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Mr. Dennis Skinner (Bolsover): My hon. Friend has suggested that the door has been opened and that he will
look at the blacksmiths' case, the insurance case, the private mines and some of the other cases. Is he aware that those of us who worked on the screes removing the dirt from the coal were exposed to more dust than about 80 per cent. of the miners underground? He can take it from me—I did 21 years. Some of my friends refused to work on the screes because it was a lousier job than working underground. While he is in this benevolent mood, will he look into that? Will he make sure that things are dealt with before the cut-off date next year? I am worried that if the cut-off date is reached some of the other changes might never take place.
Mr. Timms: I am aware of the point that my hon. Friend makes, and I say again that there needs to be medical evidence to allow us to go beyond what we have done so far and such evidence has not been forthcoming at the moment.
The Department was pleased to co-operate with a proposal from the claimants' solicitors to study data on pneumoconiosis among surface-only workers and to put a group of surface-only workers through the medical assessment process. My predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, announced that to Parliament on 30 March 2001. Data on that disease are significant because, unlike COPD, the disease can only be caused and worsened by dust. If we could establish high levels of that disease among surface-only workers, it could point to higher dust levels on the surface than our evidence to date has shown. If that were shown to be the case, our medical advice would no longer stand because it would be based on unsound evidence. But the study did not produce any evidence that required us to reconsider our medical evidence and, as a result, the position has not changed. We wrote to the claimants' solicitors in February to inform them of that.
More recently, the solicitors chose to raise the matter with Sir Michael Turner at the High Court in July. They applied for an order requiring the Department to disclose all documentation relevant to surface dust by the end of August, to be followed by mediation to determine the issues still between the parties. They asked that, if the mediation were unsuccessful, the judge should give directions for litigation of the issues in the framework of the existing coal health respiratory disease litigation. The judge did not grant the order, but he requested instead that the solicitors identify a number of lead cases and that they investigate their dust exposure and medical circumstances and put them forward at the next court hearing for the Department to consider. It is hoped that that will give the Department sufficient information to decide whether there are points between the parties that can be resolved by mediation.
At a meeting of the coal health ministerial monitoring group last month, the solicitors made it clear that they were having difficulty identifying lead cases and asked the Department to assist by opening its archives to them in advance of identifying the cases. We were entirely happy to co-operate with that request. We have granted access to British Coal's archives to allow a search for surface dust records. We are next due to appear before Sir Michael on 10 November to report on progress made.
I wish to say to my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham and others in the Chamber and elsewhere who have followed this matter very closely that we have done everything possible—through the offers we made to compensate some cohorts of surface-only workers, through the joint surface dust study and through the opening of British Coal's archives to the solicitors—to give those in the group an opportunity to establish their case. But my hon. Friend will recognise that the Government also have a responsibility to the taxpayer, who is funding compensation, to ensure that compensation is paid only where the Department is genuinely liable, and I make no apology for our adopting a robust approach. If the claimants' solicitors can establish their case—we have been genuinely as helpful as we can in assisting their efforts to do so—we will ensure that payment is made to that cohort of men as soon as possible, but we cannot pay compensation on the basis of the existing medical evidence; the medical case is simply not there.
I should like to say a little about more general progress. This is a huge responsibility, and from the outset the Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, South (Nigel Griffiths) and I have set about meeting all the parties involved in the process to ensure that we are doing everything that we can to make progress. We have held useful meetings with the solicitors representing the claimants, mining union representatives, coalfield campaigners and the Department's own contractors under the auspices of the Department's ministerial monitoring group, and progress continues to be good.
Under the two schemes, a total of £13.7 million has been paid out in both interim and full and final settlements to those in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham. Of course, more needs to be done, and we will continue to be as helpful as we can in establishing claims if the medical evidence is forthcoming, and it occurs to me that perhaps my hon. Friend will have suggestions to make to the claimants' solicitors to assist them in identifying individuals who may be able to help, through their own experience, to establish a case.
The motion having been made at Six o'clock, and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. Deputy Speaker adjourned the House, without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
- Adjourned at half-past Six o'clock.
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