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Baroness Barker: My Lords, it is a real honour to take part in today's debate. We have already heard three speeches of superb quality setting out with great eloquence the issues behind a subject which is easy to forget if one lives in certain parts of the country.

I start by paying tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan of Drefelin, for her informed and moving speech. I remember the time when I was the youngest
 
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Baroness in the House. My maiden speech was precisely three minutes long. On refection, that was two-and-a-half minutes longer than I needed to say what I knew about the subject. Clearly, the noble Baroness is under no such difficulty. I very much look forward to her taking part in debates in this House, particularly those on health, which will be all the better for her contributions.

I am also delighted to take part in a debate that has been initiated so passionately by the noble Lord, Lord Lofthouse. His reputation on this issue—I believe he has campaigned on it for the past 22 years—is second to none. I have a couple of other reasons for being indebted to him. I was born within sight of Lofthouse Pit. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, I come from a family of miners and steelworkers. I discovered earlier this year, for reasons I shall come to, that my grandfather died of pneumoconiosis. I did not know that until recently.

I grew up in coalmining areas, and when I went to school, sliding down the pit bings was something school kids did. We knew people's dads who had what we called "the black lung" and what is now called chronic bronchitis and emphysema. I know how debilitating that can be.

The noble Lord, Lord Lofthouse, set out quite starkly the numbers of people who have come within the ambit of this scheme in the past nine years. He quite rightly pointed out that the flaws in the scheme are not in the generosity of the provision on the part of the Government. The problem is in the delivery of the scheme to those who need it. It is important that we in this House raise this matter continually. The way in which this compensation scheme operates has to be revised. Lessons have to be learnt as we go along, for the benefit not only of the miners but of other groups of workers also.

Only last week, Jeff Ennis MP noted in another place that, despite the large scale of the compensation scheme—and it is a huge scheme—solicitors handling claims currently receive an average fee of £2,413 per case, while fewer than half of the miners so far compensated have received final settlements of less than half that amount. Furthermore, more than 3,000 miners have received settlements of less than £200. That cannot be right.

I do not know whether I would use the words "snail's pace", as the noble Lord, Lord Lofthouse, did, but the fact is that, in six years, only 209,000 out of 569,000 claims have been completed, and only 5,000 claims are settled each month. With the available resources—not just the money for compensation, but also the resources put into the clinics and testing centre—that is very slow.

There is also a difference between the offers and the settlements. The noble Lord, Lord Dixon, drew that issue to your Lordships' attention with great clarity. At the end of 2003, there were more than 23,000 outstanding offers, of which nearly 4,000 had been with solicitors for over a year. I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Lofthouse, is right to question the involvement of some solicitors—not all, but some—in the scheme.
 
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The British Coal respiratory disease litigation solicitors group has been in discussions with the DTI about ways in which settlements could be speeded up. I believe that it put forward a scheme whereby there could be a top-up fee to miners from the solicitors' own payments—which, incidentally, are uprated annually by inflation—in an effort to settle cases more quickly. It is remarkable when solicitors are prepared to forgo part of their fee. If they are so prepared, why are the Government so reluctant to go down the route of having a minimum compensation fee that can be fast-tracked? Anything that would reduce the transaction costs in this scheme must be of great value.

I am sure that the Minister will mention the High Court judgment of Mr Justice Turner in which he talked about the different contributory factors that have an effect on individuals. However, there seems to be something wrong when over-elaboration of a system leads to such long delay, as the noble Lord, Lord Lofthouse, pointed out.

I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Dixon, that the exclusion of surface workers from the case handling arrangements is wrong. Surface workers have eloquently put forward a description of the conditions in which they worked. Miners who worked on screens where coal was washed and graded had to put up with just as much coal dust—albeit not within a confined area—as those who worked underground.

It seems odd that when the medical assessment process—which is so detailed in this scheme—works so well, it is not possible to determine the extent to which those engaged in surface jobs contracted their condition as a result of their place of work. To put it another way, in my layperson's language, if someone who worked all their days at the pithead has the same condition as those who worked underground, surely there has to be a link in the causal factors. I am no medic, but that seems to be obvious.

I return to the issue that the noble Lord, Lord Lofthouse, identified as the most contentious part of the matter—the variation in the charges made by solicitors. In April 2004, in another place, the Minister reported that he had written to solicitors who had charged clients, asking them to repay their fees. Those who failed have been removed from the DTI's list of solicitors. He also reported that the Law Society had agreed that such client charging breached its code of practice. What further action are the Government going to take in conjunction with the Law Society, which is the regulatory body for solicitors, to ensure that such unscrupulous practices are not allowed to continue unfettered?

I have one more question. Claims under the respiratory disease scheme closed at the end of March. To the best of my knowledge, the latest available advice on the DTI website suggests that, after July 2004, a way will be found to facilitate the processing of claims started after the scheme was closed—that is, claims that can be brought only under common law. What progress has been made on finding a way of satisfying those late claims?
 
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I cannot match the words of the noble Lord, Lord Lofthouse, in his description of those within the scheme who are supposed to benefit from it and who are waiting for help. I simply say that there is a similar condition, asbestosis, the prevalence of which is set to rise within the population over the next 30 years. It will be far more difficult to relate cause and effect in that condition. If we can use what has been learned from this scheme to fast-track those who suffer from related diseases, we will be doing a great favour to others with industrial diseases.

Earl Attlee: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Lofthouse, for once again bringing this most important matter before Parliament. He is certainly persistent and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, said, "No one can match his words".

I have still mercifully not yet met a victim of these diseases. I have been down a colliery two or three times and I can understand how these problems have arisen. On checking the index to Hansard, I see that we debated the matter on 16 November 1998. One of the perils for a long-serving Minister is that failure to conclude a difficult matter after six years can come back to bite you.

The noble Lord, Lord Sainsbury, has been at the DTI all this time. I of course have gone full circle and come back to the DTI portfolio. The speakers' list suggested that the noble Lord, Lord Sainsbury, would be responding tonight. In fact, we shall be hearing from the noble Lord, Lord Evans, who will speak with equal authority.

It seems to me that the performance of the Government's machinery is inversely proportional to the number of staff and computers within it. I hope that the same rule does not apply to the DTI's management of this problem. The greatest concern of the noble Lord, Lord Lofthouse, is delay. Six years is unacceptable. But, to be fair to the Minister, not all of the blame can be safely laid at his door.

The noble Lord is also not happy with the progress made by the lawyers. That was a universal complaint and I agree with it. The noble Lord made disturbing revelations about some of the legal practioners—I stress "some". But only yesterday, at Question Time, your Lordships discussed the difference between the ethical codes of the General Medical Council and the Law Society. What is the Minister going to do to help claimants to reclaim illegal deductions when they are ill equipped to do so themselves?

In her excellent maiden speech, the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan of Drefelin, said that she is the youngest Baroness in the House. She should not worry: I think that I am about the third youngest Member on these Benches. If she carries on as she has started, she will be making a major contribution to our debates over many years to come and I look forward to debating with her in full at a later time.

The noble Lord, Lord Dixon, illustrated some of the difficulties faced by claimants, not just those with miners' respiratory illnesses but also those with vibration injuries. The Minister will say that the
 
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availability of funds is not a problem, but what financial provision has been made for the DTI for these claims this year and next year?

During the 1998 debate, my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Drumadoon identified differences between the Scottish and English legal systems. How are Scottish miners' COPD claims being dealt with and what progress is being made there? Does the Minister have any responsibility or is that the responsibility of the Scottish Executive?

During the 1998 debate, there was much talk of the lack of capacity to undertake the medical assessments and we talked about it a little tonight as well. Where are we with this process and how many claimants are yet to be assessed?

I cannot help but conclude that a lot of people have been earning their living, or at least part of it, from these claims. First, we have the lawyers and, of course, the longer a case runs, the more chargeable events are likely to occur. Your Lordships know how much a solicitor's letter costs. On top of the official plaintiffs' solicitors groups there are others seeking to advise claimants.

Secondly, is there any incentive for DTI officials and the IRISC to conclude this matter? Can the Minister say how many officials at the DTI and IRISC are working on these problems? What incentives are there for individuals at all levels in the department to conclude this matter? This is a sorry tale and one to which I did not expect to have to return six years later.

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