Mesothelioma Lump Sum Payments (Conditions and Amounts) (Amendment) Regulations 2011

Lord Boswell of Aynho Excerpts

Wednesday 9th March 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord Boswell of Aynho]

My Lords, the whole Committee appreciates the tone and sensitivity of the Minister’s remarks, as well as the good message he has conveyed. In areas such as these, it is incumbent on any Government to err on the side of generosity and to show a certain breadth of spirit—and not, as it were, to retreat into the small print or the least that they can get away with—even in difficult times. That is easy to say because, obviously, the scale of the overall outlay, and the fact that some of it is potentially recoverable, is rather small in comparison with other matters we have debated in this place. Nevertheless, it is the right approach when these diseases are as unpleasant as they are unspellable and, other than by a Welshman—I say to my noble friend Lord German—unpronounceable. They are extremely unpleasant and should not be treated lightly.

I have had some experience as a Front-Bench spokesperson across the wider aspects of the Department for Work and Pensions, where we held an annual debate on the uprating. The issues have not substantially changed—although they are, perhaps, in clearer perspective than they were—and one should be at least aware of the possibility of relating them to either a constituency or personal experience. A late kinsman of my wife was a pneumoconiosis sufferer, not through coalmining but through his work in the flour-milling industry. His lungs filled up and he died prematurely. I am sure that many people, particularly those from heavy industrial constituencies, could say that. The person I knew who was a mesothelioma sufferer was a former Member of this House. I shall say no more about that, but it is interesting that these diseases can affect people who are beyond the heavy industrial profile.

As to the substance of the regulations, I think we are doing the right thing for the reasons I have given. However, in addition to the points to which the Minister is going to respond, can he give some indication of the emerging actuarial build-up? He has already told us that the peak, sadly, has not been reached, but obviously that is subject to re-evaluation in the light of the claims experience. There will be difficult judgments to be made as to whether it is accelerating and people are presenting claims earlier or whether there is a wider aetiology of claims than was previously thought—that is, whether it is going to be more expensive or, more importantly, more extensive in terms of the number of people who are suffering. I get the impression from the figures and the nature of the debate that the picture is one of broad stability, but it would be useful to have that assurance.

It would also be useful if the Minister could say whether the way in which the system is now set up—particularly under the Health and Safety Executive—will ensure that we do not make similar commitments in relation to other long-term diseases as a result of carelessness.

My second point has already been made by other noble Lords but it is worth a moment. We all feel very strongly that there is a need for good record-keeping and a clearing house method of allocating the liabilities to insurers and employers, as appropriate, to ensure that they do not escape. I should like to make two points about that. First, that should be equally in the interests of good employers and good insurers as otherwise, because if there is an elaborate game of pass the parcel and one is the only one left standing because all the others have cleared off or ceased to exist, that is a very unfortunate position and may be disproportionate. As the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, indicated, there are some fraught issues about the moment of onset and who is liable.

I draw the Committee’s attention to my concern that this is a somewhat wider issue—we have seen it in relation to motor insurance and the Motor Insurers’ Bureau. However, in relation to the whole field, including the pensions field, I think that many people across the private sector feel—as we have also debated—that the record-keeping has perhaps not been as good as it might have been. People may have little entitlements of which they have no continuing knowledge. There might be others who should have obligations that have somehow been lost with the passage of industrial change. That is understandable over a 40-year period. One has only to look at Andrew Marr’s recent series, “Britain from the Air”, to see how everything is different from what it was two generations ago. Nevertheless, the people, their needs and their need for support remain. It is a serious issue and I am sure that the Minister will want to attend to it.

For the moment, I think that we are content, with a measure of real consensus on this, to reflect on the situation that people and their families find themselves in, and on the need to be as generous as we reasonably and possibly can in dealing with and meeting their immediate needs and their family problems.

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, this has been a debate in which I think we are all in exactly the same place. It is a very difficult area, as we all know. I shall try to deal with the issues that have arisen as well as I can.

With the consent of the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, I think that we might just park CPI/RPI in this context. We will have another chance to look at it today, another on Monday and another on Tuesday. I shall say a few words on it later, but it is one of those things that, in this context, might feel slightly uncomfortable. I am very relieved that the figures are such that we do not need that debate.

The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, asked for some figures on payments and so forth. I can give him some up-to-date figures. The payments made in 2009-10 amounted to £42.3 million. In 2008-09—I am sorry that I am going down the years—the payments amounted to £37 million. In the current year, up to January, in combination, they amounted to £38.8 million.