Mesothelioma Bill [HL]

Lord Jones Excerpts

Monday 20th May 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jones]

My Lords, I am glad to follow the committed remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Avebury. Nowhere in the Bill, nor in the Explanatory Notes, can the awful consequences of this disease be adequately described. One might read the entire Bill, one might read the helpful, detailed Explanatory Notes, one might have visited a Turner & Newall factory in the north-west, but the sheer human impact of the disease on the sufferer and the sufferer’s family is virtually impossible to place on the public record.

I welcome this measure and wish its speedy enactment as delineated by my noble friend Lord McKenzie. In this instance, we can see a positive trail. The Gordon Brown Government began consultation; the coalition Government carried matters forward to today’s second reading. I thank the Minister for his comprehensive introduction of the long overdue legislation because employers and insurers are not the easiest people to deal with in compensatory matters. The victims of this dreadful disease and their families surely deserve both justice and generosity. In my noble friend Lord McKenzie the victims have had a most reliable champion who remains their friend to this day. I acknowledge his detailed, industrious, conscientious and successful ministerial style. He had compassion and capability and got things under way. The noble Lord, Lord Freud—a parliamentary midwife perhaps—has brought matters very patiently to a head. His departmental Bill team must be very pleased with events today.

The Asbestos Victims Support Groups Forum UK—Messrs Whitston and Gordon—supplied a timely and cogent brief to Members of your Lordships’ House. It was helpful. My wish is that, before long, their proposals to embrace those excluded from the Bill might be acknowledged positively by the coalition. There are, for instance, quarrymen in Wales who may still seek claims and may yet get some help. We are not dealing with huge numbers and this dastardly disease is, literally, accompanied by death—there are reasons for moving quickly. In yesteryear, as this disease was stealthily advancing, there were still great British manufacturing industries. In steel, shipbuilding, railways, defence and defence-related industries, the construction industry and many more, asbestos was in use. The power stations and steel works always had their laggers. Asbestos products even entered our schools and hospitals.

In Grand Committee, we have annually debated orders relating to this asbestos-related cancer and similar orders. I recollect in Grand Committee describing the miserable happenings in a Hebden Bridge factory. The workforce had compressed deadly blue asbestos particles and proceeded to play snowballs on the factory floor, innocently and unknowingly. Such was the state of health and safety matters in the then industrialised British state of the late 1960s. This happening was described to me in the Commons by my fellow Front Bench colleague and occasional mentor, the late Harold Walker MP, who became Chairman of Ways and Means and then Lord Walker. He was from the shop floor. He was both a Minister and an opposition spokesperson.

The root of this helpful legislation lies in two Administrations in the 1970s: that of Prime Minister Harold Wilson and the one that followed it, that of Prime Minister James Callaghan. That is something to be proud of. I am glad to have served in their Administrations and to have helped. At that time, the Secretary of State for Employment, the late Michael Foot, successfully presented two Bills, which are the root of our discussions today: the Employment Bill and the Health and Safety at Work etc Bill. Despite much opposition and minuscule government parliamentary majorities, these Bills were, in the end, passed and enacted, with the help of a deeply committed TUC. The two Acts had a considerable impact on the economic, political and social history of Britain. That remains the case today, I am glad to say.

With this Bill, the Minister presents a long-awaited and much needed measure. Health and safety is, today, self-evidently a prime responsibility of every major company in the country. Those companies wish to have good health and safety measures and it is because of those endeavours by those Prime Ministers and Cabinet Ministers in those Administrations that I have talked about. There is no going back. Much has been gained but there is more work to be done. This measure is long overdue. Let us improve it. It might also be described as an historic measure.