Mesothelioma Bill [Lords]

Stephen Hepburn Excerpts

Monday 2nd December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Stephen Hepburn (Jarrow) (Lab)]

Let me first pay tribute to the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) for the genuine interest and compassion she has shown on this subject for a number of years. I am sure that, at the end of the day, we will get the outcome that we are all looking for.

Last Friday, I sadly attended the funeral of a great and old friend, Terry Smith, a local lad from Hebburn, a town in my constituency. He was a local activist, secretary of the local social club, the Iona club, of which I am a member, too. He was a member of the local church, St Aloysius. He was very active in the Society of St Vincent de Paul, and visited the sick. He was a long-term member of the Labour party, and would go out and distribute leaflets whenever he was needed. I am sure that we all know men of his kind—men who do a lot of work but who are unsung heroes, and who never ask for anything in return. Terry left school and went to work in the shipyards, but after a while he changed his career. He went to college, and then managed to get a job teaching. He taught for 28 years, until he retired.

Two years ago, Terry went to the doctor. After being given a medical, he was told that he had mesothelioma and had three months to live, or, if he had treatment and if he was lucky, he would make it to a year. However, because of his determination, his obvious faith and his medical treatment, he got through two years. It was very sad to be at his funeral last Friday: it was very sad for his friends, and, more important, it was very sad for his family.

Terry has now become part of a statistic. Every week, three people in the north-east die of mesothelioma. What most of those people have in common is that they are working-class, and were employed by a negligent employer who exposed them to the poisons of asbestos.

I welcome the scheme, and I think that the Minister has done a great job, because it has been kicking around in the long grass for long enough. It will impose a levy on the insurance industry, which will compensate victims who cannot trace an employer for whom they may have worked many decades ago and who may have gone bust since then, and cannot trace the employer’s insurance company either. The regional media welcome the scheme because they see it as an end to an injustice that we have witnessed for a long time, and, as I have said, I welcome it because it is an improvement on the status quo. However, the Bill falls far short of what the last Labour Government intended.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

I agree with what my hon. Friend has said about the regional media, but did he feel as concerned as I did about a headline in the Sunderland Echo which referred to a £300 million bonanza for asbestos victims? In fact, many of his constituents and mine will not be covered by the Bill, and will be short-changed.

[Mr Hepburn]

I think that many issues of that kind will be exposed as the Bill proceeds through its stages. The media gave the scheme a warm welcome because they did not know the details and the nitty-gritty.

The Bill falls short of what we intended when we issued our consultation document. It falls short in regard to the cut-off time—in its present form, it will deny compensation to thousands of mesothelioma victims and save the insurance companies millions—and it falls short in regard to the payments, which will be 75% of the average payment made following a civil claim. I think that the proportion should be 100%, and that insurance companies should be fined a further 25% for ignoring their responsibilities over the years. The money could then be used to establish some proper research on a cure for mesothelioma.

Why has the Bill been diluted, and why was it kicked into the long grass? Why has this taken so long? The answer is, quite simply, that the insurance companies’ fingerprints are all over the Bill. That shows the unhealthy relationship that the Tory party has with the insurance industry, which has pumped millions into the party’s coffers over the years. It also shows the value that the Government place on working people, especially those in the north-east. I wonder what would have happened if those people had been professionals in the south-east of England. I wonder what would have happened if, for example, judges had all of a sudden developed an occupational cancer as a result of inhaling hairs from their wigs. We know exactly what would have happened. Those would not have been working-class people breathing in asbestos fibres, and the Tories would have looked after their own people.

[Mark Reckless]

I do not make this point from a partisan perspective, but the hon. Gentleman said that the scheme was not as generous as the one that the previous Government had planned. Is there something about the disease, about the insurance industry or about politics in this country that explains why it has taken so long for us to reach this stage?

[Mr Hepburn]

This came about because of the Labour party’s links with the trade unions, which brought the issue to our attention. Labour Members in the last Parliament—many of whom are sitting here now—had a number of meetings with the then Prime Minister and with justice Ministers. The Bill has been a long time coming. It could have been here two years ago, but because the insurance industry was crawling around and because the Government wanted to appease it, it was kicked into the long grass. Eventually, however, the Minister—and all credit to him—took over the brief and, very recently, enabled us to make progress.

[Hywel Williams]

There is a long history of delayed compensation for such diseases. In the early 1960s, a campaign for compensation for slate workers began in Wales. It eventually led to the Pneumoconiosis etc. (Workers’ Compensation) Act 1979, but for 20 years or so, nothing at all happened.

[Mr Hepburn]

Indeed.

Let me end by saying that the Bill can be improved. There is time. However, if it is to be improved, the Government must stand up to the employers who have literally got away with murder, and they must stand up to the insurance companies which have literally robbed dead people of £1 billion. They must stand up for what is right. We are convinced that we are on the right side, and we want to know whether the Government will be on the right side. If they do not get on to the right side, they will be seen for what they are. They will be seen to be on the side of the privileged, the powerful and the wealthy, and, ultimately, to be letting cancer sufferers down.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mike Penning]

The hon. Gentleman makes an enormously important point. I can remember being in an asbestos suit not long ago, and the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse is a little older than me, and was in the fire service before me. So many lessons can be learned, and they need to be learned, because people have the disease and are suffering.

I think almost 100 different questions—some were very technical and nearly all of them were very important—have been asked during the debate, and it would be impossible for me to answer them all in the time I have been given. I will therefore write to hon. Members who have spoken, and for the benefit of those who have not taken part I will put the answers in the Library of the House so that everyone has an opportunity to read them.

I have listened very carefully to the debate, and I have tried not to be party political or partisan in any way, but nobody watching would think that the previous Administration had been in government for 13 years. The issue has been known about for many years and, as I said in my opening speech, Administrations should have dealt with it.

It is worrying that we have been asked why the Government have taken two years to sort out the problem. The consultation was very wide ranging, and no one would have known from it what the previous Government wanted. I cannot find out exactly what they wanted, because we are not allowed to see their papers. The consultation came out in February 2010, just before the general election, after which we had the purdah period, and then we came into office, and without knowing exactly what was intended, my predecessor and the very dedicated Lord Freud, the Minister in the other House, worked with the Secretary of State to bring forward this Bill.

Nothing is perfect, and I fully understand that hon. Members on both sides of the House want to table amendments in Committee and probably on Report. What is very important, however, is that the Bill is passed and regulations are laid, and that compensation gets out to the victims of this terrible disease and their loved ones. If even some points that have been discussed were put in, the Bill would have to go back to the Lords and that would mean a period of ping-pong. [Interruption.] I said some, not all points.

It is absolutely imperative to get the Bill through, or people who have waited for compensation, in some cases for decades, will not get it. If there is ping-pong on the Bill, we will be into the new year—the Leader of the House is sitting next to me—and although I will be as open minded and pragmatic as I can, the Bill needs to be put on the statute book.

[Mr Hepburn]

What about the 6,000 victims prior to the cut-off date? Why should they be victimised?

[Mike Penning]

I am good friends with the hon. Gentleman, and I know him well. I do not see it that way, as he knows, but I understand why he does. There has to be an arbitrary cut-off date, and the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright) said that the date will be arbitrary whatever we do.

We have been in deep negotiations—there is no argument about that; it will all come out—but the insurance companies did not just stroll up to Lord Freud’s office and say, “By the way, can we do a deal?” They were dragged there, otherwise that would have been done under the previous Administration. The Bill is not perfect and it probably can be amended, but it must not be delayed.