Social Security (Statutory Instruments)

Tracey Crouch Excerpts

Monday 9th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)]

I apologise for missing the beginning of the Minister’s speech, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am grateful to you for allowing me to say a few words on this incredibly important matter.

I represent Chatham, where the former dockyard was involved in ship lagging for many years—centuries in fact—so the issue of mesothelioma is very dear to my heart and to those of my constituents. Chatham is one of the UK hot spots for mesothelioma, and for that reason I have been very passionate about the issue for many years, including before I entered the House.

Today’s announcement of the uprating of benefits for mesothelioma claims is obviously very welcome. It is fair to say that the Government have made great progress on compensating those who could not trace their insurer in the past. I know that that scheme is different from the one we are discussing now, but compensation and benefits for mesothelioma quite often get mixed up into one big pot, and people sometimes find it very difficult to navigate their way around the various schemes available. I appreciate the fact that the Government have made great progress in ensuring that people not subject to this scheme can find a way to get the compensation they are owed if they cannot trace their insurer, although some people who claimed benefits for mesothelioma but were then successful in the Government’s other scheme have lost 100% of the compensation to receive only 80% in return.

I want to touch on the points made by the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) about research and other establishments. The research still has some way to go, and people are not necessarily coming forward to take advantage of existing research bursaries. I recently visited the university of Greenwich, which has a base on the Medway campus. It is doing great work on trying to identify ways to break the link in the chemical structures that form mesothelioma. As well as having a fantastic re-acquaintance with the chemistry I learned at school and learning what double bonding was, I was told of some interesting research that it had done into the number of research papers on mesothelioma. It found that in one year, there had been only 15 papers across the entire world, compared with thousands and thousands on other cancers. We clearly have a long way to go.

Traditionally, asbestos conditions, particularly mesothelioma, have been linked with industrial employment. We are now seeing an increase in the number of people from other sectors, particularly the teaching profession, who are becoming the victims of mesothelioma. Something like 122 former teachers died of mesothelioma last year.

It is important that people who are getting this incredibly painful cancer, and who will die very quickly as a consequence, are getting the money that they deserve. Although we have had long discussions about dependants—I note that the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston raised this matter in her speech—there is still a long way to go before we give mesothelioma victims adequate compensation and the benefits that they deserve.

I welcome the uprating today. It is an incredibly important step forward. I am pleased that there will be no Division, because this is a sensible thing to do for those who get this horrible disease. There is so much more that we need to continue to discuss in this Chamber and elsewhere to ensure that people who get this horrible cancer, who will die quickly and painfully, are given the right amount of money and the compensation that they deserve, and to ensure that this Government and future Governments continue to support research into this incredibly important area.