Clause
41
Lump
sum
payments
Question
proposed, That the clause stand part of the
Bill.
Mr.
Michael Clapham (Barnsley, West and Penistone) (Lab): The
aim of part 4 is to provide payments to mesothelioma sufferers, both
live and posthumous cases. It makes provision for the recovery of
payments in certain circumstances. The Bill has been welcomed by a
number of organisations, from the TUC
through to the Association of Personal Injury
Lawyers. However, I will raise one or two points as we go through the
Bill.
I want to raise
a couple of points. My first call for clarification is in relation to
clause 41(3)(b), which says that
we
“may prescribe
different amounts for different cases or classes of cases or for
different
circumstances.”
I will
refer to the Bill’s provisions as the new 1979 scheme. It will
make payments, but until the fund is built up they will be less than
those paid under the Pneumoconiosis etc. (Workers’ Compensation)
Act 1979. The payments will then be equal to those paid under the 1979
Act and the two will merge.
I first dealt with payments
some years ago. The 1979 Act was introduced following the 1974 scheme
to accommodate slate workers in Wales. Payments were based on the age
of the claimant, the date of development of the disease and the degree
of disability. However, since we moved from dual diagnosis, anyone who
is diagnosed with mesothelioma is given an industrial injury
disablement benefit at 100 per cent.—in other words, the
disability is seen as a 100 per cent. disability. Therefore, it appears
that the only difference in payments under the new scheme is likely to
be based on age. Will the Minister clarify that? There may be other
circumstances in which a claimant could have received a payment under
the 1974 scheme. Is that the case, because I want to bring to her
notice the 1974 scheme and some of its implications when we move on to
clause 49?
My second
point relates to subsection (5) and the procedure for dealing with such
cases and deciding in a posthumous case on how a payment is to be
divided. For example, will the Minister follow the procedure that has
been set under the chronic obstructive pulmonary disease scheme which
calls for letters of probate and then leaves the division to a
solicitor? I know that we want to minimise the use of solicitors, and
we do not want solicitors involved in this particular scheme. I assume
that the Minister, or the Department, will call for letters of probate
to determine the number of siblings and so on before deciding how the
payment is to be divided in a posthumous case. Will she clarify that?
We will be dealing with these claims as soon as the Bill becomes law.
As she is aware, we are expecting at least 600 cases a year, which
means that we will be dealing with 12 cases a week. In some of our
constituencies, cases will be brought to our surgeries at an early
stage.
Mr.
Boswell:
The hon. Gentleman is an acknowledged expert on
these matters, and I listen to him with great respect. Does he not
agree that the person with mesothelioma may, given that they are
afflicted with a terminal disease, wish to express certain priorities
before their death in relation to the allocation of the assets and the
lump sum? Does he not also agree that one of the sad facts of our
modern society is that few people conclude wills, and instead leave
matters to intestacy rules, which might lead to a different disposition
of assets or entitlements from the one that they had intended or
wanted?
Mr.
Clapham:
I do not class myself as an expert; it is simply
the case that, as a compensation officer years ago, I used to deal with
claims that came under the
1979 Act. However, the hon. Gentleman’s point raises some of the
complexities that the Minister will have to deal with. I should have
thought that a claimant who wished the payment to be divided in a
particular way would set that out in a will. Once a claimant has died,
and we are left with a number of siblings, it will be difficult for the
Minister to interpret what that person would have wished. However, I
hope that the Minister will clarify some of the issues, particularly in
relation to subsections (3)(b) and (5).
Andrew
Selous (South-West Bedfordshire) (Con): I welcome you to
the Chair, Mr. Taylor, and I pay tribute to the hon.
Gentleman. He says that he is not expert in these matters, but he has
been extremely diligent in working on them in the House over a number
of years, and most of us would certainly regard him as far more of an
expert than we are.
Opposition Members very much
welcome the proposals. It is the Opposition’s job to oppose
where we think that the Government have got things wrong, and we have
done so constructively on quite a few occasions with regard to this
Bill. However, the provisions before us are a very worthwhile
solution—indeed, they have been described as a creative
solution—to the problems raised by an extremely distressing
disease.
Let me
briefly put on the record the scope of what we are talking about. The
Library note tells us that there were 1,969 mesothelioma deaths in
Great Britain in 2004, and that is expected to rise to about 2,400
deaths a year by 2013, before coming down to perhaps 500 deaths a year
by 2050. It is quite important for the Committee to realise that
although no employers today are—let us hope—putting
workers or those who live near their premises at risk of mesothelioma,
the legacy of such problems will be with us for a long time to come and
there is a considerable tail.
I particularly welcome the fact
that clause 41 breaks the strict link that used to exist in respect of
having an occupation and being an employee. For the first time, lump
sum payments will unquestionably cover family members, such as wives
who washed overalls or children who went in the bath just after the
worker’s wife had washed the overalls in it—indeed, a
constituent told me that she used to go in the bath just after her
father’s overalls had been washed in it. Also covered are people
who lived next to relevant premises. They were not family members, but
they had the misfortune to live or perhaps play next to a factory that
was putting them at risk of mesothelioma.
I also welcome particularly the
speed with which it is intended the payments will be made. It is
perhaps worth putting on the record once more the fact that, once
diagnosed, mesothelioma is generally fatal within 12 to 18 months. It
is intended that payments will be made within six weeks of diagnosis.
That is an ambitious target but, given the distressing speed with which
the disease moves, it is right that we aim for such a speed of
payment.
11.15
am
I echo the
question about subsection (3)(b). It states that regulations
“may prescribe different amounts
for different cases or classes of cases or for different
circumstances”,
which is vague and
opens a wide range of possibilities. I hope that the Minister will give
the Committee as much detail as she can, which would be a great help to
us.
Mrs.
McGuire:
You need to show leadership
qualities.
Paul
Rowen:
I shall take that on board. You can be my campaign
manager.
I welcome the
clause. I have been a Member of the House for only a few years, but I
know that the hon. Member for Barnsley, West and Penistone has been a
stalwart on the mesothelioma issue. In my short time as a member of the
asbestos sub-group of the all-party occupational safety and health
group, I have seen the hard work that is done on the matter. I am also
grateful to the Ministers who came up with the clause last year, when
we were dealing with the Law Lords’ decision. The clause deals
with some of the issues that arose in the courts by extending
the availability of compensation and by ensuring that compensation is
dealt with more
quickly.
There
was an asbestos factory in my constituency—at the time, it was
the world’s largest—and it is a sad fact that within the
community of Rochdale, more people are suffering from mesothelioma on a
daily basis, and that will be the case for the foreseeable
future.
As the hon.
Member for Barnsley, West and Penistone has said, there is no doubt
that although the process was well meaning, it was painful and
protracted. It resulted in massive payments to lawyers, and it often
did not benefit the people for whom it was designed. The clause will
extend entitlement and ensure that money is paid more quickly, which is
right and proper. Many people outside the House will be reassured by
this Government
measure.
I want to
seek clarification from the Minister on a couple of points. First, as
has been mentioned by the hon. Members for Barnsley, West and Penistone
and for South-West Bedfordshire, the issues of classes, amounts and
cases will be dealt with in regulation, and I hope that the Minister
will give us some detail on how that will operate. I have been asked to
ask the Minister for a reassurance that the 1979 Act payments, and the
arrangements to uprate them, will not be affected by the new
scheme.
My second
point is about recovery. There is concern that millions of pounds of
1979 Act payments have been wrongly credited to employers and insurers
over the years, and the Bill does not allow for the repayment of such
moneys. The Bill ought to deal with that issue, so that decent payments
are made under the new scheme. Will the Minister respond to those two
concerns?
Mrs.
McGuire:
I am delighted to serve under your chairmanship
again this morning, Mr. Taylor. I want to echo the comments
made by colleagues: although the Bill is principally about the reform
of our child maintenance system, it is entirely appropriate that we
have managed to use the opportunity of early legislation to deal with
an issue that has long been a source of great concern to colleagues
from all parties. I
hope that colleagues will also forgive me if I
highlight the role played by my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley,
West and Penistone. He has been a doughty champion of the cause over
many years, and I welcome his support and comments. It was entirely
appropriate of him to highlight the fact that those changes have been
welcomed by the trade union movement and those who have represented
workers like him over a long period of
time.
As
colleagues have already mentioned, mesothelioma is one of the diseases
covered by the 1979 Act. It is fatal and is caused by exposure to
asbestos. As far as anyone is aware, there is no known cause of diffuse
mesothelioma apart from exposure to asbestos and, as the hon. Member
for South-West Bedfordshire has said, that exposure can be second or
third hand. I want to thank him for his comments in support of this set
of changes. He said that prognosis means that people can live between
12 and 18 months, but the average life expectancy is eight to nine
months. It is a savage condition that takes people very quickly from
this life, which is why we wanted to get the measure on the statute
book as quickly as
possible.
As
colleagues have highlighted, one in 100 men born between 1940 and 1950
will die of the disease—the disease mainly, although obviously
not exclusively, affects men. We are dealing with a horrific situation.
Some sufferers of mesothelioma are not entitled to a lump sum payment
under the 1979 Act, because of the work link that hon. Members have
mentioned.
Let me pick
up on a couple of specific questions. My hon. Friend the Member for
Barnsley, West and Penistone asked how the payments would be laid out.
Payments will be tapered according to age. It is right that payments
are weighted to compensate for the poor prognosis associated with
mesothelioma for those who are younger at the time they are diagnosed
and who will die at a younger age as a
consequence.
Some
concerns have been raised about cases with more than one claimant,
particularly when the principal claimant has died. I share my hon.
Friend’s view that we want to keep the involvement of
lawyers—with the greatest of respect to the hon. Member for
Angus, although I do not know why we always say. “With the
greatest of respect to lawyers”—and legal intervention to
a minimum. This is about getting compensation payments as quickly as
possible to the individuals concerned. If the claimant dies between
claiming a payment and the payment being made—we are committed
to turning the payments round within six weeks—the payment will
be made to their estate, which will then be decided as usual. If there
is no will, the normal probate rules will apply. Having said that, I
cannot give a categorical assurance that there will not be
circumstances in which there is legal intervention on behalf of one
member of a family or
another.
The hon.
Member for Angus will correct me if I am wrong, but I think that the
rules of probate in Scotland are slightly different from the rules in
England—I am probably venturing into territory where I should
not have put my toe in the
water.
Mr.
Weir:
There is no probate in Scotland—it is called
confirmation—but the same basic rules apply: things are divided
between the children. In Scotland, at
least, there are strict rules, and it would be difficult, in the absence
of a will, for one child to get a different split. I do not know
whether that applies in
England.
Mrs.
McGuire:
There may be some legal argy-bargy here, because
there is at least one lawyer on the Labour Back Benches. All I am
saying is that we want to get the money to the claimant as quickly as
possible. If the claimant dies, we are bound by the normal rules. We
hope that there are very few circumstances in which there would be
legal intervention, but the legal involvement on how things are sorted
out would probably occur within the
family.
Colleagues
also asked about the entitlement of dependants and how they would be
paid. We shall follow the procedure laid out in the 1979 Act, and only
one category of dependants can qualify for a payment under the Act. The
dependants would qualify in the following order: the wife or husband or
civil partner who was living with, or who was maintained by, the person
with mesothelioma; children, meaning children under the age of 16;
children under the age of 21 who are not receiving wages from full-time
employment; and children of any age who are permanently unable to
support themselves. Then it would be a person living with the person
with mesothelioma as if they were husband and wife, or as if they were
civil partners, and any other relatives who are completely or mostly
dependent on the person with mesothelioma immediately before their
death, which mirrors the situation in the 1979
Act.
The hon. Member
for Rochdale asked whether the 1979 Act payments would continue to be
uprated. Yes, I can confirm that they will
be.
It is estimated
that up to 600 people who do not currently receive help from the
Government will receive an estimated £6,000 on average during
the first year of operation of the new scheme. Hon. Members on both
sides of the Committee recognise that no amount of money will ever
compensate individuals and families for the suffering and loss caused
by mesothelioma, but those who are suffering deserve some form
of monetary compensation as quickly as possible. We need to get that
money out as quickly as possible before it is too late, which is why we
are acting within the terms of this legislation to put in place a
scheme that will meet those
needs.
Although we
often discuss our industrial heritage, when we look at the wonderful
industrial buildings around Britain, we must recognise that those
buildings were built on the foundation of workers, many of whom are now
paying a dear price for having been part of that regeneration,
certainly after the second world war. I therefore thank hon. Members
for their
support.
Mr.
Clapham:
The Minister has mentioned that the average
payment will be in the region of £6,000, but there is, of
course, the additional weekly payment of industrial injuries
disablement benefit, which is paid at 100 per cent., which is about
£140.
Mrs.
McGuire:
My hon. Friend is correct. As I have
said—I do not want to repeat this endlessly—we want to
get the compensation payment out to people quickly, so that they are
not left wanting at a point in their lives
when they just need recognition not only of their suffering but of the
things that they must do in the last few months of their lives without
experiencing the complications involved in gaining compensation. It is
a self-funding programme. Money is recoverable through other
compensation, when insurance pays out and so on, but it is a
significant step—a great step—in the right direction. I
thank hon. Members on both sides of the Committee for their support for
this part of the Bill, notwithstanding, as I was about to say, that
they might want to raise some issues of
detail.
Question
put and agreed
to.
Clause 41
ordered to stand part of the
Bill.
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