Health: Mesothelioma

Lord McFall of Alcluith Excerpts

Wednesday 29th February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, the Supreme Court has removed some of the hurdles for sufferers of respiratory diseases in bringing claims, and that is all to the good. We are also progressing with the primary legislation brought forward under the Compensation Act 2006. As I said, Senior Master Whitaker, who oversees these cases in the High Court, has helped to introduce a fast-track procedure, which has been incorporated into a practice direction, ensuring that claims are dealt with as quickly as possible. These are terrible cases. It is right that noble Lords and others, such as the Daily Mirror, campaign for sufferers, but I reject the claim that we are in any way penalising or victimising them by what we propose.

[Lord McFall of Alcluith]

My Lords, as one who represented many hundreds of mesothelioma sufferers from local shipyards in Scotland, I give the noble Lord some examples of what happened there. Given that court cases were taking two years and the average life of sufferers was 18 months, the Lord President was approached and he decided to designate a judge to look at those cases in particular, thereby cutting down the waiting time in courts. Also, the Scottish Parliament passed the Rights of Relatives to Damages (Mesothelioma) (Scotland) Bill, which took away the iniquitous choice of either sufferers claiming while they were living or their relatives waiting until they died before making a claim. By adopting these two measures, the Government could, at a stroke, save themselves money, save court time and produce a more humane way of treating the sufferers of this terrible disease.

[Lord McNally]

I fully appreciate the noble Lord’s concern arising from his experience as a Member in the other place. One thing that we have been trying to do—the previous Administration also initiated this—is to speed up these cases. As I mentioned before, perhaps taking the lead from the Scottish example, Senior Master Whitaker oversees these cases in the High Court and brings his expertise to the whole matter. However, perhaps I may give one example of misinformation. The Daily Mirror suggested that up-front insurance of £2,300 would have to be paid. The reforms that we are bringing in remove that burden on sufferers. Therefore, I think that a proper, balanced look at our reforms would make some of the accusations made today seem very unfair indeed.