Compensation Bill [Lords]

It is a long time since we came in here. I was going to mention part 1, but I will not now, except to say that the phrase ““desirable activity”” could well include playing croquet, so a lot of issues need to clarified there. Indeed, it is a thriving sport in my area. I will focus very much on part 2 and want to say up front that I am proud and pleased to be standing here as someone who has been a member of the National Union of Mineworkers for 20 years. [Interruption.] Yes, hon. Members can cheer—I do not mind. I am also an honorary life member of Unison. I welcome the fact that the Minister recognises that there is a serious difference between genuine trade unions doing their jobs for their members and claim farmers. To treat them the same would be little short of an insult, because the work done by trade unions in supporting their members in legal cases is in many ways the best example of voluntary work in this country. The vast majority of cases—believe you me, I have been involved in literally hundreds of individual cases and thousands on a collective basis—are begun by shop stewards or other local officials who carry out their roles professionally, without payment or reward, and they do so by being properly trained and accredited. Without their knowledge and skills, they could not do that job. Their work is part and parcel of the day in, day out work of representing their colleagues at work to the best of their ability. Most of them would be over the moon if they did not have to do that work, because that would mean that their members were not getting killed, maimed, injured or stressed out. Their members would not face a life of penury, illness and injustice Those people would not have to worry about how they will provide for their partners and children, about how they will pay their mortgages or about what the future would bring. As was said earlier, more than 64,000 new claims were laid through trade unions—that is 64,000 men and women who face an uncertain future, and 64,000 cases that may not have been taken up, for the reasons given earlier by my hon. and good Friend the Member for City of Durham (Dr. Blackman-Woods), if local trade unions had not supported those people through those very traumatic times. I am certainly not suggesting that those claims should go through a system with no control—I would never suggest that. Indeed, I believe that the present trade union legislation strictly controls the behaviour of trade unions in many ways. That is exactly what we are trying to do today. In those claim cases it is clearly necessary to use the legal profession. Those legal people are controlled by their professional society. If their society is not doing its business, as has been said today, perhaps that is the real issue that we should be debating in the House, not what trade unions are doing. There is a fundamental difference between people whose job in life is to rip people off and other people whose job in life is to represent people. Trade unions do not want to be involved in rip-off work; they do not want their members to be treated negligently or their lives to be ruined. Genuine trade unions do not want to play any part in the get-rich-quick operations that some of the rip-off merchants engage in. That is why trade unions put so much emphasis on health and safety legislation—red tape as it is often disparagingly called in the House—and why they campaign long and hard to get proper protection for their members at work. Trade unions do not want to such work on behalf of their members—to be honest, they do not really need it—but they will keep on doing it to defend their members as long as they are being abused at work. Legal cases are time-consuming, usually costly and drain resources, and they are in many ways a sign of failure—the failure of the employer to look after the worker properly, the failure of the unions to negotiate proper health and safety legislation and the failure of hon. Members to ensure that we provide a safe working environment for people. Union reps could spend their time and effort on much more productive and rewarding work, but they accept their responsibility and they do whatever it takes to help their members. There is no pleasure in winning compensation cases for members, except the knowledge that those members should be financially secure for the rest of their lives. But all the money in the world will not give workers their lives back. People who have lost limbs, people who have suffered from asbestos-related diseases or people burnt out with stress and workers with back problems or any of the multitude of problems that are dealt with day in, day out by trade union reps cannot turn back the clock just because a cheque drops through their letterbox. Unions are representatives acting for the collective good. They are a world away from get-rich-quick cowboys who are little better than ambulance chasers. They have experience in the workplace where their members work that lawyers will never be able to replicate. They know first hand what life in the workplace is like. They do not have to be drawn a map or told what is going on. They know. If we insist on lumping trade unions into the legislation, that knowledge will be lost. It will give greater clarity if the clear exemption for trade unions is built into the Bill as laid out. They are not claims farmers in any way. The Barker ruling is a disgrace to the House. Trade unions and their legal services teams should be able to work through us in this House to overturn that disgraceful decision taken in the other place. It is about real people. I support our work with the asbestos mesothelioma support groups. It is a disease that lies dormant for 30 years and then sparks off. People suffer horribly and then die—nothing else, that is the story. Okay, drugs like Alimta may help and let us hope that we can make progress with that, but if we do not overturn the Barker decision, the reality will be that of a man facing a firing squad armed with five guns. A bullet pierces his heart. Nobody knows which gun fired the bullet, so nobody is found guilty, but the truth is that they should all be found guilty.