Mesothelioma Lump Sum Payments (Conditions and Amounts) (Amendment) Regulations 2021

Baroness Whitaker Excerpts

Wednesday 10th February 2021 Grand Committee

[Baroness Whitaker (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, as a former civil servant, I had responsibility for compensation for industrial illness schemes. Updating the regulations is to be welcomed but I have two questions for the Minister. I agree with my noble friend Lord McKenzie about the unfairness for dependants.

My questions concern the 2008 mesothelioma regulations. First, Regulation 4(1) stipulates that the claimant’s exposure must have been in the UK. There used to be a considerable amount of asbestos on board ships, where mesothelioma—as my noble friend Lord McKenzie said, it has a long latency period—was contracted by many claimants. Can the Minister confirm that personnel at sea on UK ships outside territorial waters are in the UK for the purpose of the regulations?

Secondly, do the tables in the schedule take account of up-to-date increases in the average age of mortality when computing the relative amounts per age of the complainant? In that context, these sad deaths, usually caused in the ordinary routine of earning a living, are all the more premature and might merit larger sums.