Mesothelioma (Legal Aid Reform)

Nia Griffith Excerpts

Tuesday 26th June 2012 Westminster Hall

[Bill Esterson]

I thank my hon. Friend and neighbour for his question, and I hope that the Minister will answer it. We could all make our guesses as to the true motives. There are well-established financial links between the Government and the insurance industry, which might be at the heart of why things are being done in the way that they are.

It cannot be right that victims of asbestos-related diseases should be required to surrender a quarter of the damages that they have been awarded to pay for legal costs. Those damages are awarded to recognise and compensate men and women who have suffered terribly, if it is at all possible to compensate them for the pain, suffering and life-shortening that resulted from their work.

Mesothelioma has an extraordinarily long latency period of up to 60 years. As well as those 30,000 who have already died in the United Kingdom from mesothelioma, an estimated 60,000 more are yet to lose their lives due to past exposure, the vast majority of which occurred at work.

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the coffers of the Government, in the shape of the Department for Work and Pensions, will also lose out? There has always been a payment back of benefits that have had to be paid up front early on because of people’s short life span once diagnosed with mesothelioma. Does he also agree that we should be making absolutely certain that no part of the compensation is taken out? The money should be used for the victims and their families and to repay the Government. Will my hon. Friend congratulate a colleague of mine in the Welsh Assembly, Mick Antoniw, who proposes to introduce a private Member’s Bill that would compensate the NHS for its expenditure on treating mesothelioma by recovering the money from liable companies?

[Bill Esterson]

I am happy to congratulate my hon. Friend’s colleague. She is right that it is the companies that cause this terrible pain and suffering, as well as their insurers, that should bear the financial costs, although there is no way of truly compensating the victims and their families for their suffering. It should be the private industry that caused the condition, and its insurers, that pays, not the public purse.

People were exposed to this terrible disease at work in situations which employers knew would ultimately kill the workers. However, as things stand under the legislation, those same people and their families will lose a quarter of the compensation that they absolutely should receive from the insurers of those companies.

The Government rejected a Lords amendment that would have exempted mesothelioma from the provision, but they have yet to say how sufferers and their families will be protected. In all the non-answers from Ministers, they have yet to justify to thousands of families why they did not exempt mesothelioma.

Mesothelioma is an exceptional case, because the problem was known about for more than a century. Asbestos was identified as a poisonous substance in 1892 and has been banned from use in this country for almost half a century, yet employers knowingly exposed their workers to it day in, day out. They knew the dangers and ignored them for decades. They were eventually held accountable, but ever since the first successful case against employers and insurers on asbestos-related diseases, they have kept coming back to the courts and the issue has kept coming back to this place.

Mesothelioma causes intractable pain and severe breathlessness, which means that more than half of all the very modest damages claimed are for pain and suffering. The Government’s proposals would have a disproportionate effect on mesothelioma sufferers, because victims receive a higher proportion of their damages for pain and suffering than those who claim for personal injury.

The legislation requires terminally ill asbestos victims who succeed in a claim for compensation against negligent, guilty employers to pay up to 25% of their damages for pain and suffering in legal costs. They are not part of the compensation culture, nor are they legally aided, so to include them in that provision is wholly wrong. Many sufferers are so defeated by their illness that they never make a claim under current circumstances. Victim support groups have been told by victims that the change proposed would be a significant further deterrent to them making a claim at all. That would represent a big saving for the insurance industry, which therefore has the financial interest hinted at by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram).