Mesothelioma Bill [Lords]

Iain Wright Excerpts

Monday 2nd December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Iain Wright (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Falkirk (Eric Joyce), who spoke movingly about his brother and talked with knowledge about his constituency. I rise to speak about my constituency, too. Like hon. Members on both sides of the House who have spoken, I think that the Bill is welcome but does not go far enough to help victims and their families in my constituency.

Far too many of my constituents are severely affected by asbestos-related disease. Thousands of them have died painful deaths as a result of dangers that they were exposed to at work. Families have seen their loved ones die in agony, often while worrying about the financial impact of their death on those whom they left behind, and without seeing proper justice done, or compensation for their illness. Tragically, we know that more deaths as a result of exposure to asbestos in the workplace will come to Hartlepool.

We in Hartlepool suffer more than our fair share of mesothelioma and asbestos-related deaths because of our industrial legacy. My town was a major centre for heavy manufacturing, which was based around the docks, shipyards and steelworks. Firms such as Richardsons, Westgarth and Co.—Richies—and William Gray and Co. are long gone, but are engrained in the social history of my town, having provided employment for many generations of Hartlepudlians. However, asbestos was regularly used in those environments for lagging and other purposes, and employees were far too often not provided with proper protective clothing or equipment.

According to the Health and Safety Executive, in the last 30 years, the number of deaths per million people arising from mesothelioma in England has risen from 26.6 to 67.1. I am pleased to see many hon. Friends from the north-east here; our region is the worst-affected in the country, reflecting the legacy of our heavy manufacturing industry. In the same 30-year period, the figures for the north-east rose from 56.1 to 105. Hartlepool is the 16th worst-affected constituency in the entire country.

However, those are just statistics; we should think about the families, and the tragedy that we have seen. When I do, it brings to mind one of the most tragic cases that I have heard of in my constituency. A woman who was brought up in a community of laggers lost her father, then her husband, then her son, and finally her own life, to mesothelioma—all because of exposure to asbestos in the workplace as a result of negligent employers. Far too many of my constituents are suffering from this disease, and to make matters even worse, they are not seeing justice done or getting compensation for their suffering.

As I say, the Bill is welcome, but it is far from perfect. Amendments were tabled in the other place, but the Government did not listen to the arguments for them. The Minister in charge of the Bill—the Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mike Penning)—is on the Treasury Bench; he is a decent, honourable man who cares about working people, so I hope that during the Bill’s passage in the House, he will reconsider many of the amendments that were tabled in the other place. Otherwise, the Bill will not help my constituents. There has been very clear consensus in this debate that we need to make changes to the Bill to ensure that all our constituents are provided with proper compensation.

Clause 2, which sets out the criteria for compensation, is the key part of the Bill. The criteria include the person being first diagnosed with diffuse mesothelioma on or after 25 July 2012, and being employed at the time of exposure. Those criteria are not good enough. As hon. Members have said, the arbitrary cut-off date of 25 July 2012 is grossly unfair, and will mean that many of my constituents who should, if there is any sense of decency, be compensated for diseases caught at work will miss out because they were diagnosed before that date. How can that be fair? There is no possible justification or sensible rationale for that. My constituents will be penalised because their symptoms were diagnosed early. How is that fair? At the very least, as hon. Members have said, the Government should make the cut-off date February 2010, which is when the last Government consulted on introducing a scheme. At that point, the intention and direction of travel were clear. People will be let down if the Government continue to have 25 July 2012 as the cut-off date.

[Mr Anderson]

I thank my hon. Friend for making a valuable contribution, as usual. The Minister said in his opening remarks that the people to blame were the employers, 100%. Regardless of when somebody was diagnosed, if they were in employment, surely there is a moral duty on the employer. The employer is to blame; their insurer should carry the cost. The employee should be awarded compensation, regardless of when they were diagnosed.

[Mr Wright]

My hon. Friend makes an important and eloquent point. He has been a passionate champion on this issue for many years, and I pay tribute to him. I will come to the Bill’s impact on the insurance industry in a moment—

[Mr Kevan Jones]

rose—

[Mr Wright]

—but I will first give way to my fellow north-eastern MP.

[Mr Jones]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. I have heard the argument about accepting the February 2010 date, but that, too, is an arbitrary date, and that is why I do not agree with it. A more sensible way forward would be to go back to 1969 and the date of knowledge. The Minister says that families will be included in the scheme, and that there will be a huge bow wave of claims; my experience in this area makes me think that there will not be, but at least that would be a more logical way of deciding on the date.

[Mr Wright]

Any cut-off date will be arbitrary. We just want compensation for victims in our constituencies. That issue will have to be explored, and I hope it is explored at length in Committee.

Secondly, I am concerned about the fact that only diffuse mesothelioma is included in the scheme. Workers have contracted a variety of diseases as a result of exposure at work, including pleural plaques and asbestosis. It is not good enough that only one, narrowly defined condition can be included. Again, I hope that the Minister will amend that in Committee.

My third point was touched on by the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), and by the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch). I have great concerns about the fact that clause 2 confines the scheme to those employees who were employed at the time of exposure. In Hartlepool I have had at least two cases—I referred to one earlier—in which the wife of a worker developed pleural plaques, then asbestosis and then mesothelioma as a result of washing her husband’s work clothes, which released the fibres and allowed them to enter her lungs. Those women—there are probably many more—suffered and died as a direct result of asbestos exposure caused by an employer. Surely it is only fair and just that they should be included in the scheme. I hope that the Government will accept that secondary exposure is an important part of what the Bill should provide for.

The third way in which the Bill must be improved relates to the amount of compensation provided. We have heard time and again from hon. Members on both sides of the House that the payments will be only 75% of the value of civil claims. That really is a mean-spirited and petty act from the Government against people facing a terrible, terminal disease. There can be no possible justification for the scheme paying less than 100% compensation. Why should victims in Hartlepool miss out on what could be several thousand pounds in compensation, which could provide a little dignity and comfort in their final days or—let us be frank—provide their families with the money to bury them, just because a deal has been struck with the insurance industry, an industry that might have lost or destroyed the policies for which they took the cash from those employees in the first place? Let us be under no illusions: the insurance industry has got a hell of a good deal out of this Government and out of this Bill.

[Steve Rotheram]

I am president of the Merseyside Asbestos Victims Support Group. I know from the people I have spoken with—I am sure that the same is true in my hon. Friend’s constituency—that most victims want the recognition that someone is being held accountable for their suffering or that of their loved ones. The financial compensation will help them in their last days or alleviate the financial hardship that losing them, perhaps the breadwinner, might bring to their family.

[Mr Wright]

My hon. Friend makes such an important point. My constituents are victims. They have done nothing wrong. They just tried to do a good day’s work for a good day’s pay. They did not want the trauma and tragedy that exposure to asbestos caused. It is the negligent employers who should be held accountable for that negligence.

The insurance industry should have a key role to play but—let us be honest—has been let off. It has negotiated a scheme that excludes approximately half of all asbestos victims, it can ignore liability for all claims prior to 25 July 2012, its costs are reduced because the average compensation agreement will mean that individually negotiated and assessed costs will not have to occur, and the fault is laid at the door not of negligent employers, but of victims.

On top of all that, the insurance industry is planning to reduce average compensation by 25%, compared with civil cases, and the Government are giving insurers £17 million to set up the scheme. Given that employers’ insurance was compulsory from 1972, the insurance industry has already received the premiums from firms and banked the cash for over 40 years. It has had the money, so now it is time for the victims to receive their fair share.

The insurance industry must have seen the Government coming. The Government have been rolled over by the industry. As a result, my constituents will miss out on justice and compensation at precisely the time in their lives when they need it most. For far too long we have let those people down. My constituents have been let down by a failure to act quickly. The Bill is a step forward, but it does not go far enough for victims of this horrific disease in Hartlepool and elsewhere.