Compensation Bill [Lords]

No, I do not. If people want legal advice, they should go directly to solicitors and cut out the middle man. There is no need for such organisations. Trade unions can be a good source of advice and support for people seeking access to justice, and most people have legal insurance through their home contents insurance. I look forward to the day when the Bill puts claims handlers out of business. Another scandal involves the way in which some trade unions have acted. I know that 99 per cent. of trade unions do a fantastic job. They pioneer work and they secure access to justice for many thousands of people that they would not get if they were not members of a trade union. However, Durham NUM and Thompsons solicitors have acted as claims handlers. They are not providing support to existing or retired members but operating a scam in which people who have very little connection with the NUM—often widows of former members—with a COPD case were asked to pay £20 a year to become an associate member of Durham NUM. I have asked what an associate member is, and it is clear that such members have no rights under the trade union legislation. Thompsons told me that it gives people access to the NUM’s legal aid scheme, but that does not seem to exist. It appears that people pay £20 a year to Thompsons solicitors, who deduct another 7.5 per cent. from their compensation, if their case is successful. People are never told that they could go elsewhere to pursue their case. Even worse, the NUM and Thompsons have sent out letters telling people that if they stop paying their £20 a year, their case will be withdrawn, and that is just not true. I have been denounced in many quarters, some of which I shall refer to shortly, for feeling so strongly about all this. I feel so strongly, though, because the ladies and gentlemen who have come to me have no connection whatever with the NUM, are often very poor and are not used to dealing with solicitors. Yet the NUM has acted as a claims handler, joining people up for a success fee, which is all that that 7.5 per cent. is. The £20 a year is nothing other than an access point to justice. I commend the work the NUM has done in some areas, and there is a contrast in the north-east between Durham and Northumberland, where the NUM does not charge anything. It does not matter there who anyone is—an existing member of the NUM or, as my hon. Friend the Member for Midlothian (Mr. Hamilton) said, a member of the community—because they can go to the NUM without it costing them a penny. If they want to make one, Northumberland NUM asks for a voluntary donation afterwards. That is fine: what people do with their compensation after they get it is up to them—they can give it to a cats home, give it to an individual or spend it, but if they want to make a contribution back to the NUM, that is laudable. That is not what happens in Durham. There, 7.5 per cent. is taken off the compensation by Thompsons solicitors, then passed to the NUM. It is being suggested that that 7.5 per cent. will fund future litigation and keep the NUM going. I have no problem with that, but Thompsons, who seem to act differently in Durham than in other areas, has had nearly £100 million out of the Government in costs.