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7.33 pm
The Minister for Energy and Competitiveness in Europe (Mrs. Helen Liddell): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Mr. Barron) on securing the debate. I am grateful to him for putting so many of these issues on the record. I have been dealing with this matter since August last year, and my emotions have gone from shock to despair to anger at some of the stories that I have heard about how men--and their widows, sadly--are being abused in a situation where the Government are trying to make due recompense for terrible suffering that they have experienced as a result of their occupation.
My hon. Friend has raised a large number of issues, not all of which I may have time to answer this evening. I will take on board the issues that he has raised. I draw to his attention and that of the House the fact that I am accompanied on the Front Bench by the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Wyre Forest (Mr. Lock), who has taken copious notes of the points made by my hon. Friend in relation to the activities of solicitors.
First, let me make it clear that there are some solicitors involved in this matter--as my hon. Friend pointed out--who are extremely honourable and give of their time with great dedication, often above and beyond the call of duty. Regrettably, there are others who see this as a dripping roast and do not give a service, leaving us in a situation where not only do we have difficulty progressing these claims but, in some cases, we cannot even get a response from them at all.
Mr. Rogers:
I hope that my right hon. Friend and my hon. Friend the Member for Wyre Forest (Mr. Lock), who represents the Lord Chancellor's Department, will look not only at the morality but the legality of solicitors charging success fees when they are not involved in litigation. All that solicitors do in this instance is process claims. They are not taking the matter to the courts, so how on earth they can claim success fees is beyond me.
Mrs. Liddell:
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that point. We will look into it.
It may help the House if I go through the handling agreement that we have with solicitors and what they get paid for. We are paying solicitors' fees to the tune of £100 million. We are not talking about small sums of money.
My hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley also talked about obtaining information using the mineworkers' pension scheme. I will look into that. I am aware of the difficulty of accessing British Coal records. There are five and a half miles of records, many of them incomplete, which also slows down the process. I say to my hon. Friends--hon. Friends, because the Opposition Benches are completely empty for this important debate--
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Order. I have to say, consistent with Madam Speaker's rulings, that Adjournment debates, which are individual debates initiated by a particular Member, are not a matter for any Member of the House other than the Member speaking to the motion and the Minister who replies. They are not general debates.
Mrs. Liddell:
I am grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and I apologise for that remark. May I make the point, however, that these are extremely significant issues? Nearly 100,000 miners or their widows have already submitted claims.
I would like to go through the handling agreement so that people in this House and outside know exactly what solicitors are paid for. Solicitors have a table of tariffs that cover their profit costs plus reasonable disbursements. The tariffs relate to the stage in the process that a claim is settled and the complexity of the work. At the lower end, a solicitor who represents a claimant who accepts an expedited offer after the initial spirometry test would receive £900 plus reasonable disbursements. At the top end, a solicitor representing a claimant who receives compensation having gone through the medical assessment process is entitled to £1,750 plus reasonable disbursements. In addition, certain top-ups are paid, ranging from £200 to £500, to reflect various difficulties that may be encountered during the life of a claim. Involving co-defendants, invoking the disputes procedure and carrying out complex calculations of special damages can all merit top-up payments.
In addition--I make this point forcefully--the Department is paying a proportion of solicitors' costs incurred on unsuccessful claims because we agreed to pay towards client care for all claims received before 14 June 1999, regardless of whether they are ultimately successful or not; so any of the success fees recovered by the solicitors would be additional to these sums and would obviously reduce the compensation received by the claimant.
The solicitors' tariffs were agreed after a great deal of negotiation. They reflect a great deal of work and cover a variety of tasks, such as keeping clients informed of the progress of their claim, giving face-to-face assistance with completing the various forms--which can take between one and one and a half hours--checking that offers of compensation are correct and that they accord with the terms of the agreement.
I have seen the preliminary report of the complaint that my hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley made to the Office for the Supervision of Solicitors. It is important that the conclusions are borne in mind. However, many
of the claims are being settled under an agreement whereby the Department of Trade and Industry meets the cost of collecting all medical records and the cost of medical consultation, regardless of the outcome of the claim. This is a risk-free enterprise for solicitors. The Government are carrying the risk. That is what I find so difficult to accept.
I have some encouragement for my hon. Friend. First, in relation to the British Coal records, we will be content with a statement of employment where no record exists, to ease the search for records. However, the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department, informs me that under any conditional fee agreements entered into after 1 April, success fees can be claimed and paid by defendants, not out of damages. Not only will the success fee be paid by defendants--in this case the Government--but the percentage can be challenged by the defendant if the fee is excessive. My Department will take that into account if we receive evidence of excessive success fees being claimed after 1 April. We shall study all claims carefully.
The president of the Law Society may have some interest in several points made this evening. Any claims for success fees from before 1 April can be challenged, and the reasonableness of charges can be analysed through an application for a remuneration certificate. Many elderly people will not want to go down that route. I hope that moral suasion will bring common sense to some of the activities taking place.
This is the largest ever personal injury case, and that has brought significant difficulties. It is a one-off case, and we are to some extent learning as we go. It is a source of intense frustration to the Government that we have not made more progress, although the first major MAP compensation--in excess of £50,000--has been paid this week. To those awaiting payment, I can say only that we need the co-operation of solicitors. We need them to fill in forms and to have mandates signed. We shall consider every opportunity to progress matters as quickly as possible.
Let me take the opportunity provided by my hon. Friend's debate to appeal to doctors and health authorities to help us to make quicker progress. People are dying. We are helping lawyers and health authorities with the administration related to releasing medical records. We are paying £100 a day for access to the records, and I appeal to the caring professions to help us to proceed as quickly as we possibly can.
Much of what we have discussed tonight is not illegal, although it is immoral--a point that should be forcefully made. I want to issue another warning. We have talked tonight about solicitors, but the substantial sums of money involved have also been recognised by many people who describe themselves as claims handlers. IRISC--which handles claims for the Department--has been approached by claim-handling firms asking for a database of the miners who seek to pursue claims. The claim-handling firms also want success fees.
I have no doubt that when significant sums are eventually paid to miners, another new form of vulture will appear in the mining communities--people who will
seek to advise miners, their widows and their families on how to invest the compensation. It is as well to warn people now to be cautious and not to be taken in by those who would seek to make a killing from people who are suffering, and, in some cases, from people who have lost their lives.
We have heard that unions are seeking contributions from compensation. I can see a case for that in some circumstances. The unions began the whole process, and we recognise that they need help with the legal costs that they incurred. However, fairness is vital.
I urge those who are circling people who are desperately ill to be aware that wider society and the Government are watching what they do. I repeat that these people are very ill.
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