Mesothelioma Bill [Lords]

Debate between Toby Perkins and Nicholas Brown

Tuesday 7th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Brown]

The answer to that is that they did take the premiums and prior to 2007 there was an assumption that pleural plaques cases could go against the insurers. It was only the High Court 2007 judgment that put a stop to all that. The premiums did not have to be refunded; they were just kept. The figure I have for that is over £1.4 billion held by the insurers. If companies have taken premiums for something they are never going to have to pay out for, that seems to me to be a pretty good business.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

I also want to echo the comments of colleagues who have paid tribute to the work of my right hon. Friend the Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Paul Goggins), and to pay tribute to the work done by Derbyshire asbestos support trust. It has done tremendous work in supporting asbestos victims. It had 14 new victims in the last year and they continue to come forward. I am very pleased with what my right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne East (Mr Brown) has said about the moral case being made for these people, and I also entirely agree that we need to work these arguments out, make the moral case for these people and make sure they get justice as quickly as possible.

[Mr Brown]

My hon. Friend will have his share of constituency cases, just as I do, and for the same reason: the industrial heritage of his constituency. We know that the profile of the victims is forecast to be different from the historical legacy, but it depends on the effectiveness of the protection measures we as a House have put in place. That was done with all-party consent—in fact, I think I was the Minister who moved the last set of regulations covering asbestos. We do not yet know how effective they are, however. As has been said from the Opposition Front Bench, we expect the number of cases to peak about now—in a year or so—but we do not know that that will be the case. I hope it will be, but we need to maintain our vigilance. The new cases will come from building contractors, people dismantling, rather than erecting, structures, and people who have come into contact through, perhaps, thinking they were dealing with a solid piece of material and who then hammered a nail into it or scratched it and breathed in the dust.

Exposure once is enough to cause mesothelioma and the consequences are fatal, so it is important that we take this issue seriously. I know the Minister is doing so and that the House is attempting to do so as well, but I think we should have it in the forefront of our minds that we may be returning to this issue in future.

The scheme before us today is targeted on people in a very particular position: they cannot find an insurer or they cannot trace an employer.