Diffuse Mesothelioma Payment Scheme

Tracey Crouch Excerpts

Wednesday 11th February 2015 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Owen. Despite his cruel reminder of last night’s football result, I congratulate the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram) on securing this timely debate.

This is a matter of great importance to me. I have campaigned on it for a decade, both before and after my election as an MP. Naturally, my interest as an MP stems from the fact that the Medway towns are a mesothelioma hot spot, with 6.5 in every 100,000 people across the area getting meso, compared with the national average of 2.5 in every 100,000. The area’s history of shipbuilding and heavy industry contributes to that exposure and diagnosis rate, so it is an issue that the people of Chatham and beyond are acutely aware of.

Much progress has been made on mesothelioma, but I want to start by congratulating the noble Lord Freud, via his and my Commons ministerial colleague here today, on yesterday’s announcement about increasing compensation under the Diffuse Mesothelioma Payment Scheme to 100% of average civil damages to those who are unable to trace their insurer. If it had not been considered unparliamentary or just a bit weird, I would have hunted him down in the other House to give him a big hug. Instead, I will do the entirely British thing of just saying, through the medium of Hansard, well done.

It is also appropriate to congratulate the noble Lord Alton, who has been an absolute champion on this issue in the other House. His tireless campaigning on meso issues has been a source of great hope to many victims and campaigners. He has been an inspiration to those of us in this House who have often been wearied by procedural hurdles. Like the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton, I pay tribute to the asbestos campaign groups, which not only lobby us on this issue but hold the hands of the victims once they are diagnosed.

Although the Minister was not in the Department at the time, he will be aware that, during the passage of the Mesothelioma Act 2014, I pushed for 100% compensation for victims of this fatal disease. Parliament settled for a compromise deal of 80%, albeit after a lot of pressure from campaigners in all parts of the Commons and Lords. That compromise was agreed after levels were raised from 70% to 75% and then to 80%, on the understanding that insurance companies would not participate in the scheme at all if the levy were to cost them more than 3% gross written premiums, which they in turn would be forced to pass on to an already difficult employers’ liability market.

I think “reluctant acceptance all sides” is an appropriate phrase; none the less, many felt that the outcome remained unfair. The fact there were far fewer claims than predicted, representing a total of just 2.2% GWP, was surprising, but perhaps not unexpected, given the number of times that the calculations and the costs were altered during the consultation and the passage of the legislation. It was a pleasure, therefore, to meet with Lord Freud immediately after Christmas to discuss the shortfall. I am delighted that, through his inevitably tough negotiations with the sector, he has managed to pull off a deal that means that, as of yesterday, anyone diagnosed with mesothelioma will get 100% compensation.

The Minister may think it is cheeky to ask for more, given how much progress has been made, but a few questions need to be asked. Around 200 people were compensated under the original scheme, at the rate of 80%. Are there plans to reconsider and uprate their payouts? Although I appreciate that there may be issues about retrospective payments, it would be reassuring to know whether the Department is undertaking any further consideration regarding those claimants. Yesterday’s statement also alluded to additional safeguards that have been requested by the insurance industry and agreed by the Minister. Although I fully accept that the 100% compensation scheme would not have been agreed without some form of negotiation, it would be helpful for the House to be made aware of what those administrative safeguards are and whether they require changes to either the primary or the secondary legislation.

I want to mention research, an issue that was much debated during the passage of the legislation for this scheme. The late Paul Goggins was a champion of ensuring more medical research into mesothelioma, for both treating and curing the cancer. The Minister will be aware that Paul sadly passed away between the Committee and Report stages of passing the Mesothelioma Act; I moved his amendments on the Floor of the House for him. It is an honour to continue to fight for more funding for research in his name.

Emotion aside, the facts are simple. Mesothelioma is an invasive type of lung cancer for which there is no cure. Victims often experience painful, debilitating symptoms, and most will die within 12 months of diagnosis. Someone dies from meso every five hours in the UK. It is estimated that 2% of men born in the ’50s will get the disease; yet research into this cancer is lagging way behind. As an illustration, I was given a table of the number of research papers into meso. In 2012, when 2,431 people died from mesothelioma, just 44 papers were published on it, compared with 2,828 papers on oral cancer and 1,160 on cancer of the uterus—both of which, thankfully, have nearly 1,000 fewer deaths per year.

Great work is being done out there, but it is starved of money. I visited the Medway campus of the university of Greenwich, where Professor Adrian Dobbs is leading the research into meso, including looking at the recent discovery of the compound JBIR-23, which is the first ever natural product to show activity against tumour cells. That work is being funded by the June Hancock Mesothelioma Research Fund, but with much more to do to refine the biological activity—from the scale of an oil tanker to a saloon car and down to the scale of a grain of sugar—significant funding needs to be found.

Insurers have contributed to wider research funding programmes with the British Lung Foundation. I was delighted to see that my old company, Aviva, has joined forces with Zurich to donate a combined £1 million over two years to the BLF’s meso programme. However, it is not fair that only those two companies are funding the research; frankly, others should be ashamed of themselves for not also contributing. It is also disappointing that the funding is time limited, and there is no guarantee that it will continue after the two years.

Finally, I want briefly to mention the issue of teachers dying of mesothelioma, which was also discussed during the passage of the Mesothelioma Act. Today, 75% of the 33,600 schools in Britain still contain asbestos. There is some variation in the statistics—which is why I may have confused matters further with a possibly incorrect recollection of the figures in the Chamber on Monday—but the often-cited stat is that in the past 10 years, 140 school teachers have died of meso. In the United States, for every one teacher who has passed from mesothelioma, nine children will follow.

Quite simply, we have a problem with asbestos in schools, which is why those who are diagnosed with the disease are not limited to the industrial professions. Just one fibre of asbestos can cause the cancer, and fibres can be transferred simply by putting a drawing pin in a wall. Local education authorities have insurance, which is why the scheme was deemed not appropriate in general terms for teachers; nevertheless, as politicians who will inevitably have schools in our constituencies that are riddled with asbestos, we need to be mindful of the potential problems. We need to introduce regulations similar to those in Australia and the US to remove asbestos in schools. I hope that, post 7 May, the Government will consider this matter extremely carefully.

Time is short and I know that other hon. Members wish to speak. Let me end by saying that the victims of the disease will now get the full compensation that they deserve. There are still issues to resolve, such as those I have raised, as well as others, which I have not had time to go into, that are equally important, such as secondary exposure. There are many people who will today hear that they have mesothelioma. That news will, in a short time, take them away from their family and loved ones; but at least now, if they are unable to trace their insurer, they can have financial peace of mind. It can only be the good thing and right that we have finally achieved that.