shipyards constituency for over 25 years. I have seen this disease at relatively close quarters over that time.

There is one category of person that we have not yet mentioned in discussing these amendments. We have discussed people who perhaps washed clothes, but we have not discussed the children. When I was Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Investment in Belfast 11 years ago, we set aside £180 million, if my memory serves me correctly. I saw a graph which showed that we had put money aside up to 2050 to take care of the victims that we anticipated would still be emerging because they were young children when the material was imported into their homes.