| Previous Section | Back to Table of Contents | Lords Hansard Home Page |
British Coal Compensation
7.48 pm
Lord Lofthouse of Pontefract rose to ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their assessment of the role of solicitors and the Law Society in the British Coal miners’ compensation litigation.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I declare an interest having been a claimant and as the author of an article in the Times on 30 May 2006, for which I have received payment. Both of these payments have been paid to the Prince of Wales Hospice in Pontefract.
I rise to address your Lordships’ House in sadness and disgust—disgust at the solicitors claiming fees from miners’ compensation when they have already received agreed fees from the Government of £2,100 per case. Having been fighting in your Lordships’ House and in another place for the past 24 years for justice for disabled miners, I feel some responsibility speaking for thousands of elderly miners and widows who are claimants under the British coal miners’ litigation.
On the day of my 14th birthday I went down the pit, where it was my privilege to work alongside some of the finest, hardest-working men this country has ever seen. Tragically, as a result of labouring underground in terrible conditions, many of the miners had their lungs destroyed and suffered vibration white finger.
Following upon the High Court rulings in favour of the miners, it is to the credit of Her Majesty's Government that they provided uncapped funds to facilitate the swift delivery of compensation. In that process, the claimants were generally represented by solicitors who, in turn, were regulated by the Law Society. My task this evening is to assess the performance of the solicitors and the Law Society. The conduct of a number of solicitors handling miners’ claims has, in my view, been disgraceful. Between 1999 and 2005, many solicitors acquired vast fortunes; double-charging lawyers had a charmed life, since the Law Society appeared to be in a coma. The Law Society appeared to wake up in 2004, but that was because of intense parliamentary pressure.
We are
concerned about the conduct of solicitors over seven years. A 1999 Law
Society report was a charter for double-charging
solicitors. I have consulted widely on these issues. In recent weeks, I
have met Ed Balls, Member of Parliament and Economic Secretary to the
Treasury; I have spoken to Zahida Manzoor, the Legal Services
Ombudsman; and I have met the Law Society, which informed me that it
was keen to bring to justice the solicitors who have been guilty of
deducting fees from miners’ compensation. I have also been
assistedby Written Answers provided by Her Majesty's
11 July 2006 : Column 661
In a special report on the miners’ cases published on 5 April 2006, the Legal Services Ombudsman castigated the Law Society for its failure to investigate the miners’ complaints properly. The ombudsman described the miners and widows as being very vulnerable, mainly elderly, with some having severe health problems. It was also evident to the ombudsman that the Law Society was operating the same arbitrary conciliation process without any proper investigation of individual cases.
The ombudsman ruled that the Law Society’s failure had left these people badly let down. That was a damning indictment. However, the Law Society had the arrogance to respond with an attack on the ombudsman; indeed, it wrote to me on 19 June to say that it did not accept the report.
So there you have it. According to the Law Society, the Legal Services Ombudsman got it all wrong. On that basis, it would appear that I have also got it all wrong. It must follow, therefore, that tens of thousands of miners and their widows have got it all wrong. However, nothing could be further from the truth. The Law Society and the solicitors have failed the miners and their families, a very vulnerable group, and are trying to shirk their responsibilities for this appalling state of affairs.
Under the schemes, the solicitors get an average fee of £2,100 per case. However, more than 166,000 claimants received less in compensation than the costs paid to the solicitors. The outstanding claims will not be concluded until 2009, by which time the solicitors will have been paid a staggering £1,851 million. However, many of them betrayed their clients by double charging and acting as debt collectors for claims farmers and certain unions intent on exploiting this vulnerable group.
While the solicitors have their snouts in the golden trough, it is left to us to secure justice for the miners and widows. These good people are desperate for our help. Some of the men are close to drawing their last breath and even then, can do so only with the help of an oxygen cylinder. It cannot be left to those poor souls to take on the lawyers and their regulators. For my part, I will use my remaining time on this earth to try and ensure that every last penny is paid back, with interest and compensation on top. I also demand a full regulatory investigation to ensure that every offending solicitor is hauled up before the solicitors’ disciplinary tribunal.
It will be noted that I have not named the solicitors at fault. However, I give notice that if this matter is not resolved forthwith, then when it comes back before this Chamber, if it ever does, I will name and shame every last one of them.
Every single case must now be properly
investigated. If the Law Society does not discharge its regulatory
duties, then let Her Majesty's Government bring in an internal
investigation team to sort out this unholy mess. Regrettably, time is
no longer on the side
11 July 2006 : Column 662
Since it has taken the Law Society seven years to start tackling the offending solicitors, there is a real risk that thousands more elderly miners and widows will die being denied justice. I urge noble Lords to join me in expressing unreserved condemnation of the offending solicitors and their regulators, the Law Society, thereby assuring the miners and widows that they have the support of this Chamber.
Let me recount my own experiences. The lawyers agreed a figure with Her Majesty's Government or the department, whichever it was, to cover legal fees.I take the view that if they were not satisfied withthe fees, they should have negotiated with the Government to increase them. I think the figure was too much in any case; nevertheless, they should have had the opportunity. They should not have been deducting money from the miners’ compensation, some of it a measly £500 or less. That cannot be right.
The lawyers may argue that they are within their rights; they have the agreement of the men, the women, and all sorts of people. But that pales into insignificance beside the fact that if it is legally right—which they will argue—more importantly, it is morally wrong. I will never rest until these miners and their wives get justice.
Twenty-four years ago in another place, I did not spend my time presenting Bills and sitting up all night to get a slot for them with the intention of lining the solicitors’ pockets unfairly. I did it for the protection of those men who I worked alongside. I saw them lose their faculties. They could not breathe and could no longer work. I saw that at first hand. I was at the side of those men on the coalface when I was aged 17 and a half and I saw it all happen. I am asking tonight for this noble Chamber to give justice to these miners and for us to give them our support.
8 pm
Lord Sawyer: My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Lofthouse on raising a debate on this important issue. My noble friend has an outstanding and lifelong record and reputation for fightingfor miners and their families. Indeed, much ofthe legislation on compensation is down to his considerable efforts. It is clear that the main issue of this debate is one on which my noble friend and I agree.
Like my noble friend, I have a trade union
background. I spent all my working life fighting for workers’
rights. Since standing down from my main roles in the labour movement,
I have become the non-executive chair of the supervisory board for
Thompsons Solicitors and I declare that interest. Thompsons is the UK's
largest trade union law firm. The first clause in its partnership deed
states that it exists to help the trade union movement not to maximise
income for partners but for trade union members. Most unions use
Thompsons and to some extent my own union, Unison, uses it solely as
its legal provider, but it acts for many unions including the Transport
and General Workers’ Union, GMB,
11 July 2006 : Column 663
For me, this debate is essentially about the exploitation of hard-working men—working people who have been injured through no fault of their own and have not been properly compensated. Both my noble friend and I have been sickened by the stories of personal wealth built on the back of poor service by claims companies and mediocre law firms. The problem is essentially that, on the introduction of the coal health scheme, more than 700 law firms, many of which had no experience of trade union work, let alone miners’ work, became involved in what can only be described as a feeding frenzy to make money from the scheme. Many, but not all of those law firms, have been named in another place. There has been heavy criticism of UDM/Vendside both in another place and in newspapers and it is clear that there has been bad abuse of the scheme, the extent of which we will only know in time.
Far too many law firms have been allowed to get away with cherry-picking safe cases, being paid by the DTI and at the same time making deductions from compensation. The Law Society, as my noble friend said, has been making efforts to deal with that. Sadly, it seems from what we have heard tonight and what we have read in another place that its performance has been poor. It has attracted widespread criticism for the way that it has been conducting its investigations and I hope that the Minister will be able to apply pressure to remedy that fault.
Much has been said about the level of fees covered by law firms. My noble friend mentioned it in his speech and gave more detail in his earlier article in the Times. I suspect that neither of us would argue that lawyers should not be paid what the DTI and the courts have deemed appropriate, and there is a fixed scale of charges in that respect. The problem has come with law firms wanting to make extra money to feather their nests and in some cases buy their Bentleys and private yachts. Not only are they being paid the sum set by the DTI, they are making deductions from miners’ damages. That is where the real problem and scandal lie in this debate.
It is worth recording that the fees paid to law firms are on a case-by-case basis, so that the higher the case-loading by a firm, the higher the potential fees. The scheme was thought financially to be more attractive overall than the prospect of each case being litigated one by one through the courts. That is why the scheme was introduced by the DTI. Having agreed the scheme and the fees, the DTI positively encouraged miners and their families through adverts and newsletters to go to their well established trade unions for the advice and the quality of legal service that was offered. It is a pity that more miners did not do that in areas where sensible and legitimate law firms operate and have long-standing relationships with the trade unions.
Also prominent in the debate has been the
issue of deductions by trade unions from compensation for
11 July 2006 : Column 664
If there is a dispute about deductions by the union in any mining community, it should be resolved within that community rather than be made into a political football, as it has been by some. The communities have been injured enough and if a resolution is available without harming the good work of legitimate and committed trade unions and law firms that is the appropriate approach. The energy Minister in another place recognised that when he said in a debate on coal surface workers on7 February 2006:
- “With such huge
amounts of money being paid through the scheme to solicitors and the
unions having had extra money, surely it is possible for those
bodies—for moral and political reasons, if nothing
else—to support individual cases so that the individual
claimants are not put at financial risk. I do not believe that the cost
should be borne by the general taxpayer. The solicitors and, perhaps,
the unions—after all, what is the purpose of a trade
union?—have a moral duty to do so”.—[Official
Report, Commons, 7/02/06; col.
224WH.]
| Next Section | Back to Table of Contents | Lords Hansard Home Page |