Compensation Bill [Lords]

The hon. Gentleman will be aware that when we were arguing for such a scheme, his party in government took the view that the medical knowledge of the day could not differentiate damage done to the lungs by dust from damage done to them by smoking. That was what led to the unions taking the case to court. We found that medical evidence had been available to the Government, including the findings of a longitudinal study of miners in Belgium. The Government used it when they introduced the industrial injuries disablement scheme for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, but it was left to the present Government to implement this scheme. I agree that it might have been devised in a different way, but it was introduced in its present form, and it has brought a great deal of help to elderly miners suffering from COPD. My hon. Friend the Minister should also be congratulated on the retrospectivity in the new clause. Some cases will have been trapped between 3 May and the date of Royal Assent, and we need a mechanism for dealing with them. I believe that the Bill provides such a mechanism. As the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire said, there may well be cases in which the employer or the insurance company cannot be traced and a claim must be made under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000. Perhaps we can try to ensure that almost the full value of a claim can be obtained. The hon. Gentleman referred to the Minister’s discussions about the type of scheme that would be introduced. I have always been a scheme man for these kinds of cases. I hope that we will look at embracing the total number of mesothelioma cases and include in the scheme, for example, members of households who have been exposed to the fibre brought home on a worker's clothes. People in that position cannot claim industrial injuries disablement benefit. That may be another area that we need to look at when we get the Green Paper on industrial injuries. However, overall, the new clause is good. It makes the Bill a substantial measure and I congratulate the Minister on it.