Draft Pneumoconiosis etc. (Workers' Compensation) (Payment of Claims) (Amendment) Regulations 2022 Draft Mesothelioma Lump Sum Payments (Conditions and Amounts) (Amendment) Regulations 2022

Hywel Williams Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd February 2022 General Committees

[Chris Stephens]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Dr Huq—it is good to see a good friend of the worker chairing the Committee on these particular regulations.

I have become an annual attender of the proceedings on the regulations, and I will start today, as I always do, by remembering my good Unison comrade and friend Tom Begley, who died as a result of asbestos-related cancer. This is an opportunity to remember him and others who have succumbed to these pernicious industrial diseases. I also pay tribute to the campaigners, trade unions and charities, such as Clydeside Action on Asbestos, that continue to highlight the devastating impact that these industrial diseases have on victims and on families. This is not just about workers who have worked in factories and buildings; it is also about individuals who have contracted these diseases as a result of washing clothes with asbestos on them. We have to remember that as well.

I want to take this opportunity to remind the Committee that it was SNP and Plaid Cymru MPs in the 1970s who were the first Members of Parliament to highlight the dangers of asbestos and industrial diseases. Those Members were dismissed at the time and accused of scaremongering, but thankfully we have come a long way in recognising the dangers of asbestos and the impact that it has on people’s health.

I want to make three main points, but I first want to stress the issue of the disparity. The Government made a commitment in 2010 that they would look at the disparity between payments for dependants and sufferers. That was 12 years ago. I think we have waited far too long for that disparity to be addressed. There really should be an equality impact assessment along with these regulations, so that we can have a look at that.

Some of the figures for the differences in payments were given by my colleague on the Labour Front Bench, the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston. The one that I have been given is that someone who was a qualifying individual and aged 60 at the time of diagnosis would receive in the region of £44,000, whereas the dependant would receive £19,000. That is quite a big gap, I would argue, between the amounts of compensation for those individuals. I hope that the Government really do look at the issue very seriously. They are on borrowed time now; 12 years is far too long to wait. The Government gave us a commitment that they would look at the disparity.

[Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)]

Just to emphasise that point, the sum of the compensation declines as the claimant gets older. That is because it is based on potential earnings should the person not have acquired the industrial disease. There is a fundamental injustice here. Someone who is 61 gets less than someone who is 60, when the condition is entirely the same and probably as dangerous.

[Chris Stephens]

I agree with my hon. Friend. He makes a valid point, and I hope that it has registered with the Government. It is important. I do not want to oppose the regulations today, but I hope the Minister has listened very carefully to the points that have been made about the disparity.

The Minister appeared before us at the Work and Pensions Committee to talk about the work of the Health and Safety Executive. Perhaps the Minister could provide an update on what work the Government are doing with HSE to make sure that all workplaces in the UK are asbestos-free. She knows that we have heard from campaigners and international experts.

I praise hon. Members across the House who have raised the issues of industrial diseases. I thank the Minister. Tonight I have to go and visit the Boundary Commission because of legislation that she put forward, I think last year. In all seriousness, we do not want to oppose these measures, but there is still a lot that the Government have to get right here and there are still injustices to be tackled.

[Hywel Williams]

It is a pleasure to appear before you for the first time, Dr Huq. The history of this matter as outlined by colleagues is largely correct as far as it goes, although I should say that there was a very long campaign in Wales, lasting many decades, around the slate industry to have what was then called silicosis recognised as an industrial disease. That was hampered by the fact that doctors, in certifying death, would often certify heart disease or some other cause other than silicosis, and subject the family and the widow to having her husband subject to a post-mortem. Right at the start of my career, many years ago, I had the very gruesome experience of attending a coroner’s court on another case. The previous case was a death caused by silicosis. I saw the widow there, in tears, listening to the detail of her husband’s PM.

Fortunately, we have the Pneumoconiosis etc. (Workers’ Compensation) Act 1979, which brought in the compensation scheme—too late for some people, of course. Within the slate industry in Wales it was well known that dust was a killer, and very little was done about it. I am glad to say that now the slate industry in Wales is very much safer.

On the 1979 Act, I pay tribute to my predecessor as the Member for Caernarfon, now Lord Wigley. Dafydd was the MP up until 2001. As a new MP in 1974-79, he pushed very hard to get the 1979 Act in, working alongside trade union colleagues, including the much missed Tom Jones of the Transport and General Workers Union. Together, they worked very hard to get that Act through. We had had warm words for many years from successive Governments that there would be a compensation scheme, but it was work by people in my party, the T and G and colleagues from the Labour party that got us over the line in the end. Dafydd saw the devastating impact that slate dust was having on workers and their families. He played a leading part, and it is partly due to him that we are sitting here this afternoon.

I fully support the statutory instrument, but I should be grateful if the Minister would answer a couple of questions. Does she have any information about the geographical distribution of payments? People from the slate industry who are suffering from pneumoconiosis are getting older—they are fewer and fewer every year. I would like to know the distribution and the value of payments, particularly in respect of north Wales. Perhaps the Minister could write to me if she does not have that information.

Secondly, in the context of the rising cost of living—this point has already been made—if we are to have annual debates, we should be looking at the rate of inflation closer to the date of uprating, so that payments match the costs that people are facing.

Lastly, I would also emphasise the point about payments to dependants being increased in order to match those paid to sufferers. It is an injustice.

In bringing my remarks to a close, I note that Wales has a long and inglorious legacy of industrial disease and other industrial ills, not least the coal tips that disfigure our landscape and remain a risk to people. There are over 600 tips, and over 300 of them are classified as being a high risk. At some point, I would be very glad to see the UK Government funding the removal of those tips completely, as part-payment for the suffering that people in the coal industry have endured over the years.

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Huq. I will say just a few brief words in relation to my local mesothelioma group in Berkshire, and I know that the hon. Member for Windsor would share some of my sentiments about our local community in the county. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston, and I echo his support for a wider look at the scale of the payments. I ask the Minister again to consider that. I also pay tribute to the hon. Members for Glasgow South West and for Arfon for their very thoughtful and powerful accounts.

I pay tribute to the members of the Berkshire mesothelioma group, because until I met them, I had not fully understood the scale of the problem. Although colleagues have rightly addressed the issues with very specific industries, the problem of asbestos is everywhere. It is in this building and in houses, schools and small businesses across the country, and it was quite shocking to come across families who had lost a loved one to these dreadful illnesses. Some of the accounts that I heard from the local group were very moving and troubling, and it is perhaps worth briefly reflecting on the way in which some of these illnesses can occur. It is also worth remembering that the number of people suffering from these appalling illnesses may well increase in the years to come because of the very long incubation period, which is part of the problem with some of these industrial illnesses.

[Hywel Williams]

Equally shocking is the fact that the dangers of asbestos have been known within the industry since the 1920s. In my constituency, however, a factory was built in the early ’60s to make brick linings. I remember one of the workers suffering from mesothelioma telling me that they would make snowballs out of loose asbestos during lunch breaks, so the dangers were known but not acted on for many years.

[Matt Rodda]

The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point. These are dangers that were known but which, sadly, were not acted on. The stories about workers and others playing with asbestos mistakenly, without having full knowledge of this material, are widespread. I have been told similar stories about workers in a power station in London where they had snowball fights with this material, and it is absolutely awful to hear such accounts.

I will mention a couple of examples of the sorts of tragedies that have occurred in our community in Berkshire, involving residents from both Reading and nearby areas. Workers worked on the railway and in other transport roles where, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston rightly said, asbestos was used to insulate materials in ships and trains, and for brakes in cars. I have heard stories of mechanics in small garages blowing the brake dust from disintegrating brake pads, without realising the horror of what was near to them. One tragic case is of a gentleman who sadly did not live to be one of my constituents, but who was a resident in the Reading East constituency and a young apprentice in the 1980s. He was apparently told by somebody at work, “Go away and saw up these pieces of cladding.” He sawed up the asbestos and had no indication of the scale of risk that he faced. When we hear such accounts, it is deeply moving and harrowing. It tells a very powerful story and urges action from all of us in a position of responsibility.

I will not take too much of the Committee’s time. Although I welcome the increasing payments, I urge the Minister and her colleagues across Government to look at what can be done to improve the health and safety regime in the UK so that we have better prevention and better understanding of emerging risks from new technologies, as well as from existing technologies which are perhaps better understood now, so that we never, ever go through this nightmare again. As we have heard, it has wrecked so many lives, and it has also imposed huge costs on businesses and the public sector. I am very aware, given my previous life as a civil servant in the Department for Education, of the cost to local authorities and central Government of retrofitting schools and taking asbestos out of schools. There could be huge costs in removing it from this building. Unfortunately, many employers and other organisations now face huge costs in making buildings safe after mistakes made decades ago.

I hope that, as a society, we can understand dangerous materials better in future, avoid unnecessary mistakes and the misery they cause, and move on, learn and be much better at managing those sorts of risks.