Mesothelioma Bill [HL]

Lord Moonie Excerpts

Monday 10th June 2013 Grand Committee

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

I am extremely grateful to the Minister for responding to the Committee on this point, which was the subject of an amendment that I tabled. As I heard him just now, he said that because historically no cases had turned up, in future employer’s liability insurance should not cover secondary exposure, even in a case where the secondary exposure occurred—I hope he agrees with this; I think the Committee agrees—to someone who did the family laundry and washed the overalls of the employee who was exposed to asbestos fibres and who therefore found herself exposed to asbestos and contracted the disease. Surely we cannot simply extrapolate from the past on the basis that there do not happen to have been any such claims. It is entirely imaginable that there could be such claims, and it is not enough, if I may say so, for the Minister to say simply that because it has not happened, the Government will make no provision for it to happen in future. We still have a class of people whose predicament is just as grave as the predicament of someone who was a direct employee. I hope that the Minister will be prepared to look further at this.

[Lord Moonie]

To follow up on that, was the Minister referring to claims or successful claims?

[Lord Freud]

I am not sure whether they are claims or successful claims. My understanding is that there have been no cases where there has been compensation. My interest today is obviously not to re-run the debate that we have already had. We will have another chance to do this. I just wanted to get this on the record for the convenience of Members of the Committee at subsequent stages.