Mesothelioma Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord German and Lord Selsdon

Monday 22nd July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Selsdon]

My Lords, last time I declared an interest as someone who had worked in the asbestos industry and I made a suggestion to the noble Lord, Lord Alton, which I have researched further. That is that the amount of clean-up that will have to take place over many years is the perfect target for a levy that might be placed upon it for research purposes.

[Lord German]

My Lords, before I seek the same dispensation that the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, sought at the beginning of his speech, I will say a few words about the amendments which are before us in order to give my noble friend time to locate the answers to them.

I appreciate all the work that the noble Lord, Lord Browne, has done to get to this point. He referred to remote and hypothetical places where things might occur. I hope that what I will say is not hypothetical, although I suspect that it will be remote. I am worried about the omission of the words,

“at the time of the person’s exposure to asbestos”,

from the new provisions now proposed as Clause 2(1)(ca) and Clause 3(1)(ba). The hypothetical, or rather remote situation, is the following. A company at the time of a person’s exposure did not have employer’s liability insurance—it was behaving negligently—and subsequently, when that person had left that company’s employment, it secured employer’s liability insurance in order to become compliant. As this is written, that would mean that there could be a possible—or not possible—claim against that employer’s liability insurance, which was subsequent to that person’s period of employment. That very remote case leads me to wonder about the omission of those words from the second part of each of those clauses and whether they need to be inserted, or rather made clear. Of course, maybe this could occur in the regulations that may follow from the rules of the scheme that pursues this.

I will quickly say a few words about the Bill. As regards the achievements that noble Lords have made in this House and the work they have done towards the changes that have been made to the Bill, in each of those three or four key issues there has been a change and a degree of success which we ought to recognise. I will first address independence and oversight, which was raised by noble Lords from all sides of this Chamber. They are both very important: the first ensures that the people who manage the process do not rule the way it operates, and the second ensures that there is a degree of observation of how it is run by all those who are, if you like, the actors on the stage who are affected by this dreadful disease.

The second issue is that of research. The noble Lord, Lord Alton, has already referred to the work which is being done by the two Ministers present today, my noble friends Lord Howe and Lord Freud. Clearly, there are differences of view as to how that might happen—statutory versus non-statutory. That is probably the way this House deals with issues: they have been raised, and although the solutions may not be the same ones that noble Lords wanted, they are, none the less, an approach to doing research into this disease.

One way in which we can keep track of what is happening in this area is by scrutiny of Ministers. It is not a matter of whether the Minister who follows is a good Minister—to rephrase the words of the noble Lord, Lord Alton—but of being able to hold Ministers to account. That is what Parliament can and should do. These things should not be kept from the public eye. I am sure that, in years to come, noble Lords will pursue this issue strongly with Ministers of whatever persuasion, from whichever part of the House they come, in order to ensure that we better understand this dreadful disease and how it can be treated and ameliorated. It is important also to take an international approach and work with those who suffer from this dreadful disease in other parts of the world.

The third area that has been of importance to your Lordships’ House during the course of the Bill is the level of compensation. Clearly, a major issue at the beginning was the percentage of civil damages that was to be given, according to a ratio or tariff. Noble Lords sought to raise the bar. There was some success, and, given the public interest in these matters, clearly on one side you wish to ensure as much compensation as you can, quite rightly, for sufferers who cannot trace their employer or their employer’s insurance company. However, you do not want to put another burden on companies that are not responsible for what happened, which would in turn pass on the costs to customers, who would have to pay them. We may not have reached the right balance but I pay tribute to the Minister for moving the bar upwards against all the pressure he was put under during the passage of the Bill.

There are ways in which the Bill can become a model for dealing with other forms of industrial illness relating to asbestos, and with other industrial diseases. The situations may not be exactly the same because, appropriately, this measure is directed at a unique and terminal illness that is dreadful in every aspect. However, it may be that we can derive other models from some of the work that has been done in the Bill.

Finally, I congratulate the Minister on his personal commitment. Many noble Lords will know that he has personally taken this as a challenge that he will see to its conclusion. The job was started by the previous Government, and the noble Lord has obviously taken it a step forward from where it was left by that Government. I pay tribute to the starting point. However, to see it to its completion, having undertaken what must have been horrendous negotiations with people who were not responsible but who had to pay for the people who were responsible and had disappeared off the scene, cannot have been easy. When eventually the fly on the wall in those meeting rooms publishes its memoirs, I am sure that we will be able to see the level of pressure brought by the Minister. From these Benches, I congratulate him and say that it was a job well done. We have taken a step that will lead us in future to deal with problems associated with this disease in an appropriate way. I hope that we will see an early start to implementation, so that people will no longer have to wait for compensation in cases where their former employer, or its insurance company, has gone out of business.