Compensation Bill [Lords]

I am not suggesting that the hon. Gentleman is wrong about that, but he knows that that is not what he said. I will make him an offer. If he reads exactly what he said in Hansard tomorrow and is prepared to come and apologise to me personally if he was wrong in what he said about trade unions making their income from referrals, I will also read Hansard and apologise to him if I am wrong about it. I would even be prepared to make a point of order to make that apology to the House. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will be big enough to do the same, because the problem is that his comments were not only an unfortunate misrepresentation, but a distorting misrepresentation. I am very disappointed that the new Conservative party should adopt its old position of hostility towards the trade unions. No member of a trade union wants rogue trade unions that operate against the interests of their own members. Nobody seeks to justify the situation seen in the east midlands, of unions acting as claims farmers, and that should be condemned by every Labour Member of Parliament and by the trade union movement. We have to ensure that if a trade union operates as a claim farmer, it will not benefit from the general exemption offered to trade unions. The code of practice to which the trade unions will be expected to adhere must be sufficiently strong to regulate their role properly, in a way that is analogous to the regulation of the legal profession and others on this issue. That is an important part of the bargain for trade unions and would be accepted by most Members of Parliament as automatic, but more importantly it would be accepted by most trade unionists and their trade unions. The balance that my hon. Friend the Minister struck is important, because it establishes, not that trade unions have special rights, but that trade unions have a particular position of trust on behalf of their members and that has been respected. It is the rights of the ordinary members of trade unions that are protected by this legislation. I am also concerned about the issue of mesothelioma and the capacity of the Bill to serve as a vehicle to change the law on Barker. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, East and Wallsend (Mr. Brown) has already said, that is an important issue. We know that those who are diagnosed with mesothelioma, sometimes many decades after they have left the company, industry or situation that exposed them to asbestos, face a grim prognosis. People generally live only a short time after diagnosis—between 12 and 18 months—and it is a particularly cruel and unkind form of cancer even among those cancers that still kill. The families involved experience enormous distress. What that means is that the period in which the individual has access to proper justice, at least in the form of compensation, is also short. It also means that those who are entitled to compensation often—