Mesothelioma Bill [Lords]
Debate between Iain Wright and David Anderson(10 years, 11 months ago)
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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.
Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill
Debate between Iain Wright and David Anderson(12 years, 1 month ago)
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Mr Anderson
In Committee, mention was made of anecdote, a lack of evidence and perceptions, but we have to add a new one, which the Minister led with—impressions. We now have a Government run by impressions, but they are not very good at making impressions.
Mr Wright
The Minister is the Mike Yarwood of the House of Commons. It is nice to see a good, relevant, pertinent and timely reference to popular culture, from my own point of view.
The new clause will do nothing to enhance recovery and enterprise, and might have the unintended consequence of making the health and safety environment less safe and therefore less productive and efficient. I ask the Minister to think again, because this does nothing to aid the recovery that the country so badly needs.
Mr Anderson
The Minister started with his experience in the world of health and safety. My experience is based not only on my life as someone who worked for 20 years in the coal mining industry and then as a care worker but before that on the experience of my father, who worked the coal mines in the 1930s, when, in this country, one coal miner was killed every six hours on average. Think about that. One thousand men a year did not go home, in part because health and safety was a laughing matter and put to one side, because production was all. My father was twice buried alive—thankfully, he got out both times—and had a very close friend die in his arms, having had his head crushed between two mining coal tubs. It was not a satisfactory way to spend your life.
As a result of that history, the Government in 1947 nationalised the coal mines, set up a train of processes that included health and safety committees in the mining industry and joint consultative committees, and started planning for legislation that produced the Mines and Quarries Act 1954. That Act was actually put in place by a one-nation Tory Government, but they did it for the right reasons—to improve the conditions of people who were vital to the economic success of this country. As a result of that legislation and the improved techniques and machinery, the number of people dying in mines in the 1980s could be counted in single figures. The work force was depleted by about 70% between the 1930s and 1980s, but the number of health and safety measures fell from 1,000 to fewer than 10. For me, that history is vital to understanding how important health and safety issues are.
In 1989, I moved from the mines to become a care worker taking care of elderly people. Members might think that that is a completely different scenario, but let us think about it. The Minister gave the example of the bottle of bleach in the cupboard. It is important to know what is in cupboards to which people might well have access, particularly older people who might not have the capacity to understand what they are dealing with. That is why we introduced measures such as the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002, which were about protecting people dealing with dangerous liquids.
There were issues around the lifting and handling of people who were not mobile. The impact on care businesses was huge. People accepted, however, that if they wanted to do things properly and protect not only the workers but the people they were taking care of, they needed to introduce such measures. There were other issues around medication—how to supply it, how to make it safe, how to make sure it was not given to the wrong person, how to make sure that medication records were kept up to speed—that were all part and parcel of the health and safety measures that we should all be pleased are in place.
The discussions on the Bill have been marked, certainly in Committee, by a lack of real evidence. The man tasked by the Prime Minister with reviewing employment law, Adrian Beecroft, was questioned during the evidence-taking sessions, particularly by my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Clwyd (Chris Ruane). In response to the question about what the empirical evidence and research was based on, Adrian Beecroft said:
“I accept the accusation that my views on whether the change would improve the efficiency of people working in businesses are based on conversations with a sample of people, which is not statistically valid.”––[Official Report, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Public Bill Committee, 21 June 2012; c. 145, Q330.]
Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill
Debate between Iain Wright and David Anderson(12 years, 7 months ago)
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Mr Anderson
What can I say? Someone said earlier that no empathy is being shown, but I think that empathy is being shown—to the insurance companies. We can take our guidance from that.
The Minister talked about the compensation culture, but it is very easy to stop that culture: tell employers to stop killing people at work and to stop poisoning people at work. Then people would not be able to claim compensation. That is exactly what needs to be done. We are talking about employers who have contempt for workers and their families. They let workmen go home in dirty work clothes that their wives then washed, and became infected with mesothelioma through doing so. What happened was known by employers. We are talking about employers who were using young kids in Namibia to fill plastic sacks with raw asbestos. They put young kids of seven, eight or nine in the sacks to tamp the asbestos down. That is the type of people we are dealing with—people with no regard for human life. Some successful cases were brought by a trade union in South Africa and they got £38 million in compensation. That £38 million was welcome but it did not save the lives of any of those kids.
We have had 42,000 people die in the past 40 years in this country and 60,000 more will die in the next 50. That is more than 1,000 people a year and more than were being killed in the coal mines in this country in the disastrous years of the 1930s. That is why this is a special issue. We should be looking to people such as Chris Knighton in the north-east of England who has led a campaign on behalf of her husband who died 15 years ago—a man who was fit enough to ride from Newcastle to Berwick on a bike on a Sunday morning and think nothing about it. He fell down one day in the local club and when he went to see the doctor, the doctor told him, “You’ve got mesothelioma.” He asked, “What does that mean?” The doctor said, “It means you’re going to be dead in nine months’ time.” Those are the people we are standing up for today. We are not standing up for big business or insurers—we are standing up for ordinary people who have been exploited for years. If we do not support the amendments to this legislation we will be letting those people down. I say to the Liberal Democrats in particular, “If you ever want to claw back from where you are now, support these amendments tonight. You will never be forgiven if you don’t.”
Mr Iain Wright (Hartlepool) (Lab)
I rise briefly to support Lords amendment 31. It cannot be right, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Ian Lucas) and others have said, that victims of asbestos-related diseases should be required to surrender a quarter of the damages they have been awarded to pay for legal costs. Those damages are awarded to recognise and compensate men and women, if it is at all possible to compensate them, for the pain, suffering and life-shortening illnesses they got from their work. In my constituency, the number of cases of asbestos-related diseases is far too high. The link between mesothelioma and exposure to asbestos in the shipbuilding industry is well known, as we have heard tonight. There is a common pattern involving high levels of mesothelioma and areas of shipbuilding or areas that contain ports and dockyards. Hartlepool is a former shipbuilding area and it is the 16th-worst affected place in Great Britain for deaths caused by mesothelioma.
In considering Lords amendment 31, I ask the Minister to consider one harrowing case out of many from Hartlepool. Mr C was diagnosed with mesothelioma after he had complained of breathing difficulties and a pain in his rib cage. Originally it was thought he had pneumonia but a CT scan and a bronchoscopy showed that he had mesothelioma. Mr C had left school at 16 and worked at South Durham Steel and Iron Company for the best part of a quarter of a century. He was regularly exposed to asbestos dust in the air and was not provided with any protective clothing or equipment. He was awarded £67,000 in compensation in recognition of his excruciating pain and suffering. He died five months after receiving that award.
The Government’s argument against the amendments—that the Bill protects against frivolous or fraudulent claims—is offensive in the extreme. The idea that these constituents of mine are ambulance chasers or people looking for a quick buck is risible. The notion that tens of thousands of pounds of damages should be taken from workers and their families who have suffered the harsh effects of a painful illness is another insult and injustice to them.
In a little over 10 days, the country will observe workers memorial day to commemorate those who lost their lives as a result of injury or neglect at work. Having listened to the Minister tonight and seen him in his place, I have to say that he does himself no credit with the smirking and the body language that are offensive to every single sufferer. The best way in which he could make amends is by honouring the spirit and values of workers memorial day, accepting Lords amendment 31 and getting rid of this huge injustice.
The Economy
Debate between Iain Wright and David Anderson(13 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Wright
The growth projections are falling rapidly, and have been downcast three times. When I speak to my constituents and businesses in Hartlepool, they are concerned about a lack of confidence and a lack of investment in the future of this country that will undermine our long-term ability to fight the global downturn.
Mr Anderson
Is it not the case that, like me, my hon. Friend has been here before, when the Conservative party did exactly the same thing not just in our lifetime, but our fathers’ lifetimes? We know that the actions that the Conservative party takes will result in ordinary people paying the price for its failures.
Mr Wright
My hon. Friend represents a seat in the north-east, as I do, and he knows full well that our region has borne the brunt of this recession, like we bore the brunt of the 1980s recession. It does not have to be like this. We have got enormous economic potential in our region that can really contribute to wealth creation in our country, but that is simply not happening.